SpaceX Starship disintegrates after completing most of third test flight
Boca Chica, Texas Reuters SpaceX’s Starship rocket, designed to eventually send astronauts to the moon and beyond, completed nearly an entire test flight through space on its third try on Thursday, getting farther than ever before, but disintegrated on its return to Earth. During a webcast of the flight, SpaceX commentators said mission control lost […]
SpaceX launches eighth long-duration crew for International Space Station orbit
Cape Canaveral, Florida, US Reuters A SpaceX rocket safely lifted off from Florida on Sunday night carrying a crew of three US astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut on their way to the International Space Station to begin a six-month science mission in Earth orbit. The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket topped with an autonomously operated Crew […]
Four astronauts, including Turkey’s first, arrive at space station
Reuters A four-man crew including Turkey’s first astronaut arrived at the International Space Station early on Saturday for a two-week stay in the latest such mission arranged entirely at commercial expense by Texas-based startup company Axiom Space. The rendezvous came about 37 hours after the Axiom quartet’s Thursday evening liftoff in a rocketship from NASA’s […]
SpaceX capsule with world’s first all-civilian orbital crew returns safely
Reuters The quartet of newly minted citizen astronauts comprising the SpaceX Inspiration4 mission safely splashed down in the Atlantic off Florida’s coast on Saturday, completing a three-day flight of the first all-civilian crew ever sent into Earth orbit. The successful launch and return of the mission, the latest in a recent string of rocket-powered expeditions […]
Essay: Space tourism – 20 years in the making – is finally ready for launch
In an article first published on The Conversation, WENDY WHITMAN COBB, professor of strategy and security studies at the US Air Force School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, looks at the gathering impetus for space tourism…
Seats filled for first all-civilian spaceflight crew
Reuters A college science professor and an aerospace data analyst were named on Tuesday to round out a four-member crew for a SpaceX launch into orbit planned later this year billed as the first all-civilian spaceflight in history. The two latest citizen astronauts were introduced at a news briefing live-streamed from the Kennedy Space Center […]
“SpaceX, this is Resilience”: Four astronauts begin six-month stay on space station
Washington DC, USReuters Four astronauts riding a newly-designed spacecraft from Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX greeted their new crewmates aboard the International Space Station on Tuesday after successfully docking in a landmark achievement for private space travel. In NASA’s first full-fledged mission ferrying a crew into orbit on a privately-owned spacecraft, the SpaceX Crew Dragon […]
“One heck of a ride”: SpaceX launches astronauts into space
Cape Canaveral, Florida, USReuters Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX launched four astronauts on a flight to the International Space Station on Sunday, NASA’s first full-fledged mission sending a crew into orbit aboard a privately owned spacecraft. SpaceX’s newly designed Crew Dragon capsule, which the crew has dubbed Resilience, lifted off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 […]
Space jam? Companies risk clutter, conflict in race for the skies
LondonThomson Reuters Foundation Half a century after astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first man on the Moon, a new space race is underway to exploit the skies for commercial profit. Tech giants and startups pursuing bold plans such as selling space tourism, mining asteroids and beaming giant adverts into the skies are winning millions in […]