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Astronaut Frank Rubio harvested one of the first tomatoes ever grown in space. And then misplaced it. He returned to Earth with the precious produce still lost aboard the space station. It remained lost — until now. “I put it in a little bag, and one of my crewmates was doing a (public) event with some schoolkids, and I thought it’d be kind of cool to show the kids — ‘Hey guys, this is the first tomato harvested in space,’” Rubio said during an October media event. “I was pretty confident that I Velcroed it where I was supposed to...

The latest spacewalk was the second during a six-month mission that will oversee the completion of the space station. The first of two laboratories, a 23-ton module, was added to the station in July and the other is to be sent up later this year. The third member of the crew, Liu Yang, supported the other two from inside during the spacewalk. Liu and Chen conducted the first spacewalk about two weeks ago. They will be joined by three more astronauts near the end of their mission in what will be the first time the station has six people on...

The final batch of projects which SpaceX announced development of but later abandoned in favour of other goals. As technology was developed some plans were realised to be beyond what was possible in the timescale, or more cost effective solutions were discovered, or the benefits weren't going to deliver an advantage to the overall business.SpaceX's Abandoned Plans - Final Episode (for now!) | June 28, 2020 | Scott Manley

The Italian Space Agency’s CSG-2 mission, the second satellite in its COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation constellation, has endured two scrubs on Thursday and Friday, both caused by unacceptable weather – while Saturday’s weather impacted pre-launch preparations. The launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station will be the fourth Falcon 9 flight of the year, and is now scheduled for liftoff on Sunday at 6:11 PM EST (23:11 UTC) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40).

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi have hatched a whole new scheme to federalize elections. How? They gutted a NASA bill that had already been passed by the House and had made its way to the Senate floor, stripping out the language and replacing it with language that federalizes our elections. ACLJ Director of Government Affairs Thann Bennett explained how this bill was stripped down to be used for hyper-partisan legislation: "Can you imagine being the supporters of that NASA authority bill right now when it is now being used to take over elections,...

Starlink 4-4 marks the 98th successful Falcon landing, the first time SpaceX has performed a non-polar Starlink launch from its West Coast pad, and the first time a Falcon 9 booster has completed 11 orbital-class launches and spaceflights. Up next, SpaceX is scheduled to launch Turkey’s Turksat 5B geostationary communications satellite out of its Cape Canaveral, Florida LC-40 pad. Falcon 9 could lift off as early as 10:58 pm EDT, Saturday, December 18th (03:58 UTC 19 Dec) – just 15 hours after Starlink 4-4. Set in September 2021, SpaceX’s current record is two launches in ~44 hours.

As we all know on July 20, Blue Origin successfully made a flight to the edge of orbit, making Jeff Bezos one of the first two billionaires to go to space. This seems to be the resounding success of Blue Origin so far. However, after the billionaire space founder came back to Earth, the company's internal affairs became chaotic, many key engineers and leaders decided to leave the company.At least 17 key leaders and senior engineers have left Blue Origin this summer, with many moving on in the weeks after Bezos’ spaceflight.Two of the engineers, Nitin Arora and Lauren Lyons,...

The most powerful rocket ever built has now been stacked Starship 20 is being prepared for stacking atop Super Heavy Booster 4 at Starbase, Texas. The booster already has all 29 Raptor engines installed and the Ship has all three sealevel and all three Vacuum Raptors installed. This will complete the historic first stacking of a complete SpaceX Starship Super Heavy launch system. VIDEOS AT LINK...................

Liftoff is at 1:35 p.m. EDT (1735 GMT) Designated Space Based Infrared System Geosynchronous Earth Orbit Flight 5 (SBIRS Geo-5), the mission marks ULA's first launch so far this year. However, the company has a busy summer planned, including the launch of Boeing's Starliner crew capsule to the International Space Station. That mission, called OFT-2, will be the spacecraft's second uncrewed orbital flight test. The first, which occurred in Dec. 2019, failed to reach the space station due to a software issue. Following a successful second flight test, Boeing will launch its first crew of astronauts later this year. Weather...

paceX launches Starship SN15 rocket and sticks the landing in high-altitude test flight By Mike Wall 8 minutes ago "Landing nominal," Elon Musk says. Click here for more Space.com videos... SpaceX's SN15 stuck the landing. The private spaceflight company's latest Starship prototype aced a high-altitude test flight today (May 5), checking every box from takeoff to touchdown for the first time. "We are down! The Starship has landed," John Insprucker, SpaceX's principal integration engineer, said during live commentary. Today's uncrewed test came on the 60th anniversary of the United States' first-ever crewed spaceflight, the suborbital jaunt of NASA astronaut Alan...

All of the astronauts — representing the U.S., Russia, Japan and France — managed to squeeze into camera view for a congratulatory call from the leaders of their space agencies.

SpaceX launched its third crew to the International Space Station an hour before sunrise Friday, recycling a rocket and spacecraft for the first time. The Crew-2 mission, the first involving a European, blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 09:49 UTC (5:49 am Eastern Time). "Endeavour launches once again - four astronauts from three countries on Crew-2, now making their way to the one and only International Space Station," announcer Gary Jordan said to loud cheers and applause. Liftoff of Falcon 9 and Dragon! pic.twitter.com/g6Oi8qwU2Y — SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 23, 2021 The Crew Dragon entered orbit a...

SpaceX launched its third crew to the International Space Station an hour before sunrise on Friday in Florida, recycling a rocket and spacecraft for the first time. The Crew-2 mission, the first involving a European, blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 5.49am Eastern Time (7.49pm AEST). “Endeavour launches once again — four astronauts from three countries on Crew-2, now making their way to the one and only International Space Station,” announcer Gary Jordan said to loud cheers and applause. The Crew Dragon entered orbit a few minutes later and is racing to catch up with the...

Watch live starting at 1:30 a.m. EDT (5:30 UTC), Fri., April 23, as four astronauts launch from Earth to their new home in space, the International Space Station. At 5:49 a.m. EDT (9:49 UTC), the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket will lift off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur of NASA, Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency, and Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will join the station's crew, for a mission of approximately six months. This will be the first launch through our Commercial Crew Program...

ORLANDO, Fla., April 16 (UPI) -- Elon Musk's SpaceX has won a $2.9 billion contract to develop the company's Starship rocket as a lunar lander to carry astronauts on Artemis moon missions, NASA announced Friday. In selecting only SpaceX for the lunar program, NASA ended consideration of Musk's rival, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his Blue Origin space company, and a third proposal by Huntsville, Ala.-based Dynetics.

In the next few months, SpaceX could have more than 1,600 of its Starlink satellites in low-Earth orbit, and that may be enough for the nascent broadband service to reach just about anywhere in the world. "After about 28 launches, we'll have continuous coverage throughout the globe," SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said Tuesday during an online panel discussion for the Satellite 2021 LEO Digital Forum. The 23rd operational Starlink launch is set for Wednesday. That means we're about a half dozen launches away from the point Shotwell describes. SpaceX has already successfully conducted seven dedicated Starlink launches in 2021 so...

July 30, 2018 RELEASE 18-13 Mars Terraforming Not Possible Using Present-Day Technology Science fiction writers have long featured terraforming, the process of creating an Earth-like or habitable environment on another planet, in their stories. Scientists themselves have proposed terraforming to enable the long-term colonization of Mars. A solution common to both groups is to release carbon dioxide gas trapped in the Martian surface to thicken the atmosphere and act as a blanket to warm the planet. However, Mars does not retain enough carbon dioxide that could practically be put back into the atmosphere to warm Mars, according to a new...

The future for American commercial space activity is bright. Space entrepreneurs are already planning travel to Mars, and they are looking to the moon as the perfect location for a way station to refuel and restock Mars-bound rockets. As much as this sounds like the plot of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” it is coming closer to reality sooner than you may have ever thought possible. A privately funded American space industry is the reason. This industry is making progress in leaps and bounds. The global space economy is approaching $350 billion and is expected to become a multitrillion-dollar industry. There...