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Artemis 1 team must meet a variety of checkouts and other milestones to make it happen. Indeed, Aug. 29 is just one of three "placeholder" dates in an upcoming Artemis 1 launch window, along with Sept. 2 and Sept. 5... Artemis 1 will be the first mission in NASA's Artemis program of lunar exploration, which aims to establish a permanent human presence on and around the moon by the late 2020s. It will be the first flight for the powerful but long-delayed SLS and the second for Orion, which aced a quick test flight to Earth orbit back in 2014....

In a statement late Dec. 17, NASA announced that SLS engineers decided they needed to replace the controller for engine four in the core stage of the SLS. One of two redundant channels in the controller failed to power up consistently during tests of the integrated vehicle at the Kennedy Space Center. That controller operated as expected during the core stage’s Green Run test campaign at the Stennis Space Center that concluded with a full-duration static-fire test in March. An initial investigation failed to identify the root cause of the problem. NASA did not give a schedule for the work...

A critical test-firing of NASA’s Space Launch System moon rocket in Mississippi ended just 67 seconds after it began Saturday, well short of a planned eight-minute burn that was supposed to clear the way for the space agency to finally ship the rocket’s core stage to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for launch preparations. The SLS core stage, built by Boeing, lit its four Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-25 engines for the first time at 5:27 p.m. EST (4:27 p.m. CST; 2227 GMT) Saturday for a burn that was expected to last more than eight minutes, the culmination of a year-long...

NASA has accepted delivery of a key European part needed to power the world’s next-generation moonship. U.S. and European leaders gathered at Kennedy Space Center on Friday to mark the occasion. The newly arrived powerhouse, or service module, will propel NASA’s Orion capsule to the moon during a test flight without passengers planned for 2020. A mega rocket under development by NASA, known as SLS for Space Launch System, will launch the combo. […] Orion and the attached service module are meant to fly near the moon, but not land. Future missions will carry astronauts, with the goal of building...

NASA's latest tower for launching rockets has a little bit of a lean, which means it may be able to launch just a single rocket. The cost of this tower boondoggle? Almost $1 billion. The tower in question is the Mobile Launcher designed for NASA’s upcoming Space Launch System, which would become the world’s most powerful rocket once completed in a few years. The tower is supposed to keep the rocket stable and upright on the platform during a launch. The system was built for NASA’s now-defunct Ares I rocket and later repurposed for the SLS. The Mobile Launcher is...

NASA is eager for humans to venture beyond the International Space Station, leave boot prints in the red dust of Mars and fly into the vast unknown—but first, the moon. Before the space agency puts astronauts on our natural satellite for the first time since the Apollo missions touched down, it needs a lunar outpost to be its gateway to the future. The Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway is the brainchild of NASA scientists joining forces with ISS and commercial partners to explore the concept of such an outpost floating around the moon. After months of brainstorming, the concept is going to...

NASA managers said Friday they hope to know within a month or so whether it might be feasible -- or advisable -- to put two astronauts on board the first test flight of a huge 322-foot-tall Space Launch System super booster scheduled for its maiden launch late next year. The study, requested by the Trump administration, already is underway, but William Hill, deputy associate administrator for Exploration Systems Development at NASA Headquarters, said major technical challenges will need to be resolved, and the agency will need more money to make it happen. “It’s going to take a significant amount of...

In auto racing parlance, NASA engineers put the "pedal to the metal" during a July 17 test of its Space Launch System (SLS) RS-25 rocket engine at Stennis Space Center. During a 535-second test, operators ran the RS-25 through a series of power levels, including a period of firing at 109 percent of the engine's rated power. Data collected on performance of the engine at the various power levels will aid in adapting the former space shuttle engines to the new SLS vehicle mission requirements, including development of an all-new engine controller and software. Four RS-25 engines will use the...

The drama surrounding funding for NASA’s Commercial Crew program has started up once again. In the wake of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s cutting funding for the program by over $300 million, supporters have fallen back on familiar patterns of futile complaining. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden claimed that the funding shortfall would delay the restoration of American spaceflight capability by as much as two years. Bolden was mild compared to some of Commercial Crew’s supporters on the Internet.

[I love the idea of going to Mars. We humans are explorers and pioneers. But if government does this, it will be just too costly, like the Apollo Moon program. Elon Musk of the private SpaceX company already has put rockets into space and he wants to send settlers to Mars, including himself. So since governments have screwed up this planet, how about reserving Mars for free people?!] Breaking: NASA is sending humans to Mars NASA has announced that a test launch of their Orion space capsule will take place on Thursday, in the first step of a mission that...

<p>NASA and Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] have completed final assembly and testing of the Orion spacecraft. The spacecraft will remain inside NASA's Launch Abort System Facility at Kennedy Space Center until it rolls to launch pad 37 in November.</p> <p>"An empty shell of a spacecraft arrived to Kennedy Space Center two years ago, and now we have a fully assembled Orion standing 72 feet tall," said Michael Hawes Lockheed Martin Orion program manager. "We're ready to launch it into space and test every inch."</p>

NASA and Boeing finalize $2.8 million deal to build super powerful rocket by Brooks Hays Washington Jul 4, 2013 disclaimer: image is for illustration purposes only Aviation company Boeing has contracted with NASA to build the world's most powerful rocket, intended -- eventually -- to propel astronauts to the moon, Mars, asteroids and the deep space beyond. Boeing and NASA signed a $2.8 million contract this week, tasking the aerospace company with developing two rocket cores as part of the completion of the Space Launch System, a heavy launch vehicle meant to carry both crew and cargo that will be...

After a thorough review of cost and engineering issues, NASA managers formally approved the development of the agency’s mammoth heavy lift rocket – the Space Launch System or SLS – which will be the world’s most powerful rocket ever built and is intended to take astronauts farther beyond Earth into deep space than ever before possible – to Asteroids and Mars. The maiden test launch of the SLS is targeted for November 2018 and will be configured in its initial 70-metric-ton (77-ton) version, top NASA officials announced at a briefing for reporters on Aug. 27. On its first flight known...

It is frustrating, at a time when other nations are in ascendancy in space, that the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama seems committed to undermining the nation's own solar system exploration program. The Obama administration cut NASA's planetary-sciences budget by 20 percent in 2013. It has taken the National Research Council's (NRC) recommendations for prioritizing planetary investments in bad economic times and turned those recommendations upside down. The administration continues to favor large, directed projects at the expense of programs and missions that are openly competed.

A couple of fairly unlikely developments are pointing to a scenario that could result in an unexpected return to the moon mission involving two unlikely partners if a number of parties are willing to think and work outside the box. That return to the moon could be a joint Israeli/Saudi Arabian project, fostered by an American commercial company.

NASA is now working with private companies to take the first steps in exploring the moon for valuable resources like helium 3 and rare earth metals. Initial proposals are due tomorrow for the Lunar Cargo Transportation and Landing by Soft Touchdown program (CATALYST). One or more private companies will win a contract to build prospecting robots, the first step toward mining the moon. The contract will be a "no funds exchanged" Space Agreement Act, which means the government will not be directly funding the effort, but will receive NASA support. Final proposals are due on March 17th, 2014. NASA has...

OK this is the first I've heard of this. Is this true? I sure hope so.

America is preparing to land a robot on the moon for the first time in four decades. Nasa is looking for private partners to participate in the project that will see a new generation of rovers wandering across the moonÂ’s surface. The American space agency has set up a programme called Catalyst to exploit commercial opportunities offered by the moon. It believes that eventually there will be a market for commercial cargo trips to the lunar surface. "As Nasa pursues an ambitious plan for humans to explore an asteroid and Mars, US industry will create opportunities for Nasa to advance...

It is a commentary on how adrift NASA space policy is when one considers that four years after President Obama made his "we choose not to return to the moon" speech that the space agency may be pivoting back to the moon. Paul Spudis, a planetary geologist and return to the moon advocate, has read the tea leaves and has seen the first, tentative steps toward a pivot back to the moon. Elon Musk, the space entrepreneur and political ally of Barack Obama, has recently conceded that expeditions to the moon would be useful. NASA is partnering with private companies,...

The private spaceflight company Space X plans to build a rocket so big it would "make the Apollo moon rocket look small,"the company's CEO, Elon Musk, announced on "CBS This Morning"on Feb. 3. The huge rocket would ultimately send colonists to Mars, but what would SpaceX do in the meantime? The company's primary focus right now is giving NASA astronauts access to the International Space Station (ISS) on American vehicles, drastically lowering prices to Earth orbit versus what the Russians are charging, Musk said... This all begs the question: If SpaceX is going to build this gargantuan rocket on its...