Official NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 portrait: (L-R) Stephanie Wilson, Aleksandr Gorbunov, Nick Hague, and Zena Cardman. NASA
NASA today announced the four astronauts that will travel aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station later this year: Zena Cardman will be the Mission Commander, Nick Hague will be the Pilot, along with Stephanie Wilson and Russian Mission Specialist Aleksandr Gorbunov will travel to ISS no earlier than August 2024.
Explorer 1 launching aboard a Jupiter-C Booster on January 31, 1958 Photo: NASA Archives
Cape Canaveral Every four or five days, Space Coast residents hear or see a rocket taking flight from the Cape, often carrying thirty or more satellites to low-Earth orbit. It happens so often that people will shrug and say something like, “It’s just another Starlink flight,” and not think twice about it.
SpaceX Falcon 9 Lifts off from Pad SLC-40 at Canaveral Space Force Station on January 30, 2024. Photo: Chris Leymarie, Florida Media Now
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Jan. 30, 2024 SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 carrying the Northrup Grumman NG-20 mission toward ISS this afternoon. The launch was at 12:07 PM EST from the company’s launch pad at SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Once it had completed its part of the mission, Booster 1077 completed its tenth flight when it safely touched down at Landing Zone 1, about 5.6 miles to the south of where it launched a little more than eight minutes earlier.
By Jim Turner, Florida News Service. Reprinted with permission.
TALLAHASSEE — With Florida rocket launches in 2024 expected to top a record set last year, the state’s aerospace agency is seeking more money from lawmakers and is backing an expansion of spaceport designations.
Axiom Station pressure vessel under construction at the Thales Alenia factory in Turin, Italy. Credit: Axiom Space
Italy is well-known to world travelers for its culinary expertise, and that skill is now being added to the country’s many contributions to space exploration on the Axiom 3 mission.
Northrop Grumman’s NG-20 Cygnus resupply spacecraft, named the S.S. Patricia “Patty” Hilliard Robertson, is moved in the Space Station Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida as it is prepared for its launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station. Credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky
In an NG-20 pre-launch media teleconference on January, 26, 2024, Bill Gerstenmaier, SpaceX VP Build and Flight Reliability, revealed that a new access door had been added to the fairing that protects the Cygnus spacecraft atop the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. But Why?
Northrup Grumman Cygnus NG-20 inside its launch fairings. Photo: NASA
The launch of Northrup-Grumman’s Cygnus NG-20 has been delayed until Tuesday, January 30th at 12:07 PM EST.
William Gerstenmaier, SpaceX’s vice president of Build and Flight Reliability, said in a news conference on January 26th that, “it’s taken a lot of modifications on our part to get this hardware ready to go fly, and we want to make sure it goes right. We think it is good to delay a little bit and make sure we get all this activity right and we’re ready to get this cargo inserted into Cygnus and get ready to fly on Tuesday.”
Remembering the Astronauts who are no longer with us. Above is the Space Mirror Memorial at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Image by Richard P Gallagher
The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex held its annual Day of Remembrance ceremony yesterday, commemorating the brave astronauts who lost their lives in pursuit of space exploration and discovery. The event, a solemn tribute to their sacrifices, specifically honored the memory of those involved in the Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia tragedies, as well as other astronauts lost in training accidents before ever reaching space.
Cygnus ISS Resupply Module Photo: Northrop Grumman
Northrop Grumman (NG) and SpaceX are set to launch the Cygnus spacecraft aboard a Falcon 9 rocket next week from Florida to the International Space Station. The launch window opens at 12:29 PM on Monday, January 29th.
The crew of the the shuttle Columbia died during reentry on mission STS-107 on February 1, 2003 Photo: NASA
WASHINGTON D.C. – The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is set to honor the memory of astronauts who sacrificed their lives in the pursuit of space exploration and discovery.
Do you remember family road trips of years gone by? A designated navigator would sit in the front passenger seat with a map and a highlighter, or with a AAA TripTik, telling the driver what turn to take next.
