Spaceflight Insider

  • Bringing a knife to a spacewalk: Cosmonauts inspect Soyuz leak repair

    Derek RichardsonDecember 12th During a spacewalk, two Russian cosmonauts used a knife remove thermal insulation on Soyuz MS-09 in order to inspect a leak repair made earlier in the year.

  • SpaceX Demo Flight 1 ‘adjusts’ 10 days

    Jason RhianDecember 11th KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. -- As is to be expected with critical missions meant to demonstrate transportation systems for astronauts, things tend to change in the lead up to the big day. Perhaps the most frequent of these - is time.

  • Barely on the job a week, OSIRIS-REx makes major discovery

    Cullen DesforgesDecember 11th On Dec. 3, 2018, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft arrived at the half-kilometer wide Bennu asteroid to begin a two-year study to inspect, investigate, and eventually collect samples of the materials making up its mysterious surface.

  • New Horizons course correction puts spacecraft on target to Ultima Thule

    Laurel KornfeldDecember 10th NASA's New Horizons spacecraft conducted the most distant ever course-correction maneuver by any spacecraft on Sunday, Dec. 2, firing its thrusters for just 105 seconds to adjust its velocity by approximately 2.2 miles per hour.

  • Who needs the Guardians of the Galaxy when we have OSIRIS-REx?

    Cullen DesforgesDecember 10th Last week, a spacecraft arrived at one of the smallest objects ever visited by a NASA mission after a multi-billion mile journey around the Solar System.

  • ‘Hold hold hold’: NROL-71 mission scrubbed

    Derek RichardsonDecember 9th LOMPOC, Calif. — Just seconds before the planned liftoff of a Delta IV Heavy rocket with the NROL-71 payload, an automatic abort of the launch sequence was triggered.

  • Orion’s Ascent Abort-2 Crew Module delivered to KSC

    Jason RhianDecember 7th The Crew Module of NASA's Orion spacecraft has arrived at NASA's Kennedy Space Center located in Florida. Its journey began at Johnson Space Center and will be used to further the agency's deep space exploration ambitions.

  • There (almost) and back again: Crew of aborted Soyuz mission reassigned

    Heather SmithDecember 6th NASA has announced that Nick Hague will join Aleksey Ovchinin again for a launch on Feb 28, 2019, after their mission was aborted in October 2018.

  • CRS-16 Falcon 9 first stage makes unplanned water landing

    Michael ColeDecember 5th CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- After 26 straight successful landings of its Falcon 9 booster, SpaceX experienced a landing failure amidst an otherwise successful launch to orbit of the CRS-16 cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS). 

  • With mice well-fed, SpaceX’s CRS-16 mission blasts off but fails to stick landing

    Michael ColeDecember 5th CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla -- Partly cloudy skies along Florida's Space Coast provided a beautiful backdrop for the SpaceX launch of the CRS-16 resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS). While a success, not everything went according to plan.

  • Watch exclusive live coverage of CRS-16 launch

    Jason RhianDecember 5th CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- SpaceX and NASA have a Falcon 9 rocket primed and ready for flight. The mission - to send the CRS-16 Dragon to the International Space Station. SpaceFlight Insider's exclusive webcast will begin at 12:45 p.m. ET (17:45 GMT).

  • Classified: A review of US defense missions launched in 2018

    Patrick AttwellDecember 5th LOMPOC, Calif. -- 2018 has seen five payloads launched for the Department of Defense. Two of these missions were classified and one failed. With the upcoming flight of a ULA Delta Heavy with the NROL-71, SpaceFlight Insider takes a look back at the DoD's 2018 launch manifest.

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