Tag: agency

New Horizons Sails Past Pluto

New Horizons Sails Past Pluto

Most Recent Image of Pluto Taken Before Flyby: Credit NASA/SWRI Fifty years to the day after NASA’s Mariner 4 took the first images of another planet from deep space as part of its flyby of Mars, the space agency’s New  Horizons probe has sailed past the point of its closest approach to the planet Pluto. […]

Posted in: NASA, Outer Planets
NASA Announces First Astronaut Selections for Commercial Crew

NASA Announces First Astronaut Selections for Commercial Crew

Image Credit : NASA NASA has announced its selection of the first four astronauts which will fly under the Commercial Crew program. Given the last two weeks and the inclusive results regarding the CRS-7 mishap investgation relayed by Elon Musk earlier this week, the announcement comes as a refreshing bit of forward looking news. July […]

SpaceX, Orbital ATK Likely to Receive New Awards With CRS Contract Extension

SpaceX, Orbital ATK Likely to Receive New Awards With CRS Contract Extension

SpaceX is set to launch its 7th Commercial Resupply mission to the International Space Station on June 28th, but based on a notice posted by NASA last Friday, it may be adding at least for more missions to the count through an extension which would see the original contract run through 2018. Fellow supplier Orbital-ATK, […]

NASA Leases Shuttle Landing Facility to Space Florida

NASA Leases Shuttle Landing Facility to Space Florida

Shuttle Landing Facility  / Image Credit NASA NASA News Release June 22, 2015 RELEASE 15-135 NASA Signs Agreement with Space Florida to Operate Historic Landing Facility A new agreement marks another step in the transformation of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to a multi-user spaceport. NASA’s historic Shuttle Landing Facility, the site of one […]

Posted in: NASA, SLS / Orion
Senate Committee Slashes Commercial Crew, Space Technology

Senate Committee Slashes Commercial Crew, Space Technology

Last week, a Senate Appropriations Committee “marked up” the FY 2016 Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) bill which funds among other things, NASA.  For supporters of several NASA programs, including Commercial Crew, it was a simply put, a very bad day. Despite repeated impassioned pleas from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden to fully fund Commercial Crew at the requested […]

NASA’s Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator Test Fails (Again)

NASA’s Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator Test Fails (Again)

Image Credit: NASA After waiting out a week of bad weather in the recovery area, NASA’s Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) test vehicle finally caught its ride to the upper atmosphere over the Hawaiian islands today, but the unfortunate result was much the same as last year. Following a successful balloon loft, payload release and solid […]

Posted in: NASA
NASA’s Supersonic Decelerator Test

NASA’s Supersonic Decelerator Test

Image Credit: NASA Update: NASA has once again postponed the LDSD test due to high waves in the recovery area. The next window opens tomorrow, June 4th, at 7:30 AM HST (1:30 PM EDT). Last year, NASA conducted the first of series of tests of a new method for landing larger payloads on Mars. The […]

Posted in: Mars, NASA
With NASA Certification, SpaceX Falcon 9 Means More Science, Less Costs

With NASA Certification, SpaceX Falcon 9 Means More Science, Less Costs

While SpaceX’s long running efforts to achieve certification for launching national security payloads under the EELV program have received a great deal of press attention, a similar, but far less contentions process has been underway at NASA. On Friday afternoon came the word that the SpaceX Falcon 9 V1.1 has finally been certified to launch […]

Posted in: NASA, SpaceX, Uncategorized
Congress Makes it Rain for SLS; Commercial Crew Not So Much

Congress Makes it Rain for SLS; Commercial Crew Not So Much

Yesterday, a House Appropriations subcommittee approved a draft NASA FY 2016 funding bill. As expected, the bill was set at the same overall funding level as that offered up by the Administration, at $18.592 billion. To that extent, the bill is non-controversial, but that is also about as far as it goes. Once again, the […]

Posted in: Congress, NASA, SLS / Orion
NASA Adds New Class of Small Launch Vehicles

NASA Adds New Class of Small Launch Vehicles

NASA’s Launch Services Program, which operates out of Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, held a press teleconference on Monday to discuss its decision to add a new class of launch vehicles to its existing portfolio. Called VCLS, or Venture Class Launch Services, the new category is intended to help define and promote the burgeoning cubesat and […]

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