WASHINGTON — NASA plans to complete the Green Run test campaign for the Space Launch System core stage with a hotfire test scheduled for mid-January.

NASA announced Jan. 5 that it has scheduled the static-fire test, where the core stage’s four RS-25 engines are fired for a full-duration burn of 493 seconds, for no earlier than Jan.

Washington DC (UPI) Jan 4, 2021
SpaceX has won a $150 million contract to launch the U.S. Department of Defense's first batch of hypersonic missile defense satellites, the second contract - for roughly the same amount - that has been awarded for their development. SpaceX and Florida-based defense firm L3Harris Technologies are competing and collaborating on the project, which is designed for the rapid development of

Beijing (XNA) Jan 06, 2021
China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, the country's leading space contractor, says it plans to launch more than 40 missions this year, including some for the nation's space station program. In a report read at the State-owned conglomerate's annual space programs meeting on Monday in Beijing, the company said the most important missions in 2021 will be sending the space station's maj

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Jan 05, 2021
Exolaunch, the leading rideshare launch and deployment services provider for the NewSpace industry, begins its launch campaign to integrate 30 small satellites from the U.S. and Europe aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 rideshare mission scheduled for no earlier than January 2021. This is the first dedicated rideshare mission of SpaceX's SmallSat Rideshare Program and the first of several rideshares

Stennis Space Center MS (SPX) Jan 06, 2021
NASA is targeting the final test in the Green Run series, the hot fire, for as early as Jan.17. The hot fire is the culmination of the Green Run test series, an eight-part test campaign that gradually brings the core stage of the Space Launch System (SLS) - the deep space rocket that will power the agency's next-generation human Moon missions - to life for the first time. NASA conducted th

Beijing (XNA) Jan 05, 2021
China's Tianwen 1 robotic Mars probe had traveled more than 400 million kilometers by Sunday morning and is set to enter a Mars orbit next month, according to the China National Space Administration. By 6 am Sunday, the spacecraft had flown for 163 days on an Earth-Mars transfer trajectory and was about 8.3 million km from the red planet, the administration said in a statement, adding that

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jan 06, 2021
A secret behind the workings of sunquakes - seismic activity on the Sun during solar flares - might be hidden beneath the solar surface. These earthquake-like events release acoustic energy in the form of waves that ripple along the Sun's surface, like waves on a lake, in the minutes following a solar flare - an outburst of light, energy, and material seen in the Sun's outer atmosphere.

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jan 06, 2021
NASA's upcoming space telescope, the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer, or SPHEREx, is one step closer to launch. The mission has officially entered Phase C, in NASA lingo. That means the agency has approved preliminary design plans for the observatory, and work can begin on creating a final, detailed design, as well as on building the ha

Providence RI (SPX) Jan 05, 2021
Sea ice is a critical indicator of changes in the Earth's climate. A new discovery by Brown University researchers could provide scientists a new way to reconstruct sea ice abundance and distribution information from the ancient past, which could aid in understanding human-induced climate change happening now. In a study published in Nature Communications, the researchers show that an orga

Image: Frosty scenes in martian summer