Launch of SpaceX Falcon 9 with four astronauts aboard on the Axiom-3 Mission. Photo: Charles Boyer
Minutes before a warm front brought heavy showers to Kennedy Space Center, SpaceX launched the Axiom 3 mission on a 16 day round trip to the ISS. Four Axiom Space astronauts rode the chartered Space-X Crew Dragon module to orbit on top of a Falcon 9 booster at 4:49 PM EST this evening. The all-European crew is expected to dock at ISS in two days’ time and stay aboard the station until February 3, 2024.
Falcon 9 with Crew Dragon sitting on Pad LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center on January 17, 2024 Photo: Charles Boyer
Earlier today, SpaceX announced that they are delaying their planned launch of Falcon 9 carrying four astronauts to orbit aboard a Crew Dragon to the International Space Station for “teams to complete pre-launch checkouts and data analysis on the vehicle.”
The mission on behalf of Axiom Space is dubbed Axiom-3 and will now launch NET on Thursday, January 18, 2024, at 4:49 PM EST.
Axiom Space’s third commercial astronaut mission, Ax-3, is set to be a historic event as the first all-European commercial astronaut mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The mission underscores a new era in space travel, where access to low-Earth orbit (LEO) is becoming increasingly commercialized and international.
Credit: left – Mike McMillan/USFS, center – Tomas Castelazo / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0, right – NASA.
Washington, D.C.– NASA said in a news release last week that their latest climate change analysis has determined that 2023 was the warmest year on record for Earth’s average surface temperature.
Shining brightly in this Hubble image is our closest stellar neighbor: Proxima Centauri. Although it looks bright through the eye of Hubble, as you might expect from the nearest star to the Solar System, Proxima Centauri is not visible to the naked eye. Space Initiatives, Inc. in Titusville plans to study the possibility of a mission to this star in this century. Photo: Creative Commons
It sounds like something out of a science-fiction movie: a space mission to visit another star to find out if life or the potential of it exists there.
Lockheed Martin X-59 Photography By Garry Tice 1011 Lockheed Way, Palmdale, Ca. 93599 Date: 12/12/2023
NASA unveiled America’s new X-59 aircraft today at LMs Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California. The experimental aircraft is designed as an experimental test-bed for “quiet supersonic” air travel and it is hoped that it will serve as a serious starting point for commercial aircraft that can travel faster than the speed of sound, this time in a quieter, more efficient manner than previous airplanes like the Concorde.
SLS Artemis I on launch Complex 39A at KSC in Florida. Image by Richard P. Gallagher
NASA’s ambitious Artemis program, a cornerstone of the agency’s lunar exploration and Mars preparation efforts, has been delayed again. In a 2020 Artemis mission profile, NASA was aiming to again land humans on the moon in 2024. Developement delays have forced NASA to revise the timeline for the upcoming Artemis II and III launch dates.
The Peregrine lunar lander is scheduled to launch atop a new United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan Centaur rocket. This launch is set for January 8, 2024, at 2:18 a.m. EST from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus cargo craft is pictured moments away from being captured by the Canadarm2 robotic arm controlled by NASA astronaut and Expedition 69 Flight Engineer Woody Hoburg from inside the International Space Station.
Not to be confused with the Crew Dragon scheduled to depart the ISS on Thursday night, NASA has issued a news release on the departure of Cygnus Friday morning.
Image: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab/NASA
Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Lab announced on Tuesday that NASA has cleared the Dragonfly mission to enter its next phase of development.
