Spaceflight Insider

⚠ Breaking: This Bud’s for you! SpaceX sends ‘King of Beers’ to orbit on CRS-19

  • Gallery: Flight of GPS III marks final flight of Delta IV Medium

    Jason RhianAugust 22nd CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — United Launch Alliance carried out the last flight of a Delta IV Medium rocket with the GPS III satellite on Aug. 22, 2019, from Space Launch Complex 37B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

  • Curiosity rover marks seven years of Martian exploration

    Laurel KornfeldAugust 9th Seven years after successfully completing a difficult landing maneuver onto the floor of Mars' Gale Crater, NASA's Curiosity rover continues to make pioneering discoveries on the Red Planet.

  • Gallery: ULA completes third flight of 2019

    Jason RhianAugust 8th CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — ULA launched an Atlas V rocket with the AEHF-5 on Thursday, Aug. 8 2019. The early morning flight marked an increasingly rare appearance for the venerable launch vehicle.

  • AEHF 5 lights up the sky atop ULA Atlas V 551

    Patrick AttwellAugust 8th CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- United Launch Alliance completed its third flight of the year on Thursday, Aug. 8. The flight got off the pad and soared into the early morning sky a little later than planned.

  • Cameras on Mars 2020 rover confirmed to have perfect vision

    Laurel KornfeldAugust 7th Tests conducted on several of the cameras that have been installed on the Mars 2020 rover have confirmed that they have perfect, 20/20 This is one of the more critical aspects of the mission as it will help guide the vision.

  • ULA preparing for third launch of 2019

    Patrick AttwellAugust 7th CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- United Launch Alliance (ULA) is set to conduct its first Atlas V launch in nearly 10 months with the AEHF-5 mission. The flight marks a rare flight for a venerable rocket.

  • Gallery: SpaceX completes second flight in less than two weeks with AMOS-17

    Jason RhianAugust 6th CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket with the AMOS-17 spacecraft on Tuesday Aug. 6, 2019. The flight helped reiterate the company's ability to rapidly turn around and prepare for the next flight.

  • SpaceX breaks AMOS jinx with flight of AMOS-17

    Patrick AttwellAugust 6th CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — It can be said that SpaceX hasn’t had the best of luck when it comes to AMOS payloads. That unlucky streak was broken today with the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket and its passenger, the AMOS-17 spacecraft.

  • Intelsat 39 and EDRS-C launched from French Guiana

    Cullen DesforgesAugust 6th KOUROU, FRENCH GUIANA -- On Aug. 6, 2019 Arianespace’s third Ariane 5 ECA launch of 2019 lifted the VA249 mission off the pad located at Ariane Launch Complex Number 3 (ELA-3) in Kourou, French Guiana.

  • NG-11 Cygnus released to begin multi-month post-ISS mission

    Derek RichardsonAugust 6th Northrop Grumman’s NG-11 Cygnus departed the ISS after a 109-day stay aboard the outpost to begin a multi-month free-flying secondary mission.

  • Installation of MEDLI2 on Mars 2020 entry vehicle begins

    Jim SharkeyAugust 5th Entry, landing and decent (EDL) is one of the most challenging phases of any Mars mission. Engineers recently began installing hardware on the entry vehicle of NASA's Mars 2020 rover mission that will help increase the safety of future missions to the Red Planet.

  • NASA teaming up with commercial companies for return to the Moon

    Laurel KornfeldAugust 5th To achieve the goal of returning humans to the Moon by 2024, NASA announced it is teaming up with commercial companies to develop new technologies for landing on and taking off from the lunar surface.

  • Was Apollo 11 faked? USSR: ‘Nyet’

    Jason RhianJuly 16th Anyone who has ever had a disagreement with anyone else can expect their 'opponent' to paint them as the worst person on the planet and to point out every failure, every falsehood (real or imagined) you've ever had or uttered. In terms of lunar conspiracy theorists this consideration, seems to have eluded them. There were people who would have loved to have proved Apollos 11-17 were faked - a whole nation's worth.

  • SpaceX reveals cause of Crew Dragon explosion

    Jason RhianJuly 15th SpaceX held a test of the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft on April 20, 2019 which ended with an explosion at the NewSpace firm's Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral in Florida. Today, SpaceX released what it believes to have caused the accident during a briefing earlier this afternoon.

  • Proof of Apollo 11 landing hard as ‘rock’

    Joe LatrellJuly 15th JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, Texas -- When asked why they believe the Apollo 11 Moon landings were faked, conspiracy theorists point to the lack of stars in the photos taken by the astronauts, incongruous shadows and other bits of data from that mission. Some evidence that counters their claims isn't so fragile, in fact - it's written in stone.

  • Spektr-RG telescope launched atop Proton-M rocket

    Patrick AttwellJuly 14th The second Proton launch of 2019 took to the skies above the Baikonur Cosmodrome today with the Spektr-RG telescope for the Russian and German space agencies. It marked the start of a mission some 24 years in the making.

  • New technique can spot failing bridges from orbit

    Jim SharkeyJuly 13th Bridges are a critical but vulnerable component of transportation infrastructure. Age, structural damage or design flaws can result in a bridge collapse. A group of researchers, led by  Pietro Milillo, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), have developed a new technique to examine bridges for sign of decay using satellite data. The team's study was recently published in the journal Remote Sensing.

  • NASA officials at Glenn Symposium address recent leadership overhaul

    Michael ColeJuly 12th CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The reassignment of long-time NASA Associate Administrator for Human Explorations and Operations, Bill Gerstenmaier, came as a shock to most everyone in the space flight community. Such was made clear at the Glenn Symposium which was held July 10-12.

  • Report: Major shakeup at NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate

    Patrick AttwellJuly 10th NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate has undergone a significant change in leadership. According to a tweet posted by Marcia Smith of Space Policy Online, the changes involved two key personnel either being replaced - or relieved.

  • Virgin Galactic merges with Social Capital Hedosophia

    Cullen DesforgesJuly 10th In an unprecedented move for the commercial space flight industry, Virgin Galactic (VG) and Social Capital Hedosophia (SCH) have announced a merger which is expected to become effective once the transaction closes this year.

  • Voyager team working to keep 42-year-old probes operational

    Laurel KornfeldJuly 9th To keep NASA’s Voyager probes, launched 42 years ago to study the solar system’s gas giant planets, operational in interstellar space for as long as possible, mission scientists are making tough decisions to propel the spacecraft even further.

  • SLS Artemis 1 core stage nearing completion

    Scott JohnsonJuly 7th NEW ORLEANS, La. - The core stage (CS-1) for the first flight (Artemis 1 (formerly Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1)) of NASA's next super-heavy lift launch vehicle, the Space Launch System (SLS), is nearing completion at the agency's Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) in New Orleans.

  • Spitzer and Hubble identify atmospheric composition of “sub-Neptune” exoplanet

    Laurel KornfeldJuly 6th Scientists have identified the atmospheric composition of an exoplanet larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune by studying it with both the Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes.

  • Orion spacecraft progressing toward Artemis 1 flight

    Michael ColeJuly 4th PLUM BROOK, Ohio -- NASA is making important strides with the Orion spacecraft in preparation for the Artemis 1 mission, the next step in the agency's effort to return humans to the Moon.

  • AA-2 test next step in NASA’s long-lived Orion testing program

    Jason RhianJuly 2nd CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Should NASA's Orion spacecraft encounter a problem when it is used to send astronauts to the Moon one day, the system tasked with keeping them safe has proven it can do so. The test was dubbed - Ascent Abort 2.

  • NASA’s 2020 Mars rover gets 7-foot-long robot arm

    Jim SharkeyJuly 1st Engineers working in High Bay clean room 1 of the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) recently added a vital component to the space agency's Mars 2020 rover. On June 21, the team installed the rover's main robotic arm.

  • Rocket Lab’s Electron launches seven small satellites from New Zealand

    Laurel KornfeldJune 29th Rocket Lab, a private American company that manufactures and launches small satellites, put seven satellites via its Electron vehicle during a launch from New Zealand.

  • Night time is the right time for SpaceX STP-2 mission

    Jason RhianJune 25th SpaceX's Falcon Heavy is starting to become a frequent flyer of Florida's skies, with the rocket's third flight checking off several "firsts."

NewerOlder