News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — Watch it go! NASA’s Artemis 1 moon mission is on its way to the launch pad. NASA’s iconic crawler-transporter 2 (CT-2, or “the crawler”) vehicle is on its way to Pad 39B here at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC), carrying the agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket and Orion spacecraft that … Read more
A European Mars rover built in partnership with Russia will not launch to the Red Planet this year as the European Space Agency suspends cooperation with its Russian counterpart in the wake of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. European Space Agency (ESA) officials announced the decision Thursday (March 15) following a two-day meeting of representatives … Read more
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — The first mission in NASA’s Artemis moon program is set to roll out to the launch pad today (March 17). More than 50 years after NASA landed the first humans on the moon with Apollo 11, the agency is gearing up to launch its next human lunar missions as part of … Read more
NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) will carry humans beyond the grasp of Earth’s gravity, stretching to the moon, Mars and perhaps, one day, deep space. The first destination is the moon. The new heavy-duty launch vehicle will be the world’s most powerful rocket designed to carry unmatched payloads into deep space. Unlike any other space … Read more
The private spaceflight startup Astra on Monday called off its first attempt to launch a rocket since a failed flight last month due to the risk of lightning at its Alaska liftoff site. Astra scrubbed the attempted launch of its Astra-1 mission Monday (March 14) at Pad LP-3B at the Pacific Spaceport Complex on Alaska’s … Read more
The private spaceflight startup Astra will launch a commercial mission for Spaceflight, Inc. today and you can watch it live online. An Astra Rocket 3.3 booster is scheduled to lift off at (1622 GMT, 9:22 a.m. PDT) from Astra’s pad on Kodiak Island, Alaska. You can watch the launch countdown live here, courtesy of NASA … Read more
On the heels of a third straight successful launch from California earlier this year, Virgin Orbit plans to extend its liftoffs to the United Kingdom. The company aims to launch for the first time this summer from Spaceport Cornwall, in the western United Kingdom, Virgin Orbit announced on Wednesday (March 9). The mission will loft … Read more
U.S. research agencies would get budget boosts of roughly 5% this year under a final 2022 spending bill that congressional leaders unveiled early today and hope to pass in the next few days. But those amounts fall far short of aspirational funding levels for several science agencies that Congress is weighing under separate legislation now … Read more
SpaceX will launch four dozen Starlink internet satellites and land the returning rocket on Wednesday (March 9), and you can watch the action live. A two-stage Falcon 9 rocket topped with 48 Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Wednesday at 8:45 a.m. EST (13:45 GMT). If all … Read more
Astra thinks it knows what went wrong during last month’s failed flight, which was the company’s first-ever mission with operational payloads onboard. Astra’s two-stage Launch Vehicle 0008 (LV0008) lifted off on Feb. 10 from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, carrying four tiny cubesats on a mission organized by NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites initiative, … Read more