After almost 9 years in space that included an unprecedented July 4th impact and subsequent flyby of a comet, an additional comet flyby, and the return of approximately 500,000 images of celestial objects, NASA’s Deep Impact mission has ended. The project team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., has reluctantly pronounced the […]
Orbital’s Antares Blasts Off On First Cygnus Mission To ISS
Marking a giant stride forward in NASA’s plans to rely on the private sector for cargo, and eventually human, deliveries to ISS, Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Antares rocket blasted into space today carrying the company’s Cygnus cargo logistics spacecraft. The successful launch marked the beginning of a four-day in-orbit capabilities demonstration mission that will culminate in […]
On Its 40th Mission, Atlas Deploys Third Advanced Extremely High Frequency Satellite
Dodging rain and high winds, an Atlas V rocket thundered into the early morning skies over Florida and successfully delivered the Air Force’s third Advanced Extremely High Frequency military communication satellite to geosynchronous transfer orbit. The mission marked launch provider United Launch Alliance’s 75th launch, the 40th for the Atlas V EELV and a commendable […]
Moon Express’ Guidance Software Flies NASA’s Mighty Eagle On A Successful Test
The Mighty Eagle, a NASA robotic prototype lander managed out of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. successfully completed a test flight today as part of a series to help validate software from Moon Express, Inc. The flight also evaluated a new hazard avoidance system designed and developed at the Marshall Center. Like […]
To Boldly Go… Voyager 1 Reaches For The Stars
There was a time over a generation ago when people still talked about men walking on the Moon like it was yesterday, where the space shuttle was still something of the future and memories of the Vietnam War still burned painfully in the minds of many. It was five years after Gene Cernan and company […]
NASA’s Lunar Dust Explorer Blasts Off From Virginia Spaceport
UPDATE: NASA has confirmed that the reaction wheels of its Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) were successfully brought back on-line and the spacecraft has acquired its safe-mode attitude profile. Last night during technical checkouts the LADEE spacecraft commanded itself to shut down the reaction wheels used to position and stabilize the spacecraft. According […]
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo Conducts Second Powered Test Flight
Suborbital passenger spaceflight pioneer Virgin Galactic passed another major milestone today as the company’s first commercial reusable space vehicle, SpaceShipTwo (SS2) successfully completed its second powered flight test. During the test, carried out from the Virgin Galactic’s facility in the Mojave desert, SS2 reached a velocity over 1,000 miles per hour and a maximumum altitude […]
NASA Narrows List Of Potential Sites For Next Mars Lander
NASA has narrowed to four the number of potential landing sites for the agency’s next mission to the surface of Mars, a 2016 lander to study the planet’s interior. The stationary Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) lander is scheduled to launch in March 2016 and land on Mars six months […]
STS-3 Space Shuttle Columbia Photo And Video Collection
Former NASA astronaut Gordon Fullerton passed away this week. In memory of the death of a great astronaut, here is our photo and video history collection for STS-3, the third flight of space shuttle Columbia. Fullerton served as pilot of the third of four missions in the Orbiter Flight Test project. The primary mission objective […]
It’s Been 20 Years Since The First Flight Of DC-X
It’s been 20 years since the remarkable DC-X Delta Clipper Single-Stage-To-Orbit (SSTO) test vehicle made its first flight. Many people still believe DC-X should have been the chosen vehicle for NASA’s X-33 RLV program but that Lockheed Martin’s VentureStar won only because of direct, and political, intervention by Vice President Al Gore, who proudly made […]