Elon Musk's SpaceX wins $2.9B contract to build lunar lander
Saturday, 17 April 2021 09:06
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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 rival, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his Blue Origin space company, and a third proposal by Huntsville, Ala.-based Dynetics. Space agencies plan to launch Mars sample return spacecraft by 2026
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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 rock samples in an ancient river delta. Such a location, once flowing with water, is the best spot to look for signs of past life China upgrades ground system for first-generation relay satellites
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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, telemetry and control (TT&C) sector, said the center.
The four-year upgrade was successfully completed following maintenance d Two paths to first flight on Mars
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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 continues to work on the command sequence issue identified on Sol 49 (April 9).
How did we get to this milestone? As with any New Horizons reaches a rare space milestone
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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 Horizons crossed the solar system, and its distance from Earth jumped from millions to billions of miles, that time between contac NASA chooses SpaceX to take humans back to Moon
Friday, 16 April 2021 22:34 Write a comment
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 SpaceX's south Texas facility.
"Today I'm very excited, and we are all very excited to announce that we have awarded SpaceX t NASA selects SpaceX to develop crewed lunar lander
Friday, 16 April 2021 21:35 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — NASA has selected SpaceX as the sole company to win a contract to develop and demonstrate a crewed lunar lander, while keeping the door open for others to compete for future missions.
NASA announced April 16 that it awarded a contract to SpaceX for Option A of the Human Landing System (HLS) program, which covers development of a crewed lunar lander and a demonstration mission.
Larger late-stage deals dominating space investment landscape
Friday, 16 April 2021 21:25 Write a comment
TAMPA, Fla. — Private investors deployed another $1.9 billion in SpaceX, OneWeb and other space infrastructure companies in the first three months of 2021, according to data from New York-based Space Capital.
The company, which invests in early-stage ventures in addition to providing market intelligence, includes rocket and satellite builders in how it defines space infrastructure.
SpaceX's next crew arrives in Florida for Earth Day launch
Friday, 16 April 2021 20:08 Write a comment
SpaceX's most international crew of astronauts yet arrived at their launch site Friday.
By coincidence, their flight to the International Space Station is set for next Thursday—Earth Day. It's a reminder of NASA's core mission of studying the home planet, the space agency's acting administrator Steve Jurczyk said as he welcomed the astronauts to Kennedy Space Center.
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Alpha poster Analysts: China’s space programs are a security concern to the U.S. but not all are nefarious
Friday, 16 April 2021 18:46 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — The U.S. intelligence community in a report listed China’s space program as a top security concern for the United States. Some space experts and analysts criticized the report for painting China’s space program with a broad brush and failing to draw distinctions between civilian and military space pursuits.
White House nominates Melroy to be NASA deputy administrator
Friday, 16 April 2021 18:43 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — The White House announced April 16 it will nominate former astronaut Pam Melroy to be NASA’s deputy administrator.
Melroy’s nomination was one of eight the White House announced to fill positions across the government. The position will require confirmation by the Senate.
Astronaut selection: tips from Thomas
Friday, 16 April 2021 13:30 Write a comment
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In 2008, Thomas Pesquet applied to become an ESA astronaut. On 22 April 2021, he will fly his second mission to the International Space Station. In this video Thomas shares how he found his way to space, and encourages viewers to follow their passions as ESA seeks its next class of astronauts.
Nobody is perfect on their first attempt at a task, but Thomas says the only way to improve is to try and keep trying. Though becoming an astronaut seemed a distant dream when he was younger, by continuing to challenge himself and learn along the way
Week in images: 12 - 16 April 2021
Friday, 16 April 2021 12:19 Write a comment
Week in images: 12 - 16 April 2021
Discover our week through the lens
NASA rocket to survey the solar system's windshield
Friday, 16 April 2021 11:42 Write a comment
Eleven billion miles away—more than four times the distance from us to Pluto—lies the boundary of our solar system's magnetic bubble, the heliopause. Here the Sun's magnetic field, stretching through space like an invisible cobweb, fizzles to nothing. Interstellar space begins.
"It's really the largest boundary of its kind we can study," said Walt Harris, space physicist at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
We still know little about what lies beyond this boundary. Fortunately, bits of interstellar space can come to us, passing right through this border and making their way into the solar system.
A new NASA mission will study light from interstellar particles that have drifted into our solar system to learn about the closest reaches of interstellar space.