Enlarge / Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, chairs the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. (credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky) NASA Administrator Bill Nelson will appear at a committee meeting of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee on Wednesday, and the meeting could be full of intrigue when the subject of NASA’s Artemis Program to […]
Enlarge / A SpaceX Starship prototype takes flight in April, 2021. (credit: SpaceX) The Air Force confirmed a strong interest in delivery of cargo around the world—by rockets—during an hourlong conference call with reporters on Friday. Military officials said they were elevating the cargo initiative to become the newest “Vanguard Program,” indicating a desire to […]
Enlarge / Starship SN15 descending back to Texas under two of its three upgraded raptor engines. Successful landing! (credit: Trevor Mahlmann) By now many readers are familiar with SpaceX’s Starship tests. The rocket makes its way skyward and performs maneuvers that seem like impossibilities to a generation raised on rockets that simply shot things to orbit. […]
Enlarge / NASA’s Kathy Lueders, left, and SpaceX’s Hans Koenigsmann track the Demo-2 crew mission in 2020. SpaceX is helping to enable NASA to think less about transportation, and more about exploration. (credit: NASA) No NASA official would ever admit this in public, but the 2010s have been a frustrating decade for human spaceflight. After […]
Enlarge / Engine cutoff, with SN11 entering its bellyflop maneuver, on March 30, 2021. (credit: Trevor Mahlmann) SpaceX has received permission from the US Federal Aviation Administration to launch its latest Starship prototype, SN15, and it may attempt to do so as early as Friday afternoon from South Texas. The primary concern today is weather, […]
Enlarge / Screenshot of a presentation from China’s main state-owned rocket manufacturer, CALT. (credit: Weibo/CALT) This weekend, China celebrated its sixth “National Space Day” in Nanjing, a capital city in one of the country’s eastern provinces. As part of the festivities, Chinese space officials highlighted the Chang’e-5 mission’s recent return of lunar samples, some of which […]
Enlarge / In the future, what might lunar exploration look like if NASA can send multiple Starships there each year? This SpaceX rendering offers a vision of one such future. (credit: SpaceX) When NASA astronauts return to the Moon in a few years, they will do so inside a lander that dwarfs that of the […]
Enlarge / Rendering of SpaceX’s Starship vehicle on the surface of the Moon. (credit: NASA) In an extraordinary announcement on Friday, NASA said that it has selected SpaceX and its Starship vehicle to serve as the lunar lander for its Artemis Program. This is NASA’s plan to return humans to the Moon later this decade. […]
SN11 nears apogee on March 30, 2021 over SpaceX’s South Texas launch site. [credit: Trevor Mahlmann ] Despite a thickly fogged launch site in South Texas, SpaceX let its SN11 Starship prototype fly on Tuesday morning at 8 am local time. An onboard camera showed the vehicle making a nominal ascent to about 10 km, […]
SpaceX’s Starship SN11 on Pad B in South Texas awaiting launch. In the distance, the first Super Heavy booster prototype (BN1) continues stacking operations. [credit: Trevor Mahlmann ] SpaceX appears set to fly the latest prototype of its Starship vehicle—dubbed SN11—as early as Friday afternoon. Local residents have been informed of the test as part […]