Breaking up is hard to do, especially when there’s a commercial space station on the line. Northrop Grumman is abandoning its plans as a solo contractor to develop a replacement for NASA’s International Space Station, and is instead partnering with Voyager Space to work on Starlab.
NASA is gearing up to start a crucial series of tests on the updated RS-25 engine, which will power the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket for upcoming Artemis missions to the Moon.
NASA’s mission to a metal-rich asteroid is back on track after a minor setback. Psyche is now all set to launch on October 12.
NASA’s plans to retire the International Space Station and replace it with commercial projects are not kaput, they’re just changing. Wrinkles are now appearing in Blue Origin’s plans for Orbital Reef, while Northrop Grumman’s unnamed space station project might not even happen.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Scientists working to open up the sample canister containing rock and dust from asteroid Bennu have run into a problem: there’s just too much of it.
A famous NASA spacecraft will continue exploring the outer reaches of the solar system thanks to an extended lifeline. This decision overturns NASA’s earlier proposal to change the mission’s course and transfer it to a different division.
The summer season has ended, but spaceflight continues to be hot, with new views of our Moon and Jupiter’s moon Io, the much-anticipated return of an astronaut and an asteroid sample, and important new rocket engine tests, to name just a few of the many moments that captured our attention in September.
A week before it was set to launch to a distant metal rich asteroid, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is forced to remain grounded until the space agency resolves an issue with its thrusters.
