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NASA’s top executive concentrating on human spaceflight, Doug Loverro, has resigned just a week before the scheduled start of a milestone space mission. Loverro became NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration and operations last December, and was playing a leading role in NASA’s Artemis moon program as well as preparations for next week’s launch of a SpaceX Crew Dragon mission to the International Space Station. That mission, set for liftoff on May 27 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is due to send NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the station for a stay that could last...

Under the agreement, Space Adventures will use a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon vehicle to fly up to four passengers to Earth orbit. The trip will not visit the International Space Station. Instead, it will remain in orbit as a free-flying spacecraft. To date, Space Adventures has arranged eight orbital trips to the International Space Station for seven wealthy customers: Dennis Tito in 2001; South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth in 2002; American entrepreneurs Greg Olsen in 2005 and Anousheh Ansari in 2006; Microsoft co-founder Charles Simonyi (twice) in 2007 and 2009; computer game developer Richard Garriott in 2008;...

We are excited to announce that SpaceX has been approached to fly two private citizens on a trip around the moon late next year. They have already paid a significant deposit to do a moon mission. Like the Apollo astronauts before them, these individuals will travel into space carrying the hopes and dreams of all humankind, driven by the universal human spirit of exploration. We expect to conduct health and fitness tests, as well as begin initial training later this year. Other flight teams have also expressed strong interest and we expect more to follow. Additional information will be released...

On Sunday (Jan. 19), SpaceX's Crew Dragon launched on a brilliant a high-altitude test of its launch escape system. SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk called the in-flight abort test flight "picture perfect," and, in looking at the stunning images of the test, he was absolutely right. Following a weather delay, Crew Dragon lifted off at 10:30 a.m. EST (1430 GMT) atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. With the test, SpaceX successfully (and intentionally) destroyed one of its Falcon 9 rockets to show that, if there were a launch anomaly,...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX just took a giant leap forward in its quest to launch astronauts. The private spaceflight company intentionally destroyed one of its rockets on Sunday (Jan. 19) as part of a crucial test of its new Crew Dragon capsule's launch escape system. The uncrewed test, known as an in-flight abort (IFA) test, is the last major hurdle SpaceX needed to clear before Crew Dragon can begin to carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS). Originally scheduled to launch on Saturday (Jan. 18), the unpiloted crew capsule was grounded for 24 hours due to...

One of the last major steps before SpaceX flies its Crew Dragon craft with real NASA astronauts onboard is an "in-flight abort test." Scheduled to take place during a four-hour window on Saturday, Sunday or Monday morning, it will test the vehicle's ability to safely get back to Earth if there's a problem during ascent. Come back here just before 8 AM ET on January 18th, and if the weather holds then you should see the Crew Dragon separate from its Falcon 9, then eventually land in the Atlantic Ocean. Even if you wake up a little late, keep an...

The new international docking adapter, or IDA, was launched to the station last month aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo ship. The lab's robot arm pulled the docking mechanism out of the Dragon's trunk section earlier this week and positioned it directly atop a tunnel-like pressurized mating adaptor extending from Harmony's upper port. Working with electrical cables that were routed three years ago during two earlier spacewalks, Hague and Morgan connected the IDA to station power, allowing astronaut Christina Koch, working inside Harmony, to send commands driving internal hooks to close. After flight controllers confirmed the $22.5 million IDA was firmly...

On August 13, 2019, NASA at the Trident Basin in Cape Canaveral, Florida, astronauts Doug Hurley, left, and Bob Behnken work with teams from NASA and SpaceX to rehearse crew extraction from SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, which will be used to carry humans to the International Space Station. Using the ship Go Searcher to recover their spacecraft after splashdown and a mock-up of the Crew Dragon, the teams worked through the steps necessary to get Hurley and Behnken safely out of the Dragon. The pair will fly to the space station aboard the Crew Dragon for the SpaceX Demo-2 mission.

Before the explosion, the test was proceeding according to plan, Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX’s vice president of Mission Assurance, said at a press conference about SpaceX’s upcoming resupply mission to the ISS. The capsule was tethered in place for the test, which was designed to make sure that the system’s thrusters were working properly. Koenigsmann said that the capsule powered up “as expected” and then sets of smaller thrusters on either side of the vehicle called Dracos fired for five seconds each. Those tests “went very well” said Koenigsmann. Then it was time to test the SuperDracos, the thrusters designed to...

If SpaceX gets lucky the BFR development costs could come in at the $2 billion low-end estimate. Elon Musk had estimated that it would cost $2 billion to 10 billion to develop. A few more critical successes over the next year will enable SpaceX to solidify the finances and funding for the BFR. The needed critical successes are the NASA crewed launch certification in mid-2019 and successful Falcon Heavy launches in 2019. SpaceX has pre-sold a moon orbit tourist flight to a Japanese billionaire. This was likely for $500 to $800 million. The SpaceX Falcon Heavy already has up to...

A SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket will launch a Crew Dragon spacecraft on an uncrewed test flight to the International Space Station under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program to finish certification of the Dragon 2 mission architecture for future crewed missions with ISS Expedition crew members. The Dragon 2 spacecraft will test the approach and automated docking procedure with the Space Station, marking a first for SpaceX as the previous generation of Cargo Dragons used a robotic capture and berthing instead of directly coming in for docking. Dragon 2 will remain docked to ISS for a few weeks before demonstrating...