Copernical Team
Osiris-Rex leaves its mark on Asteroid Bennu
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Like boot prints on the Moon, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft left its mark on asteroid Bennu. Now, new images - taken during the spacecraft's final fly-over on April 7 - reveal the aftermath of its historic encounter with the asteroid.
The spacecraft flew within 2.3 miles (3.7 km) of the asteroid - the closest it has been since the Touch-and-Go, or TAG, sample collection event on Oct. 20, 20 NASA SpaceX Crew-2 'Go' for April 22 Launch
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The Flight Readiness Review (FRR) for NASA's SpaceX Crew-2 mission to the International Space Station has concluded, and teams are proceeding toward a planned liftoff at 6:11 a.m. EDT Thursday, April 22, from Launch Complex 39A at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA will hold a media teleconference at approximately 7 p.m. EDT today, April 15, at Kennedy to discuss the outcome of t NASA adds Vulcan Centaur to launch services program catalog
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NASA's Launch Services Program (LSP) has added United Launch Alliance's next generation rocket, the Vulcan Centaur, to the NASA Launch Services II (NLS) indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract in accordance with the on-ramp provision of NLS II.
"ULA is honored that NASA LSP has added our Vulcan Centaur rocket to the catalog of launch vehicles available to support future space expl Crew 2 arrive in Florida; NASA completes launch review of reused capsule
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Four astronauts arrived in Florida on Friday for their mission to the International Space Station planned for next week - the third launch of people aboard a SpaceX rocket and capsule.
The launch, planned for 6:11 a.m. EDT Thursday from Kennedy Space Center, will mark the first time a reused Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket fly with people on board.
"We're excited to fly on th DARPA awards 3 deals for work on nuclear propulsion system
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The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded three contracts this week to design a nuclear thermal propulsion system that will operate above low Earth orbit in 2025.
General Atomics, Blue Origin, and Lockheed Martin are the prime contractors for the deal, according to a DARPA press release.
The Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) program has the po Two Russian cosmonauts, NASA astronaut return from ISS
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Two Russian cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut touched down Saturday on the steppe of Kazakhstan following a half-year mission on the International Space Station, footage broadcast by the Russian space agency showed.
Russia's Sergei Ryzhikov and Sergei Kud-Sverchkov as well as NASA's Kate Rubins landed on barren land at 0455 GMT around 150 kilometres (90 miles) southeast of the town of Zhezkazg SpaceX's next crew arrives in Florida for Earth Day launch
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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.
NASA chooses SpaceX to take humans back to Moon
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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 rocket to survey the solar system's windshield
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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.
Week in images: 12 - 16 April 2021
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Week in images: 12 - 16 April 2021
Discover our week through the lens