Mother Nature didn’t cooperate today. Elon Musk’s company was scheduled to launch its first-ever crewed mission, a test flight to the International Space Station (ISS) called Demo-2, this afternoon May 27 4.30 pm EDT (May 28 6.30 am AEST) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. But bad weather has nixed that plan, pushing the lift-off back to Saturday May 30 at the earliest, NASA and SpaceX officials announced today.

Demo-2 has an instantaneous launch window: the capsule must launch at a specific time, when the space station is at a certain spot in its orbital path. The next attempt will be on Saturday at 3:22 pm EDT (1922 GMT). For those in Australia the launch will be on Sunday at 5.22 am AEST.

If that doesn’t work out, SpaceX could try again on Sunday (May 31) at 3.00 pm EDT (1900 GMT). For those in Australia this would be Monday June 1 at 5.00 am AEST.

SpaceX is set to make history on May 27, 2020.

On that date, Elon Musk’s company is scheduled to launch its first crewed mission, a test flight called Demo-2 that will send NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station aboard a Crew Dragon capsule. If all goes well with Demo-2, Crew Dragon and SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will be validated for operational crewed missions, the first of which is expected to launch later this year.

Find out more including the latest updates, mission photos, and stories on topics including Crew Dragon, Space X spacesuits and a step-by-step guide to how the mission will run.

This week, astronauts will take off from American soil for the first time since 2011, riding aboard a SpaceX capsule in a historic test flight to the International Space Station.

On Wednesday (May 27) at 4:33 p.m. EDT (2033 GMT), veteran NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will launch as co-commanders on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon vehicle, which will lift off on a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mission, known as Demo-2, will fly the astronauts to the International Space Station. They are scheduled to arrive at the space station on May 28 and could stay in space anywhere from one to four months.

Demo-2 will be the first crewed launch to orbit from American soil since NASA’s shuttle program ended in 2011. In fact, Hurley was on the crew for both that final shuttle mission (STS-135) and the upcoming mission. The astronauts arrived at Kennedy Space Center on May 20, a week ahead of the launch, and have been preparing diligently for their ride to space. “We are on the cusp of launching American astronauts on American rockets from American soil yet again,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said May 20 after Hurley and Behnken arrived at Kennedy. “You really are a bright light for all of America right now. Thank you so much for all you’ve done and all you’re about to do.”

Virgin Orbit postponed the launch debut of its new rocket for small satellite missions today (May 24) due to a sensor glitch on the booster.

The rocket, an air-launched vehicle called LauncherOne, was expected to make its first test flight over the Pacific Ocean during a four-hour window that opened at 10 a.m. PDT (1 p.m. EDT/1700 GMT). But after fueling the rocket late Saturday, an issue popped up.

“Everything has been proceeding smoothly: team, aircraft, & rocket are in excellent shape. However, we have one sensor that is acting up,” Virgin Orbit wrote in a Twitter update. “Out of an abundance of caution, we are offloading fuel to address.”

Virgin Orbit may try again on Monday (May 25), its backup date for LauncherOne’s debut. Virgin Orbit plans to launch LauncherOne from the air using a carrier plane called Cosmic Girl, a Boeing 747 jumbo jet modified for rocket missions. Under the plan, the carrier plane will take off from the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California, fly over the Pacific Ocean and drop LauncherOne from an altitude of 35,000 feet (10,700 m).

The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile has captured an image of a planet being born around the young star AB Aurigae, which lies 520 light-years from Earth in the constellation Auriga (The Charioteer).

Like previous AB Aurigae images taken by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), this new photo shows spiral arms forming in the thick disk of dust and gas surrounding the star. These spirals are evidence of newly forming worlds, which churn up protoplanetary disks, scientists have said.

[Picture description: This image shows the disk around the young AB Aurigae star, where the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has spotted signs of planet birth. Close to the center of the image, in the inner region of the disk, we see the “twist” (in very bright yellow) that scientists believe marks the spot where a planet is forming. This twist lies at about the same distance from the AB Aurigae star as Neptune from the sun. The image was obtained with the VLT’s SPHERE instrument in polarized light.

The Dragon spacecraft that will fly SpaceX’s first-ever mission with astronauts on board has reached its Florida launch site ahead of a historic lift-off next week.

The Crew Dragon capsule arrived at Launch Complex 39A of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Florida on Friday night (May 15), making the short trek from SpaceX’s processing facility at nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The arrival marked another big milestone for SpaceX in the leadup to the planned launch of the Demo-2 mission on May 27.

Demo-2 will carry NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to and from the International Space Station (ISS). The May 27 lift-off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will be the first orbital human spaceflight to launch from U.S. soil since NASA’s space shuttle fleet retired in July 2011. Since then, NASA has relied solely on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft to perform this taxi service.

The U.S. Space Force’s mysterious X-37B space plane successfully launched on its sixth mystery mission from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 9.14 a.m. EDT (1314 GMT) on May 17, riding atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

While the X-37B’s exact purpose is a secret, Space Force officials have revealed that the craft is packing numerous experiments on this trip to test out different systems in space. Some of those experiments include a small satellite called FalconSat-8, two NASA payloads designed to study the effects of radiation on different materials as well as seeds to grow food, and a power-beaming experiment using microwave energy.

The crew is two weeks away from a historic launch. Astronauts Robert “Bob” Behnken and Douglas “Doug” Hurley entered a pre-flight quarantine today as they get ready to launch to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon vehicle as part of SpaceX’s Demo-2 mission. This type of quarantine is known officially as “flight crew health stabilization,” and is used to ensure that they will be healthy and will not carry any contagious illnesses to the space station. It is standard procedure and not related to the ongoing coronavirus issues.

This mission, scheduled to launch later this month on May 27 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, will be the first crewed mission for the vehicle and will be the first crewed mission to orbit since NASA’s Space Shuttle program ended in 2011.

If you have always wanted to pilot a spaceship, here’s your big chance to simulate the experience. Keep in mind it is harder than it looks.

SpaceX released an International Space Station docking simulator that is very close to the real thing that Crew Dragon astronauts may experience starting on the test flight scheduled for May 27.

SpaceX’s latest Starship prototype keeps passing tests, edging closer and closer to a highly anticipated test flight.

The SN4 vehicle, the latest pathfinder for SpaceX’s Starship Mars-colonization spacecraft, aced a high-pressure and high-simulated-thrust trial at the company’s Boca Chica facilities in South Texas.

But the SN4 looks poised to leave terra firma for the first time soon. Musk has said he wants the vehicle to make an uncrewed test flight to an altitude of about 500 feet (150 meters), and the prototype has now checked off a lot of boxes on the road to lift-off. That’s probably as high as the SN4 will get. SpaceX is already building its successor, the three-engine SN5, which Musk has said will target a test-flight altitude of 12 miles (20 kilometers).

This article is a fascinating look at the ancient Greeks’ understanding of Earth and the surrounding solar system, showing what they knew about the planets orbit around the sun, the size of the moon and the Earth’s circumference, as well as their design and use of the first known astronomical, mechanical calculator.

The Histories by Herodotus (484BC to 425BC) offers a remarkable window into the world as it was known to the ancient Greeks in the mid fifth century BC. Almost as interesting as what they knew, however, is what they did not know. This sets the baseline for the remarkable advances in their understanding over the next few centuries – simply relying on what they could observe with their own eyes.

Star Wars Day, May 4, celebrates George Lucas’s Star Wars media franchise.

The Kim Jackson Scholarship is a new scholarship at ANU.

It will support a promising female engineering student to pursue her passion for technology/engineering through an undergraduate degree at the ANU College of Engineering & Computer Science.

This exciting opportunity is valued at $20,000 per annum for each year of an ANU undergraduate engineering degree. The recipient must come from a non-metropolitan area to apply for this scholarship.

Europe’s spaceport will resume launch preparations in late May under new protective measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

The French space agency CNES said April 29 that 100 people will travel from Europe to the Guiana Space Center on May 11, and will start preparations for a Vega rocket launch after a 14-day quarantine ending May 25.

Arianespace, the European company that launches from the Guiana Space Center, said April 29 that the spaceport’s first missions would be a mid-June Vega launch previously scheduled for March, followed by an Ariane 5 launch in late July.

Spaceflight changes much about the human body, including how the heart functions and how cells that create heart tissue behave. Scientists studying these changes on the International Space Station continue to report important discoveries.

The investigation showed that spaceflight affects communication within and between cells, cell development and core stem cell properties.

This is a great activity during the lockdown.

NASA JPL has created a citizen science program to assist in analysis of Mars terrain.

The labels will be used for training a classifier for MSL and M2020 Ground Ops. Perhaps for on-board algorithms in the future!