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published about 2 hours ago The agency wants to send huge payloads towards the moon starting with Artemis 5. Getting there requires more power from recycled RS-25 space shuttle engines. NASA fired up an engine Wednesday (Feb. 8) to boost human moon missions. The RS-25 engine, a veteran of the space shuttle program, has a new design for the NASA's Artemis program. Starting with Artemis 5 late in the 2020s or so, the modified engines will fly on the Space Launch System. NASA says the newer RS-25s will deliver even more power to send the Orion spacecraft, astronauts and other...

While two names are cited repeatedly as top candidates for Artemis 2, a four-person moon mission, no official confirmation will come until at least late spring. A portion of the far side of the Moon looms large just beyond the Orion spacecraft in this image taken on the sixth day of the Artemis 1 mission by a camera on the tip of one of Orion’s solar arrays. (Image credit: NASA) ************************************************************************************* NASA will soon name the astronauts on its first crewed moon mission since 1972. Artemis 2 is the next flight after the agency's uncrewed Artemis 1 mission, which launched...

The Orion spacecraft has been secured in the well deck of the USS Portland. The ship will soon begin its trip back to U.S. Naval Base San Diego, where engineers will remove Orion from the ship in preparation for transport back to Kennedy Space Center in Florida for post-flight analysis. Upon Orion’s successful splashdown in the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California at 9:40 PST/12:40 EST Dec. 11, flight controllers in mission control at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston spent about two hours performing tests in open water to gather additional data about the spacecraft, including on its thermal...

Tech billionaire and DOGE chief Elon Musk is constantly under fire these days by the lunatic left, but on the real world, where relevant things are in motion, he continues to excel and thrive. His SpaceX company is reported to be about to considerably expand its share of military business, as the Pentagon considers overhauling a program to deploy hundreds of missile-tracking satellites into low orbit. Washington Post reported: “Competitors have fallen so far behind SpaceX that many fear they won’t be able to catch up, leaving NASA and the Pentagon with few other options as it faces increased competition...

If SpaceX can clean up Starship's reliability issues, the company is free to fly ... the company was limited to 5 launches, but now it will be able to conduct up to 25 Starship launches and landings during a calendar year.

Watch live coverage of the launch of an Atlas 5 rocket with the first 27 operational satellites for Amazon's Kuiper internet service on Monday, April 28, 2025. Liftoff is anticipated at 7 p.m. EDT (2300 UTC), which is the opening of a two-hour launch window. Watch live: ULA Atlas 5 launches with 27 Kuiper satellites for Amazon's Starlink rival | launches about 7 pm LIVE (no duration shown) | Spaceflight Now | 360K subscribers | circa 1900 watching now | Started streaming 17 minutes ago[Firefly had to scrub yesterday, they were going to launch a Lockheed sat that was described...

In Astronauts carefully tell the truth, I noted astronaut Butch Wilmore confirmed Elon Musk’s assertion that he and Suni Williams really were stranded on the ISS, and that Musk offered to bring them home during Biden’s Handler’s Administration but was refused because they didn’t want Biden to look bad before the election. The Biden Administration and the Democrat media went to great lengths to deny they were stranded. Arizona Democrat Senator Mark Kelly’s brother Scott claimed there was always a capsule docked there so they could come home at will. While there was a capsule docked, it was there as...

Enhanced 3D printing techniques now allow for the production of 17-4 PH stainless steel, optimizing its strength and corrosion resistance. This achievement marks a significant step forward in the additive manufacturing of complex alloys. Credit: SciTechDaily.com =============================================================================== Using advanced X-ray techniques, scientists have achieved a significant milestone in 3D printing by producing 17-4 PH stainless steel with superior strength and durability. This development promises to lower costs and increase production flexibility, offering profound implications for manufacturing complex materials. Breakthrough in 3D Printing of Stainless Steel Researchers have developed a reliable method to produce a specific type of stainless steel, 17-4...

Neela Rajendra said deadlines are an obstacle to ‘inclusion.’. NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory has parted ways with its top diversity officer, Neela Rajendra, after the Washington Free Beacon reported that the lab had changed her title in an effort to keep her. "Neela Rajendra is no longer working at [the Jet Propulsion Laboratory]," lab director Laurie Leshin said in an all-staff email on Thursday. "We are incredibly grateful for the lasting impact she made to our organization. We wish her the very best." ... Leshin added that the newly formed Office of Team Excellence and Employee Success—intended to replace the...

Sierra Nevada is emerging as the likely front runner to use the former NASA X-34 reusable launch vehicle demonstrator as a flying testbed for its Dream Chaser orbital space vehicle. The two surviving Orbital Sciences-built X-34s were moved by road to Mojave, Calif., on Nov. 16 from Edwards AFB, Calif., where they had been in storage since the program was canceled in 2001. The two 58.3-ft. vehicles, now stored inside a hangar belonging to the National Test Pilots School, were developed under a NASA program begun in 1996 to provide a low-cost advanced technology flight demonstration testbed vehicle for space...

Hours before the heat rose in the Mojave Desert of Southern California on Aug. 2 the Dream Chaser rolled out of a hangar at dawn as teams prepared to pull the flight vehicle through a series of 60 mph ground tow tests.View: Bonus Photos of the Day: Dream Chaser Takes on Ground Tests These tests were the fourth of incremental range and taxi tow tests that Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) performed to prove the spacecraft's braking and landing systems could handle upcoming captive-carry and approach-and-landing tests at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center.The tests were performed in preparation for pre-negotiated, paid-for-performance...

Dream Chaser will launch atop the commercial Atlas V in its most powerful configuration, dubbed Atlas V 552, with five strap on solid rocket motors and a dual engine Centaur upper stage while protectively tucked inside a five meter diameter payload fairing – with wings folded. Blast off of Dream Chaser loaded with over 5500 kilograms of cargo mass for the space station crews will take place from ULA’s seaside Space Launch Complex-41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The unique lifting body design enables runway landings for Dream Chaser, similar to the NASA’s Space Shuttle at the...

For the past ten years, the Sierra Nevada Corporation and NASA have been developing and testing this next-generation space vehicle. When it is ready, this vehicle will not only provide a more cost-effective way of servicing the ISS, it will also help restore domestic launch capability to the United States. On Saturday, November 11th, the Dream Chaser passed an important milestone by conducting a successful free flight test. This took place at Edwards Air Force Base in California, and verified the spaceplane’s ability to glide and land autonomously. This, in addition to verifying several key avionic and flight systems, is...

SNC was one of three companies, along with incumbents SpaceX and Orbital ATK (now Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems), to receive CRS-2 contracts from NASA in January 2016. Each company is guaranteed at least six missions to the ISS under the contracts. To carry out the missions, SNC proposed a cargo version of the Dream Chaser spacecraft it had been developing for NASA’s commercial crew program. Although the vehicle was not selected by NASA when it awarded contracts instead to Boeing and SpaceX in 2014, SNC adapted the design with foldable wings, allowing it to fit within many existing payload fairings,...

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla., May 4 (UPI) -- The Dream Chaser spaceplane, a cargo spacecraft built and operated by Nevada-based Sierra Nevada Corp., is to begin launching and landing in Florida in 2022, NASA and the company announced Tuesday. The uncrewed, robotic spaceplane will be launched aboard a United Launch Alliance rocket from Kennedy Space Center for flights to the International Space Station. Once it docks and delivers cargo, Dream Chaser will return to the space center's former space shuttle landing strip. The first Dream Chaser is being prepared for delivery to the space center next spring, Janet Kavandi, a...

As soon as 2023, the United States military could have a new spacecraft to transport troops to space and low Earth orbit locations anywhere in the world within three hours. Colorado-based aerospace company Sierra Space announced Sept. 8, 2022 that it signed a research and development contract with the U.S. Transportation Command to develop options to transport military crews and cargo around the world using the “Dream Chaser” space plane. The Dream Chaser space plane is a 7-passenger winged shuttle-like plane that launches to space on a rocket and flies back to Earth, landing on a runway. It’s designed to...

While the CRS stalwarts of Cygnus and Dragon are regular visitors to the ISS, Program Manager Kirk Shireman cited the need for “dissimilar redundancy” in adding Dream Chaser to the mix – a key selling point previously used by SNC during Dream Chaser’s crew transportation aspirations. The only blot on her report card was a landing gear failure during a 2013 landing test at the Dryden Flight Research Facility in California. The test was designed to verify and validate Dream Chaser’s low-atmosphere aerodynamics, flight control surfaces, flight characteristics for approach, flare and landing, and landing systems. However, as it approached...

Research conducted by Dr. Gwen Robbins, an assistant professor of biological anthropology at Appalachian State University, finds there is no evidence of cannibalism among the 84 members of the Donner Party who were trapped by a snowstorm in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the mid-1840s. Remains from the Donner party’s Alder Creek campsite were excavated by a team of archaeologists from the University of Montana and the University of Oregon Museum. A sample of bones from the campsite hearth was analyzed by Robbins and Kelsey Gray, an Appalachian graduate. They will present the results of this project this week at...

The orbital airframe structure for the first commercial Dream Chaser mini-shuttle that will launch to Earth orbit just over two years from now has been unveiled by Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) and program partner Lockheed Martin. Sierra Nevada is moving forward with plans for Dream Chaser’s first launch and unmanned orbital test flight in November 2016 atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The winged Dream Chaser is being developed under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program aimed at restoring America’s indigenous human spaceflight access to low Earth orbit and the International Space Station (ISS).

Sierra Nevada Corporation was looking to make the hiring push over the course of a year. Most positions will be in Colorado, she said, but many positions, including administrative staff and some technical and engineering positions, will be in the Reno-Sparks area. ... The company is growing thanks to several new government and commercial contracts it has received this year, she explained, citing a new contract to resupply the International Space Station starting in 2019. Sierra Nevada Corp. received several contracts to provide hardware for NASA's 2020 Mars mission, according to a statement from the company released earlier this month.