PITTSBURGH (Astrobotic PR) — Astrobotic announced today its selection of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket in a competitive commercial procurement to launch its Griffin lunar lander to the Moon in late 2023. Griffin will be carrying NASA’s water-hunting Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER).
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KENNED SPACE CENTER, Fla. (NASA PR) — The Space Shuttle Columbia began a new era of human spaceflight when STS-1 lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 12, 1981, for the inaugural flight of the nation’s Space Shuttle Program. To mark the occasion, NASA is providing historical b-roll footage of the launch and landing as well as recently recorded soundbites from retired astronaut Bob Crippen.
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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. (NASA PR) — NASA will provide coverage of the upcoming prelaunch and launch activities for the agency’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission with astronauts to the International Space Station. This is the second crew rotation flight of the SpaceX Crew Dragon and the first with two international partners. The flight follows certification by NASA for regular flights to the space station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.
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by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor
There were 27 orbital launch attempts with 26 successes and one failure during the first quarter of 2021. The United States accounted for nearly half the total with 13 launches behind nine flights by SpaceX.
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HOUSTON (NASA PR) — Crew Dragon Resilience with NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker, along with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Soichi Noguchi, have re-docked to the International Space Station, another first for a commercial crew spacecraft.
Crew Dragon autonomously undocked from the forward port of the station’s Harmony module at 6:30 a.m. and relocated to the space-facing port at 7:08 a.m.
This is the start of a process that will enable extraction of new solar arrays from the SpaceX CRS-22 cargo mission’s trunk when it arrives to dock at the Node 2 zenith port following Crew-1 departure.
NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, JAXA astronaut Aki Hoshide, and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet are scheduled to launch to the station Thursday, April 22, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Following a short handover, Crew-1 NASA astronauts Hopkins, Glover and Walker, along with JAXA astronaut Noguchi, plan to return home off the coast of Florida about five days after the Crew-2 arrival to the space station as long as mission priorities and weather cooperate.
by Gianine Figliozzi
NASA’s Ames Research Center
MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. — BioSentinel gets a step closer to flight. Having completed assembly and a battery of tests, the BioSentinel team at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley is in the final stretch of preparations to ship the spacecraft to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for launch.
BioSentinel’s deep space flight will go past the Moon and into an orbit around the Sun. It’s one of 13 CubeSats that will launch aboard Artemis I, the first flight of the Artemis program’s Space Launch System. Above, inside an anechoic chamber at Ames, quality assurance engineer Austin Bowie inspects BioSentinel’s solar array after completion of a test to determine the effects of electromagnetic spacecraft emissions on spacecraft systems.
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Crewed Dream Chaser® Spaceplane to Shuttle Private Astronauts
SPARKS, Nev., March 31, 2021 (Sierra Nevada Corporation PR) – Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), the global aerospace and national security company owned by Eren and Fatih Ozmen, outlined development plans for its low-Earth orbit (LEO) space station – leveraging its transportation and destination technologies – releasing new images, details and video of the unique concept in support of LEO commercialization.
The space station is a configuration of multiple large inflatable LIFE™ habitats that can be serviced by both cargo and crew carrying Dream Chaser spaceplanes.
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By Emily McLeod Sulkes
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center
NASA invites the public to take part in virtual activities and events ahead of the agency’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission. Liftoff of the Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket with astronauts is targeted for no earlier than 6:11 a.m. EDT Thursday, April 22, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
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New Crew Members Representing Prosperity and Generosity Join Hope and Leadership to Complete the Crew Manifest
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., MARCH 30, 2021 (Inspiration4 PR – Inspiration4, the world’s first all-civilian mission to space, today announced the final two members of the four-person crew that will undertake a historic voyage to the stars later this year. Christopher Sembroski of Everett, WA and Dr. Sian Proctor of Tempe, AZ will join previously announced crew member Hayley Arceneaux under the command of Jared Isaacman. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will launch the crew aboard a Dragon spacecraft later this year.
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HOUSTON (NASA PR) — NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 astronauts aboard the International Space Station will mark another first for commercial spaceflight Monday, April 5, when the four astronauts will relocate the Crew Dragon spacecraft to prepare for the arrival of new crew members in late April and the upcoming delivery of new solar arrays this summer.
Live coverage will begin at 6 a.m. EDT on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website.
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MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. (NASA PR) — In 2021, NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, or CAPSTONE, CubeSat will launch to a never-before-used cislunar orbit near the Moon.
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BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. (NASA PR) — The largest rocket element NASA has ever built, the core stage of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, fired its four RS-25 engines for 8 minutes and 19 seconds Thursday at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. The successful test, known as a hot fire, is a critical milestone ahead of the agency’s Artemis I mission, which will send an uncrewed Orion spacecraft on a test flight around the Moon and back to Earth, paving the way for future Artemis missions with astronauts.
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First stage to fly for record 9th time
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. (SpaceX PR) — SpaceX is targeting Sunday, March 14 for launch of 60 Starlink satellites from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The instantaneous window is at 6:01 a.m. EDT, or 10:01 UTC.
This mission represents the first time SpaceX will be reusing a Falcon 9 first stage for the ninth time. The Falcon 9 first stage supporting this mission previously supported launch of Crew Dragon’s first demonstration mission, RADARSAT Constellation Mission, SXM-7, and five Starlink missions. Following stage separation, SpaceX will attempt to land Falcon 9’s first stage on the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship, which will be located in the Atlantic Ocean. Falcon 9’s fairing previously flew on the Transporter-1 mission.
You can watch the launch webcast live starting about 15 minutes before liftoff.
This week, the Starlink team launched service in Germany and New Zealand for the first time, and expanded its existing service in the UK. To see if Starlink is available in your area, visit starlink.com.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (NASA PR) — Ask International Space Station facility engineers and payload operations teams at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, what makes them proudest as they look back on two decades of developing and testing science hardware and providing real-time support for experiments on orbit. Many will instinctively glance upward, as if the source of that pride might be passing overhead at that moment, 250 miles up.
Just as often though, they look to one another.
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A Falcon 9 lit up the early morning Florida sky on Thursday, delivering an additional 60 Starlink satellites into orbit as SpaceX continues to build out its global broadband network.
Liftoff took place at 3:13 a.m. EST from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The 60 Starlink broadband Internet satellites were successfully deployed into orbit.
SpaceX has launched 1,265 Starlink satellites, with 1,201 still in orbit. That means the company has launched about 10 percent of its global broadband constellation, which will total nearly 12,000 satellites.
It was the sixth launch and landing of the Falcon 9 first stage, which previously supported launch of NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station last May. The booster also supported the launches of ANASIS-II, CRS-21, Transporter-1, and a Starlink mission.
SpaceX also announced that it was extending its Starlink service to parts of western Germany and New Zealand’s South Island. The company is also expanding coverage beyond southern England to include Wales, Scotland Northern Ireland and parts of northern England.
SpaceX’s next launch is scheduled for Sunday, March 14 at 5:44 a.m. (0944 GMT). A Falcon 9 will lift off with 60 Starlink satellites from Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
