Covering All Things Florida
This Valentines Day, SpaceX is setting hearts aflutter with not one, but two rocket launches. The Falcon 9 rockets are scheduled to take off from Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Polaris Dawn, the initial flight of a planned series of three private spaceflights led by American entrepreneur and private astronaut Jared Isaacman, has been delayed according to an announcement from the program today. “We are now targeting no earlier than summer 2024 for launch of Polaris Dawn, the first of the Polaris Program’s three human spaceflights,” they said in a post on the X platform.
Most Americans are able to recall that the United States successfully landed astronauts on the Moon during 1969 and into the early 1970s. What’s not as well known is the number of attempts by various nations to explore the Moon, whether by fly-by or actual landing…..and how many were unsuccessful.
In what some observers consider a signal of growing confidence and ambition within the commercial space sector, Sierra Space Corp., a leading aerospace company based in Colorado, is intensifying its preparations for an initial public offering.
The Axiom 3 mission has ended safely off the Florida coast near Daytona Beach. Michael López-Alegría, Commander of the the AX3 mission, reported a few minutes after the splashdown “flying SpaceX was our pleasure” and that “all four crew members are feeling well.”
In the early hours of Thursday, NASA’s latest Earth science mission began its journey to space, marking the start of a mission to better our understanding of the planet’s marine life and atmospheric conditions.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California announced the imminent layoff of 530 employees on Tuesday in a round of NASA budget cuts. The lab is funded by NASA and managed by CalTech. The layoffs come at a time when federal funding is sketchy, but private industry is ramping up Commercial Spaceflight at a record pace.
“Without an approved federal budget including final allocation for MSR FY24 funding levels, NASA previously directed JPL to plan for an MSR budget of $300M. This is consistent with the low end of congressional markups of NASA’s budget and a 63% decrease over the FY23 level.”
Source: JPL
For 10 days in January, the Peregrine Lunar Lander, made by US company Astrobotic, kept spaceflight observers on the edge of their seat. Peregrine, the first US lunar lander in over 50 years was to mark our country’s return to the moon. More importantly, the landing was a major step in sending a manned lander to the moon in 2026 under the Artemis program. A propellant leak cut that mission short, and eventually scuttled it with the craft making a fiery return to earth.
NASA, Axiom Space, and SpaceX are standing down from the Tuesday, Feb. 6, undocking opportunity of Axiom Mission 3 from the International Space Station. Mission teams will continue to review weather conditions off the coast of Florida, which currently are not favorable for return, and set a new target opportunity for space station departure and splashdown of the Dragon spacecraft and Axiom crew members. The newest target date for undocking is Wednesday at 9:05 AM ET . The splashdown time has not yet been announced.
There is no indication that these delays in any way pose risk to the crew of either the Dragon spacecraft or the ISS.
In an era where understanding Earth’s climate dynamics is more critical than ever, NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission, aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, will be a vital asset to furthering and tracking our knowledge of the Planet. Set to launch from Cape Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40, this mission embodies the culmination of years of meticulous planning and collaboration between NASA and SpaceX, aiming to extend our comprehension of the planet’s climate system and its intricate processes. Lift is set for 1:33am Tuesday morning with the first stage booster returning to LZ 1 at CCSFS.
Black History Month is here again, and FMN is proud to honor an outstanding NASA engineer.
In the vast realm of space exploration, one name has been shining bright at the forefront of innovation and discovery – Tawnya Plummer Laughinghouse. Laughinghouse is manager for Technology Demonstration Missions at Marshall Space Flight Center, where she oversees the largest program in the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.
