Tag: spaceflight
NASA astronaut Christina Koch returns to Earth after record-setting stay in space
Astronaut Christina Koch made the return trip from the International Space Station (ISS) early on Thursday, along with ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov. The three boarded a Soyuz capsule docked at the ISS at around 12:50 AM EST, and had a safe landing as planned at…
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SpaceX will now let you book a rocket launch online starting at $1 million
SpaceX has launched a new web-based booking tool for its rideshare Falcon 9 launches, a service it announced last year to expand its addressable market to include small satellite customers who don’t have the budget or need to book a full rocket, which can cost upwards of $60 million. Prices…
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Rocket Lab readies parachute tests for its rocket recovery and reuse program
Rocket Lab is proceeding as planned with its efforts to recover and reuse spent rocket boosters from its Electron launch vehicle, and has completed its first prototype parachute for use in the recovery process. Rocket lab CEO Peter Beck announced last year that it would be aiming for reusability with…
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Elon Musk promotes Texas ‘career day’ as SpaceX files paperwork for Starship flight as early as March
SpaceX’s next-generation spacecraft is already well into development, but company CEO and founder Elon Musk clearly would like things to be developing at an even faster rate: he tweeted early Tuesday morning that SpaceX would be hosting a “Starship career day” at the company’s Stargate building in Boca Chica, Texas,…
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NASA sets 2022 launch for air quality sensor that will provide hourly updates across North American
NASA is sending a payload that could help improve air quality forecasting to orbit aboard a Maxar 1300-class satellite whose primary mission is to provide commercial satellite communications for Intelsat customers, the agency announced today. NASA’s new air quality measurement tool is called ‘TEMPO,’ which stands for Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring…
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Max Q: SpaceX’s Starlink constellation grows again
Max Q is a new weekly newsletter all about space. Sign up here to receive it weekly on Sundays in your inbox. This week was the busiest yet for space-related news in 2020, thanks in part to the 23rd Annual FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference that happened last week. The…
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