Enlarge / NASA’s Mars Ingenuity helicopter has been flying across the red planet for more than a year. (credit: NASA) The achievement of powered flight on another world is one of the great spaceflight feats of the last decade. Since its first brief hop on April 19, 2021, the Mars Ingenuity helicopter has subsequently made […]
Enlarge / Tory Bruno shared an image of a brightly painted Vulcan rocket first stage tank this week on Twitter. (credit: Tory Bruno) Welcome to Edition 4.42 of the Rocket Report! I am sorry to say there will be no Rocket Report next week as I will be traveling to Washington, DC, to participate in […]
Enlarge / Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft is seen reentering Earth’s atmosphere on Friday morning. (credit: NASA) After a 177-day spaceflight four astronauts returned to Earth early Friday morning aboard Crew Dragon Endurance. NASA astronauts Kayla Barron, Raja Chari, and Tom Marshburn, as well as European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer, undocked from the International Space Station on Thursday before […]
Enlarge / Boeing says its Starliner spacecraft is ready to roll to the launch pad in Florida. (credit: Boeing) Boeing and NASA say the Starliner spacecraft is ready for a do-over flight, with a second uncrewed test mission of the spacecraft now scheduled for May 19. Nine months have passed since a standard pre-flight check […]
Enlarge / In this illustration, SpaceX’s Starship vehicle is seen landing on the Moon. (credit: NASA) As part of its Artemis program to return humans to the Moon this decade, NASA has a minimum requirement that its “human landing system” must be able to deliver 865 kg to the lunar surface. This is based on […]
Enlarge / The number of days between the first 50 Falcon 9 launches, the second 50, and the last 50. (credit: Eric Berger) SpaceX launched its first Falcon 9 rocket on June 4, 2010, nearly a dozen years ago. During those first years, the company grappled with a whole host of challenges, from things as […]
Enlarge / The Space Launch System rocket rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building this week. (credit: Trevor Mahlmann) Welcome to Edition 4.41 of the Rocket Report! For your situational awareness, Rocket Lab’s “There and Back Again” mission is now scheduled for 22:35 UTC on Friday from Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand. The company is […]
Enlarge / On April 15, Crew Dragon Endeavour is pictured docked to the Harmony module’s space-facing international docking adapter. (credit: NASA) The Crew Dragon spacecraft named Endeavour undocked from the International Space Station on Sunday evening, setting the stage to bring four private astronauts back to Earth. After slowly backing away from the orbiting laboratory, […]
Enlarge / A Falcon 9 rocket launched the NROL-85 mission on April 17. (credit: SpaceX) Welcome to Edition 4.40 of the Rocket Report! There is a lot happening in spaceflight this week, but I’m probably most excited about Rocket Lab’s attempt to capture the first stage of its Electron rocket in mid-air. This launch (and […]
April 2, 2021, solar eclipse on Mars. When NASA’s Perseverance rover landed on Mars in February 2021, it carried a high-definition video camera, complete with a powerful zoom capability. This camera has since provided all sorts of amazing views of the red planet during the last 14 months. However, earlier this month operators of rover turned […]