SpaceX launches all-civilian crew for first private spacewalk
SpaceX launched its historic Polaris Dawn mission on Tuesday—an audacious orbital expedition that will catapult civilians into a high-radiation region of space and see them attempt the first-ever spacewalk by non-professional astronauts.
Led by Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman, the four-member crew aims to journey farther into the cosmos than any other manned mission in more than half a century, since the end of the Apollo era.
On the mission's first day, they will soar to a peak altitude of 870 miles (1,400 kilometers) before returning into a lower orbit.
"Dragon will travel repeatedly through the orbital altitudes of over 10 thousand satellites and bits of space debris," SpaceX founder CEO Elon Musk wrote on X.
Private astronauts on daring trek ahead of historic spacewalk
A private crew set out on an audacious orbital expedition Tuesday, journeying deeper into the cosmos than any humans in half a century as they prepare for the first ever spacewalk by non-professional astronauts.
The SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission, led by Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman, launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and should by the end of its first day attain a peak alt What's it Like to Spacewalk?
Spacewalks occur in the vacuum of deep space, but astronauts are tethered to their spacecraft if they exit an orbiting space station, space module, or spacecraft. Inside a spaceship, conditions are well suited to humans. Outside, in space, it's an entirely different story. The frigid vacuum of space presents deadly risks. Earth scientists take flight, set sail to verify PACE satellite data
From sea to sky to orbit, a range of vantage points allow NASA Earth scientists to collect different types of data to better understand our changing planet. Collecting them together, at the same place and the same time, is an important step used to verify the accuracy of satellite data.
NASA's Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite launched in February 2024 and is colle Congress, industry criticize FAA launch licensing regulations
OneWeb launches alternative navigation service amid GPS vulnerability concerns
National lab takes its radiation expertise to space
An experiment designed to answer questions about the radiation environment for manned space missions was launched from Kennedy Space Center today.
For the five-day mission, experiments from the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and several other institutions will circle the Earth 435 miles above—nearly twice as high as the International Space Station. Before settling in at that altitude, Polaris Dawn will reach 870 miles, the highest that any person has been since NASA's Apollo program several decades ago.
Debris from NASA's DART Mission Could Potentially Reach Earth and Mars
NASA's Double Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) mission, which struck the asteroid Dimorphos in 2022, has not only altered the asteroid's orbit but has also created a plume of debris that may eventually reach both Earth and Mars, according to new simulations. The debris, although harmless, could potentially be observed as meteors.
On September 26, 2022, NASA's DART spacecraft, weighing approxi Keeping the cosmos clean
Asked to describe his work for a lay audience, Allan Shtofenmakher responds with an unexpected question: "Have you ever seen the movie 'Wall-E?'" Recalling that the 2008 Disney-Pixar movie's view of Earth from space was "brown and dusty and just surrounded by tons and tons of space junk," he cautions, "If we're not good stewards of our local space environment, we could actually end up in a situa First Metal Part 3D Printed in Space Aboard ISS
ESA's Metal 3D Printer has successfully produced the first-ever metal part in space. This technological milestone, achieved through a partnership with Airbus, marks a significant advancement in additive manufacturing in microgravity.
The Metal 3D Printer was launched to the International Space Station (ISS) earlier this year. ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen was responsible for installing th 
