Covering All Things Florida
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. – Sometimes it seems like you can’t catch a break…or at least it must seem that way to a space station full of astronauts who find themselves away from home a lot longer than planned.
SpaceX’s fifth flight test of a complete Starship was a resounding success. After watching that launch, it is hard not to be inspired by what is coming for SpaceX and humanity.
Houston-based Axiom Space unveiled the flight design of the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) spacesuit for the first time today at the International Astronautical Congress in Milan. This new suit is a critical part of the Artemis program — it is what the Artemis astronauts will don to walk on the lunar surface.
Prada, the Italian fashion house, partnered with Axiom to design and construct the AxEMU suit.
NASA’s Commercial Crew office released its high-level plan for 2025 today. It has few surprises, with two SpaceX Commercial Crew missions, and offers the slightest of updates for Boeing’s Starliner program and holds out the possibility of a Starliner flight next year.
NASA and SpaceX began Europa Clipper’s journey to Jupiter and its moon Europa aboard a Falcon Heavy this afternoon from Kennedy Space Center. Launch was at 12:06 PM EDT under blue skies and pleasant temperatures.
Ever the masters of threading the weather needle, SpaceX sent a Falcon 9 on its way to orbit and the Hera probe on its way to the Didymos binary asteroid system that was impacted by NASA’s DART probe on September 26, 2022.
The FAA released a brief statement recognizing that the second stage of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 used for the Crew 9 launch landed outside of its designated landing zone, and that they are requiring an investigation.
SpaceX successfully launched the Crew 9 mission today from Space Launch Complex 40 in the first crewed launch from that storied pad. Liftoff was at 01:17 PM EDT under broken skies and a building threat of storms.
NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson has returned to Earth from the International Space Station. During her 184 days in space, she orbited Earth 2,944 times and traveled approximately 78 million miles.
The NASA SpaceX Crew-9 mission, set to launch on September 26, 2024, will see NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov embarking on a six-month scientific mission to the International Space Station (ISS). For the first time, a crewed mission will be launched from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, adding a new dimension to SpaceX’s launch capabilities and enhancing operational flexibility (NASA). This mission will also formularize Starliner astronauts currently aboard the ISS with the Dragon spacecraft operations in preparation for their return flight home after the completion of the Crew 9 mission.
NASA’s position as a leader in global innovation and a driver of technological advancement in the United States could be jeopardized by a mismatch between its budget and its mission scope, an overemphasis on short-term goals, and crumbling infrastructure, according to a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
In the sci-fi classic “2010: The Year We Make Contact”, a manned mission headed to Europa received an ominous warning from alien monoliths, “All these worlds are yours except Europa – attempt no landing there.“NASA is very likely hoping this bit of science fiction stays that way as they prepare to launch a new mission to explore Jupiter’s icy moon.
