Space News

Lockheed Martin is now ready to transport the crew capsule of the Orion spacecraft from Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans to Kennedy Space Center in Florida following the completion of the structural closeout weld in July, NASASpaceflight.com reported Tuesday. Orion will launch with four astronauts aboard the Space Launch System rocket as part of Exploration Mission-2 that […] More

Lockheed Martin has provided an initial look of a 22-foot-long habitat prototype it has built for NASA in support of deep space missions, the Orlando Sentinel reported Thursday. The company unveiled at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida the habitat, which is designed to accommodate up to four astronauts for a month to 60 days […] More

NASA and Elon Musk’s SpaceX collaborate to finalize launch day operations for the planned April 2019 test flight of a company-built spaceship built to transport astronauts to the International Space Station. Both parties agreed on a proposal to fuel a Falcon 9 rocket after ensuring astronauts are already inside the Crew Dragon module and set for crewed […] More

The team in charge of NASA‘s Parker Solar Probe has observed that the spacecraft is performing as planned, Space News reported Friday. Andy Driesman, who manages the mission from Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, said in a statement that the spacecraft is operating as designed, and the team is moving forward with commissioning activities. The […] More

NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center has partnered with United Launch Alliance to develop systems to manage cryogenic liquid and retrieve space vehicles in midair. The Lockheed Martin–Boeing joint venture will receive $2 million to demonstrate how very-low cryogenic fuel boil off can support long-duration missions with the Centaur Cryote-3 rocket stage under the Cryogenic Fluid Management Technology Demonstration effort, NASA said Thursday. The agency’s Kennedy Space […] More

Some defense companies have expressed optimism on the Trump administration’s plan to establish a new “space force” as they expect the proposed service branch to boost defense spending on space-related work, The Hill reported Wednesday. “It’s pretty exciting for all of us in the industry to see the intense level of interest that this administration and […] More

Aerojet Rocketdyne has conducted a hot-fire test of an engine technology the company built for NASA’s Space Launch System rocket. The company said Tuesday it performed the RS-25 engine test at the agency’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi and assessed the performance of the main combustion chamber during the 319-second engine fire test attended by NASA Administrator […] More

Engility completed independent verification and validation support work for a NASA spacecraft that launched on Sunday to study the sun’s unexplored portions. The company said Monday it evaluated the Parker Solar Probe‘s operation software to confirm the spacecraft’s capacity to perform as intended and work under austere conditions when close to the sun. Engility also […] More

A solar probe that Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory designed and produced for NASA took off Sunday aboard United Launch Alliance’s Delta IV Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The Parker Solar Probe will deploy its magnetometer boom and high-gain antenna in the mission’s first week and kick off in September […] More

Northrop Grumman provided a propulsion system component that helped United Launch Alliance’s Delta IV Heavy rocket lift a new NASA spacecraft Sunday from Cape Canaveral in Florida into space. The third stage is built to carry the agency’s Parker Solar Probe in its intended orbit as part f a mission to study the effect of the sun’s changing conditions on […] More