The month is off to a running start when it comes to space, with a fresh crew launched to the International Space Station, some new astronomical insights, and the promise of a third SpaceX Starship test flight. Click through for the week’s coolest space imagery.
We’re rapidly approaching the quarter mark of the 21st century, but instead of being at the brink of a radical transformative stage, such as the futuristic vision akin to Arthur C. Clarke’s Star Child from 2001: A Space Odyssey, we’re still throwing proverbial bones into the sky.
Blue Origin, the aerospace company founded by Jeff Bezos, is finally setting some ambitious timelines, saying it plans to conduct an uncrewed Moon landing in as little as a year from now, deploying a demonstration version of its Blue Moon Mark 1 (MK1) cargo lander. This ramps up the space rivalry big time, putting…
House and Senate appropriators have released NASA’s final spending bill for the fiscal year 2024, focusing on the Artemis program’s goal of returning astronauts to the Moon.
NASA
NASA still has plenty of cool projects afoot in the real world—did you hear about that asteroid-redirecting test?
MethaneSAT / Environmental Defense Fund
An ambitious NASA project designed to test satellite refueling in space, known as OSAM-1, has been discontinued after significant technical, cost, and scheduling difficulties. The cancellation comes in the wake of an October 2023 report from NASA’s Office of Inspector General that cited “poor performance” by Maxar,…
Four astronauts are scheduled to ride on board the Orion spacecraft in September 2025 for NASA’s first crewed mission to the Moon in more than 50 years. But before the Artemis crew can strap into Orion, the space agency still needs to resolve an issue with the spacecraft’s side hatch that could prevent the astronauts…
