NASA on Monday named the first woman and the first African American ever assigned as astronauts to a lunar mission, introducing them as part of the four-member team chosen to fly on what would be the first crewed voyage around the moon in more than 50 years. Christina Koch, an engineer who already holds the record for the longest continuous spaceflight by a woman and was part of NASA's first three all-female spacewalks, was named as a mission specialist for the Artemis II lunar flyby expected as early as next year. People gather ahead of an event of NASA to announce the crew of the Artemis II space mission to the moon and back in Houston, Texas, U.S., April 3, 2023. REUTERS/Go Nakamura She will be joined by Victor Glover, a U.S. Navy aviator and veteran of four spacewalks who NAS...
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NASA's Orion capsule barreled through Earth's atmosphere and splashed down in the Pacific ocean on Sunday after making an uncrewed voyage around the moon, winding up the inaugural mission of the U.S. agency's new Artemis lunar program 50 years to the day after Apollo's final moon landing. The gumdrop-shaped Orion capsule, carrying a simulated crew of three mannequins wired with sensors, plunked down in the ocean at 9:40 a.m. PST (1740 GMT) off Mexico's Baja California peninsula, demonstrating a high-stakes homecoming before NASA flies its first crew of Artemis astronauts around the moon in the next few years. U.S. Navy divers attach winch cables to NASA's Orion capsule after being successfully secured by a NASA and U.S. Navy team, off the coast of Baja California, Mexico, 11 Decembe...
Read MoreNASA's towering next-generation moon rocket blasted off from Florida early on Wednesday on its debut flight, a crewless voyage inaugurating the U.S. space agency's Artemis exploration program 50 years after the final Apollo moon mission. The 32-story Space Launch System (SLS) rocket surged off the launch pad from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral at 1:47 a.m. EST (0647 GMT), to send its Orion capsule on a three-week test journey around the moon and back without astronauts aboard. About 90 minutes after launch, the rocket's upper stage fired thrusters for a "trans-lunar injection" burn propelling Orion out of Earth orbit on course for the moon. That put the capsule on track for a 25-day flight that will bring it to within 60 miles (97 km) of the lunar surface before sailing ...
Read MoreFor the second time in five days, NASA on Saturday halted a countdown in progress and postponed a planned attempt to launch the debut test flight of its giant, next-generation rocket, the first mission of the agency's moon-to-Mars Artemis program. The latest attempt to launch the 32-story-tall Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and its Orion capsule was scrubbed after repeated failed attempts by technicians to fix a leak of super-cooled liquid hydrogen propellant being pumped into the vehicle's core-stage fuel tanks. Pre-flight operations were officially called off for the day by Artemis I launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson about three hours before the targeted two-hour launch window was due to open at 2:17 p.m. EDT (1817 GMT). NASA's next-generation moon rocket, the Space ...
Read MoreNASA postpones debut Artemis test flight of new moon rocket after engine snag
Florida blast-off had been targeted for MondayArtemis program seeks to return humans to moon, perhaps by 2025Program is successor to Apollo moon missions 50 years ago An engine problem forced NASA on Monday to postpone for at least four days the debut launch of the colossal rocketship it hopes will one day fly astronauts back to the moon, more than a half-century after Apollo's last lunar mission. The U.S. space agency cited a problem on one of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket's main engines, as launch teams began a test that would have cooled the engines for liftoff. One of them would not cool as expected. NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard is seen at sunrise atop the mobile launcher at Launch Pad 39B, as the Artemis I launch teams load ...
Read MoreA half century after the end of NASA's Apollo era, the U.S. space agency's long-anticipated bid to return astronauts to the moon's surface remains at least three years away, with much of the necessary hardware still on the drawing board. But NASA aims to take a giant leap in its renewed lunar ambitions with the debut launch set for next Monday in Florida of its next-generation megarocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion crew capsule it is designed to carry. NASA's next-generation moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) Artemis 1 rocket with its Orion crew capsule stands on launch pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. August 17, 2022. REUTERS/Joe Skipper The combined SLS-Orion spacecraft is due for blastoff from the Kennedy Space Cente...
Read MoreNASA wants its moon dust and cockroaches back. The space agency has asked Boston-based RR Auction to halt the sale of moon dust collected during the 1969 Apollo 11 mission that had subsequently been fed to cockroaches during an experiment to determine if the lunar rock contained any sort of pathogen that posed a threat to terrestrial life. The material, a NASA lawyer said in a letter to the auctioneer, still belongs to the federal government. The material from the experiment, including a vial with about 40 milligrams of moon dust and three cockroach carcasses, was expected to sell for at least $400,000, but has been pulled from the auction block, RR said Thursday. This April 2022 handout photograph provided by RR Auction shows moon dust from the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, which w...
Read MoreJapan billionaire Maezawa says, grateful that it has wind, smells and seasons Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, newly returned to Japan after a 12-day journey into space last month, said being launched into the cosmos was less scary than riding a rollercoaster and made him obsessed with Earth. The 46-year-old fashion magnate and art collector in December became the first space tourist on the International Space Station in over a decade, preparation for a more ambitious trip around the moon with Elon Musk's SpaceX planned for 2023. Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, who returned to Earth last month after a 12-day journey into space, attends a news conference after returning to Japan, at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, in Tokyo, Japan January 7, 2022. REUTERS/Issei ...
Read MoreJapanese billionaire Lands in Kazakhstan after 12-day space flight to ISS Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa returned to Earth on Monday after a 12-day journey into space, ending a practice run for his planned trip around the moon with Elon Musk's SpaceX in 2023. Ground personnel assist Japanese entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa shortly after landing of the Soyuz MS-20 space capsule in a remote area outside Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan December 20, 2021, in this still image taken from video. Roscosmos/Handout via REUTERS The 46-year-old fashion magnate and art collector, who launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Dec. 8 along with his assistant Yozo Hirano and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin, landed on the Kazakh steppe. Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa floats ins...
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