In a Feb. 17 update, NASA and Boeing officials outlined the aerospace company’s work on its entry for NASA’s commercial crew program, and where the historic flight might fit into the space station’s busy manifest in upcoming months.

Icy particles of silica ejected from Saturn’s moon Enceladus are blasted out by heating at its frozen core as it is squashed and stretched by the gas giant’s tremendous gravity. 

NASA selected SpaceX in March 2020 for its first Gateway Logistics Services contract to transport cargo to and from the lunar Gateway. SpaceX will develop a version of its Dragon cargo spacecraft, called Dragon XL, that would launch on a Falcon Heavy to deliver several tons of cargo to Gateway and remove trash.

Construction and commissioning of the first launch station at Hainan Commercial Launch Site will be completed by the end of this year, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) stated Jan. 29.

Most of the people who converged on the Kennedy Space Center in mid-November for the third Artemis 1 launch attempt were focused on the giant Space Launch System rocket standing at Launch Complex 39B and the Orion spacecraft on top. Craig Hardgrove was thinking about something much smaller.

The Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission will send NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the station on an eight-day mission, launching from Cape Canaveral and landing at White Sands, New Mexico. The mission, following a successful uncrewed flight to the ISS last May, is intended to be the final major test of the vehicle before NASA certifies it for use on ISS crew rotation missions.

HELSINKI — Launches conducted by commercial Chinese launch service providers could more than double those attempted last year, according to firms’ plans for 2023.

Being an astronaut is a tremendous commitment. Astronaut candidates — who tend to be selected in their 30s and 40s — usually leave prestigious careers for a chance at being an astronaut, starting again at the bottom of the rung. Training means long days at work and lots of travel. There’s also no guarantee they’ll make it into space.

Look out, everyone: There’s a new exoplanet in town.  An international team of researchers searching for transiting exoplanets (those that cross their host star’s face from our perspective) has made its latest discovery — an Earth-size body just 72 light-years away from us

A major solar flare erupted from the sun Saturday (Feb. 11), spawning a radio blackout for parts of Earth and setting the stage for more flares to come. 

The Polaris Program is a planned series of private crewed space missions organized by U.S. billionaire Jared Isaacman. 

Two probes — BepiColombo, headed to Mercury, and Solar Orbiter, en route to the sun — recently passed by Venus at nearly the same time, visiting Earth’s sister planet within a day of each other in August 2021. Their combined observations, recently published in the journal Nature Communications (opens in new tab), give astronomers a rare glimpse into the workings of Venus’ magnetic field.

WASHINGTON — The government of Saudi Arabia has announced the two astronauts who will fly to the International Space Station this spring on a private astronaut mission by Axiom Space.

With 25 projects from the European Space Agency (ESA) since Poland’s accession to ESA 10 years ago, Łukasiewicz – Institute of Aviation became a R&D hot spot in space propulsion in Central-Eastern Europe. Completed and ongoing projects with key spacecraft integrators (i.e. Airbus Defence & Space, OHB and Thales Alenia Space), as well as established players in space transportation systems (i.e. ArianeGroup, Avio, Nammo) and major new space companies – the institute have the ultimate goal of bringing new components, technologies and subsystems to the international market.

WASHINGTON — Russia has delayed the launch of an uncrewed Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station, intended to replace a damaged spacecraft there, to investigate damage to a second spacecraft there.

WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin plans to launch the first demonstration mission of its new LM 400 mid-sized satellite bus in 2023, the company announced Jan. 31