NASA

Apollo 17's commander once called the dust “probably one of our greatest inhibitors to a nominal operation on the Moon.”

The WM250 is the most powerful motor so far to be installed in the test site at the Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Sandusky, Ohio.

The Trans Lunar Injection was executed Feb. 8, according to a Feb. 10 NASA mission update.

ESA says a group of astronomers asked for the powerful James Webb telescope to gather more data on the asteroid and that the tasking has been accepted.

Released Feb. 6, NASA’s independent Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) report identified risk, management and budget challenges.

The company instead pivoted to use aluminum for its Haven-1 commercial space station, it said on Feb. 6.

President Trump’s first administration launched the Artemis program to send humans back to the Moon. His second term may pivot the focus to Mars.

Our roundup of the main aerospace and defense stories making the news this week.

The company plans to use its capital infusion to lengthen the time its Microballoons can stay aloft.

The highlighting of Mars in a presidential inauguration speech–and an omission of any mention of lunar missions–has the space industry abuzz.

The effort is part of Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic’s Griffin Mission One (Griffin-1).

The four PUNCH small satellites with their narrow- and wide-field imagers are to be distributed in complementary low-altitude Sun-synchronous polar orbits.

The reusable New Shepard lifted off from Launch Site One near Van Horn in West Texas at 11:01 a.m. EST on Feb. 4.

Results from a high-speed transport study will inform the NASA supersonic-hypersonic research road map and future development strategy.

NASA announced in July that it was suspending VIPER development due to schedule delays and cost concerns.

The company plans to hand over the second Orion spacecraft to the agency in April.

The groups conduct community-wide, interdisciplinary planning and assessments for lunar, Mars, Mercury, Venus, small bodies, outer planets and other planetary research.

The planned launch from Kennedy Space Center is set for no earlier than this spring aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon.

A new executive order seeks to bolster national security by reviving and expanding a massive space- and ground-based missile defense system.

Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore enhanced their extended mission to the ISS by recovering an RFG antenna.

Findings from a pair of extensive research efforts were published Jan. 29 by the journals Nature and Nature Astronomy.

Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser spaceplane has completed a series of payload integration tests at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida which keep it on track for a planned mission to resupply the International Space Station (ISS) later this year.

Novel hydrogen hybrid; NASA eyes cryogenic testing for aviation; Partners promote electric aviation; Clean-sheet firefighter.

Located at the agency’s Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Sandusky, Ohio, NASA’s Electric Aircraft Testbed (NEAT) is available to industry and academia.

The private rocket company said the launch window for NS-29 is due to open at 11 a.m. EST.