Space Daily

Pasadena CA (JPL) Apr 16, 2021 April 16, on the 154th anniversary of Wilbur Wright's birth, the Ingenuity flight team received information that the helicopter was able to complete a rapid spin test. The completion of the full-speed spin is an important milestone on the path to flight as the team […]

Laurel MD (SPX) Apr 16, 2021 In the weeks following its launch in early 2006, when NASA's New Horizons was still close to home, it took just minutes to transmit a command to the spacecraft, and hear back that the onboard computer received and was ready to carry out the instructions. As New […]

Beijing (XNA) Apr 16, 2021 China has completed an upgrade of the ground system for its first-generation relay satellite, Tianlian I, according to the Beijing Space Information Transmission Center on Friday. The system upgrade marks a major advance for China in the space-based tracking, […]

Paris (ESA) Apr 15, 2021 This drone hauled a model of the Juventas CubeSat high into the air, as a practical test of the antennas designed to perform the first radar sounding of the interior of an asteroid. The shoebox-sized Juventas will be transported to the Didymos double-asteroid system […]

Washington DC (UPI) Apr 16, 2021 NASA plans to launch its next mission to Mars in 2026 to pick up rock samples being collected over the next two years and collaborate on their return to Earth by 2031, officials said. The Mars rover Perseverance, which landed on the planet Feb. 18, will drill […]

West Lafayette IN (SPX) Apr 15, 2021 For astronauts to go on long missions to the moon or Mars, they need a refrigerator. But today's fridges aren't designed to work in zero gravity - or upside down if oriented that way when a spacecraft lands on another planet. A team of engineers from […]

Tucson AZ (SPX) Apr 16, 2021 Like boot prints on the Moon, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft left its mark on asteroid Bennu. Now, new images - taken during the spacecraft's final fly-over on April 7 - reveal the aftermath of its historic encounter with the asteroid. The spacecraft flew within 2.3 […]

Washington DC (UPI) Apr 16, 2021 Elon Musk's SpaceX has won a $2.9 billion contract to develop the company's Starship rocket as a lunar lander to carry astronauts on Artemis moon missions, NASA announced Friday. In selecting only SpaceX for the lunar program, NASA ended consideration of Musk's […]

Dubai (AFP) April 14, 2021 Lunar exploration firm iSpace said Wednesday it will transport a United Arab Emirates unmanned rover to the Moon next year, as the Gulf state seeks to expand its space sector. The UAE - made up of seven emirates including the capital Abu Dhabi and freewheeling Dubai […]

Kennedy Space Center FL (SPX) Apr 16, 2021 The Flight Readiness Review (FRR) for NASA's SpaceX Crew-2 mission to the International Space Station has concluded, and teams are proceeding toward a planned liftoff at 6:11 a.m. EDT Thursday, April 22, from Launch Complex 39A at the agency's Kennedy […]

Centennial CO (SPX) Apr 16, 2021 NASA's Launch Services Program (LSP) has added United Launch Alliance's next generation rocket, the Vulcan Centaur, to the NASA Launch Services II (NLS) indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract in accordance with the on-ramp provision of NLS II. "ULA […]

Washington DC (UPI) Apr 16, 2021 Four astronauts arrived in Florida on Friday for their mission to the International Space Station planned for next week - the third launch of people aboard a SpaceX rocket and capsule. The launch, planned for 6:11 a.m. EDT Thursday from Kennedy Space Center, […]

Washington DC (UPI) Apr 15, 2021 The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded three contracts this week to design a nuclear thermal propulsion system that will operate above low Earth orbit in 2025. General Atomics, Blue Origin, and Lockheed Martin are the prime contractors for the […]

Almaty, Kazakhstan (AFP) April 17, 2021 Two Russian cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut touched down Saturday on the steppe of Kazakhstan following a half-year mission on the International Space Station, footage broadcast by the Russian space agency showed. Russia's Sergei Ryzhikov and Sergei […]

Washington DC (AFP) Apr 16, 2021 NASA has selected SpaceX to land the first astronauts on the surface of the Moon since 1972, the agency said Friday, in a huge victory for Elon Musk's company. The contract, worth $2.9 billion, involves the prototype Starship spacecraft that is being tested at […]