A NASA announcement on 4 February 2021 outlines the award of the SPHEREx launch contract to SpaceX. SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) is a NASA medium-class explorer mission planned for launch in June...
With just over one quarter of the funding it needed from Congress (US$850 million versus the US$3.2 billion requested) for its Human Landing System (HLS) – a lunar lander for its Artemis programme – NASA has been forced to delay the programme. The three...
On 27 January 2021, two NASA spacewalkers conducted an extra vehicular activity to made some significant modifications to the International Space Station (ISS). Astronauts Victor Hopkins and Mike Glover began their spacewalk with the Quest air lock hatch being opened...
For very different reasons, two major space agencies confirmed in January that they were losing their leaders with another declaring that its departing leader was about to leave early. First up was the departure of Jim Bridenstine, current Administrator of NASA....
NASA might have said that it wanted a minimum of 250 seconds’ worth of engine firing plus gimbal movements to attain whether the SLS core stage was safe to launch, but it did not get it at the test firing at the Stennis Space Center, Mississippi, USA. In the...
The SpaceX freighter Cargo Dragon CRS-21 which was being operated on a mission for NASA, undocked from IDA-3 port on the Harmony module of the International Space Station (ISS) at 1405 GMT on 12 January 2021. Unlike earlier the Cargo Dragon design which needed the ISS...
