The $3.84 billion lunar-orbiting, human-tended Gateway that NASA envisions as part of a long-term strategy to establish a sustained human presence at the Moon is unlikely to be in place in time to support the Trump administration’s goal of returning astronauts to the lunar surface in 2024, an audit by the agency’s inspector general says.
NASA and SpaceX on Nov. 10 completed the Flight Readiness Review for the first post-shuttle, operational International Space Station (ISS) crew rotation mission from the U.S., paving the way for a launch attempt of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 7:49 p.m. EST on Nov. 14 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
President-elect Joe Biden has selected an eight-member team of volunteers, headed by Ellen Stofan, former NASA chief scientist and current director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum, to oversee the transition of NASA to his administration.
The joint NASA/European Space Agency mission to return samples from Mars’ surface faces a likely cost increase and two-year launch delay to address the challenges needed to achieve a high probability of success, according to an unusual, early independent review of the complex effort.
U.S. Chief of Space Operations Gen. John Raymond has focused the Space Force’s inaugural year on investing in resiliency, building next-generation capabilities and the establishment of a Space Warfighting Analysis Center.
Ride-share schemes for small satellites are here to stay and, along with constellations and geostationary spacecraft, will contribute to solid activity in the near term, senior executives of launch service operators say.
SDA director Derek Tournear joins Aviation Week editors on Check 6 to discuss how its system of space tracking and transport satellites will revolutionize the U.S. military and the challenges it will face along the way.
Working through unfunded Space Act Agreements with 17 U.S. companies, NASA has selected 20 space technologies it intends to help advance to enable future activities at destinations spanning from low Earth orbit to the Moon and Mars.
Slightly over 18 months since the Space Development Agency's launch, the first two elements of its future constellation are now defined and under contract.
NASA is striving to complete a series of eight critical Green Run tests of the Space Launch System core stage by year’s end, a milestone that in late September it had planned to achieve in early November before Hurricane Zeta struck the Gulf Coast.
The sample material recently gathered from the asteroid Bennu’s surface by NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft shows evidence for containing the water and organic chemistry that mission scientists were hoping will be returned to Earth, scientists say.
An attempt to rapidly field Tranche 0 satellites for a new Tracking Layer in low Earth orbit faces delays after two companies filed protests seeking to overturn contract awards by the Space Development Agency.
Rocket Lab is moving closer to potential reuse of its Electron small satellite launch vehicle, with plans to attempt a parachute recovery of the first stage as part of its next mission, the company said on Nov. 5.
Four-time shuttle astronaut Mark Kelly was elected to the U.S. Senate on Nov. 3, defeating incumbent Republican Sen. Martha McSally to represent Arizona.
