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SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk mocked President Joe Biden on Sunday for neglecting to praise his aerospace company's historic, all-civilian mission to orbit. Musk recently said he would prefer to stay out of politics. But Sunday’s quip — which alluded to a Trump taunt about Biden — belied his frustration with the White House. After SpaceX completed a historic, private spaceflight on Saturday, CEO Elon Musk took a pot shot at President Joe Biden who had yet to remark on the company's and the civilian flight crew's accomplishments. One of Musk's 60 million followers on the social networking platform...

NASA said Tuesday they have revised their strategy in order to expedite the homecoming of two astronauts stranded on the International Space Station (ISS), the space agency said on Feb. 11.Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been aboard the space station for eight months, are now slated to return to Earth in mid-March—two weeks earlier than the previously anticipated late March or April timeframe, according to NASA.The change in plans involves SpaceX altering its capsule assignments for upcoming missions.“Human spaceflight is full of unexpected challenges,” Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager, said in a statement released by...

The official portrait of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 members with (from left) Mission Specialist Kirill Peskov of Roscosmos; Pilot Nicole Ayers and Commander Anne McClain, both NASA astronauts; and Mission Specialist Takuya Onishi from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency). Credit: NASA/Bill Stafford/Helen Arase Vargas NASA and SpaceX are pushing up Crew-10’s launch date by reusing a previously flown Dragon spacecraft, Endurance. This strategic shift speeds up both Crew-10’s arrival and Crew-9’s return while ensuring mission safety. The flexibility in planning reflects the strong collaboration between NASA and SpaceX, allowing for a seamless crew transition aboard the ISS. Crew Rotation Missions Accelerate...

The commander of SpaceX's Crew-8 astronaut mission says that NASA continues to prioritize safety while co-managing an aging space station. The International Space Station (ISS) and the spacesuit that spacewalking NASA astronauts wear, known as the extravehicular mobility unit (EMU), are both decades old. And it's the age of this hardware that has led to issues with both recently, NASA astronaut and Crew-8 commander Matthew Dominick told reporters on Friday (Nov. 8). "None of our spacesuits are spring chickens, as we would say, and so we will expect to see some hardware issues with repeated use," Dominick said at a...

The SpaceX crew that will ferry back in February two astronauts stranded on the International Space Station docked with the orbiting laboratory on Sunday, a live stream of the mission showed. The Falcon 9 rocket took off at 1:17 pm (1717 GMT) from Cape Canaveral, Florida on Saturday, with the Crew-9 mission aboard a Dragon spacecraft making contact with the ISS at 5:30 pm Sunday. After docking was completed, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov boarded the station just after 7:00 pm, embracing their floating colleagues. "I just want to say welcome to our new compadres from...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX launched a rescue mission for the two stuck astronauts at the International Space Station on Saturday, sending up a downsized crew to bring them home, but not until next year. The capsule rocketed into orbit to fetch the test pilots whose Boeing spacecraft returned to Earth empty earlier this month because of safety concerns. The switch in rides left it to NASA’s Nick Hague and Russia’s Alexander Gorbunov to retrieve Needham native Suni Williams and fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore. Because NASA rotates space station crews approximately every six months, this newly launched flight with...

By Denise Chow Four private citizens orbiting Earth in a SpaceX capsule are making history by completing the world’s first all-civilian spacewalk. Billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Scott “Kidd” Poteet, and SpaceX engineers Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon are the crew of the Polaris Dawn mission, which launched into space Tuesday to begin a five-day flight. Their spacewalk began at 6:12 a.m. ET, having been delayed a few hours. During the outing, Isaacman and Gillis exited the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on a tether. Although they are the only ones to venture outside the spacecraft, all...

Orbiting Earth on board Dragon, the Polaris Dawn crew talked with families of Folds of Honor, an organization providing educational scholarships to spouses and children of America's fallen and disabled military service-members and first responders.UPDATE! Polaris Dawn Crew Calls Military Families From Space | 9:45The Launch Pad | 419K subscribers | 128 views | September 11, 2024

Starliner has finally come home, more than three months after it launched on a planned 10-day mission.. Starliner's long space odyssey is over. The Boeing capsule, named Calypso, returned to Earth early this morning (Sept. 7), touching down in the New Mexico desert at 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401 GMT; 11:01 p.m. local time on Sept. 6). "Great landing of Calyspo!" NASA astronaut Suni Williams said on the agency's webcast. "I don't think that could have gone better." The landing was long-delayed, coming more than three months into an orbital mission originally expected to last about 10 days. And, while Starliner...

A New Hampshire man set to go to space will now have to wait until at least Friday.The SpaceX Polaris Dawn, to be piloted by Scott Poteet, was delayed last week, and unfavorable weather conditions led to those delays.The company had originally received permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to launch early Wednesday morning, with a backup date of Thursday morning, but according to the FAA, the launch will now wait until early Friday morning.

Boeing employees are “humiliated” after NASA announced that two astronauts who have been stranded on the International Space Station by the company’s troubled Starliner space capsule will have to be rescued by Elon Musk’s upstart rival SpaceX, one worker told The Post. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams — who went up the ISS in June for what was supposed to be an 8-day mission — will have to wait another six months until a SpaceX Crew Dragon space craft can carry them safely home because their original ride is leaking helium and has problems with its thrusters. The Florida-based staffer...

WASHINGTON, Aug 23 (Reuters) - SpaceX's attempt at the first ever private spacewalk next week will be a test of trailblazing equipment, including slim spacesuits and a cabin with no airlock, in one of the riskiest missions yet for Elon Musk's space company. A billionaire entrepreneur, a retired military fighter pilot and two SpaceX employees are poised to launch on Tuesday aboard a modified Crew Dragon craft, before embarking on a 20-minute spacewalk 434 miles (700 km) into space two days later.... Far outside the protective bubble of Earth's atmosphere, the electronics and shielding on Crew Dragon and spacesuits will...

The Boeing Starliner crew, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, are to return to Earth on a SpaceX Crew Dragon vehicle in February, NASA officials announced Saturday. The Starliner spacecraft itself will be unmanned when it returns in early September. NASA announced the decision at Johnson Space Center following a test flight readiness review meeting. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the decision was due to a "commitment to safety."

SpaceX Crew Dragon Spacecraft Approaches International Space Station In this illustration, a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft approaches the International Space Station for docking. Credit: NASA/SpaceX NASA and Axiom Space will provide coverage of launch and select mission activities for Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1), the first private astronaut mission to the International Space Station. Liftoff is scheduled at 11:17 a.m. EDT Friday, April 8, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Coverage begins on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website beginning at 10:15 a.m. EDT Friday, April 8. Coverage will join the Axiom Space...

Indeed, they need to resolve one outstanding item before Crew-3 can lift off — a slight redesign of Crew Dragon's toilet system. That tweak was prompted by an issue experienced on SpaceX's Inspiration4 mission, which sent four private citizens on a three-day trip to orbit last month. After that capsule, named Resilience, returned home, inspections revealed that a tube hooked up to a toilet storage tank had popped loose during flight. This "allowed urine to not go into the storage tank but, essentially, to go into the fan system," Bill Gerstenmaier, vice president of build and flight reliability at SpaceX,...

Astronauts on the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour splashed down off the coast of Florida. The Crew-2 mission is SpaceX’s second long-duration astronaut mission for NASA.SpaceX Crew-2 Astronauts Return to Earth | November 8, 2021 | Bloomberg Quicktake: Now

Details are still scarce as to what happened with the space toilet, but the anomaly involved its suction fan, according to Reed. The suction fan is responsible for removing waste products. Historically, crews that have ridden aboard the Dragon were in transit to the International Space Station and so only stayed in the spacecraft for 24 hours or less at a time. The facilities likely saw more use during the Inspiration4 mission, since this crew lived inside the Dragon capsule for approximately three days. Dragon's toilet is located near the craft's nosecone, which is also where the cupola window is...

THE SPACEX starstip is reported to have had a near miss with a UFO - with astronauts on board told to buckle up and prepare for a crash, Nasa has revealed. While en route to the International Space Station after a successful launch in Florida, the four crew members were notified they could soon collide with an unknown object. There was no time to perform an avoidance manoeuvre and instead the astronauts on board SpaceX's recycled Crew Dragon capsule, the Endeavour, were told to put on their pressurized suits in case of a collision, reports Futurism. "The NASA/SpaceX team was...

The four astronauts are scheduled to launch to the International Space Station (ISS) on SpaceX's next crewed mission Thursday (April 22) at 6:11 a.m. EST (1011 GMT). They practiced that launch day today (April 18) with one last predawn dress rehearsal. The spaceflyers — NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, France's Thomas Pesquet and Japan's Akihiko Hoshide — arrived at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida on Friday (April 16) and have already begun their final preparations before liftoff, which included a quick chat with reporters broadcast from the astronaut crew quarters. The Crew-2 mission will see a...

The capsule is scheduled to send up four astronauts no earlier than 7:49 p.m. Eastern time on November — a mission dubbed "Crew-1." It will be the first non-test, crewed mission since the successful crewed test flight in May 2020. But ahead of the big launch, SpaceX vice president Hans Koenigsmann explained in a NASA briefing this week that a problem with a "nail polish"-like substance discovered during a previous launch threatened to derail the grand plans. The problem already caused NASA to delay the Crew-1 flight earlier this month. The problem dramatically came to light during the GPS-III SV04...