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.
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.
Bill Paxton portrays ill astronaut Fred Haise in Apollo 13. Photo: Photofest – H 2017
It’s Happened Before….
In the factual 1995 feature film Apollo 13 starring Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell, one of the other two Apollo 13 astronauts, Fred Haise played by Bill Paxton, gets quite ill during the flight back from the moon.
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.