The technology of things that fly
WASHINGTON- NASA on Thursday announced teams of companies that will compete for a $2.6 billion pot of contracts to send scientific instruments to the moon during the next decade for missions including the search for water ice on the lunar surface.
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Teams in mission control rooms at NASA-funded Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and its contractor Lockheed Martin in Colorado erupted in applause on Monday as InSight became the eighth lander to reach the surface of Mars undamaged. Viewers online watched a livestream of their moment of victory as controllers at NASA’s JPL shared the first image of InSight’s landing zone
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NASA and FAA are planning test flights for companies designing sky taxis to confront barriers to public acceptance including safety and noise.
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WASHINGTON- NASA has yet to convince some high-profile space community members to back its plan to assemble a space station between Earth and the moon by 2026, and to return humans to the lunar surface by 2028.
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Engineers and scientists who spent years preparing the InSight lander for its journey to Mars will have to sit and wait on Nov. 26 while the vehicle carrying the lander descends from space to the surface of the red planet at about 20,000 kilometers per hour.
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UPDATE: NASA has delayed the launch of the Northrop Grumman Antares rocket originally scheduled for Thursday because of snow and rain. The launch of cargo to the space station is now scheduled for 4:01 a.m. ET on Saturday.
Read moreNASA and its space station partners face a conundrum of timing after Thursday’s Soyuz rocket accident, which miraculously left the crew of a cosmonaut and an astronaut in shape to walk away and hug loved ones. Their capsule, which smacked into the Kazakhstan desert, was supposed to dock at the station to deliver crew members and serve as the orbiting
Read moreThe FAA authorization bill that is headed for President Donald Trump’s desk is drawing mixed reactions from the drone community because of language that gives the agency the power to set rules that permit federal authorities to “disrupt” or “destroy” any drones deemed a “credible threat,” as the bill puts it. Full story by Tom Risen is online at Aerospace America.
Read moreNASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, who is looking for innovative ways to fund the agency’s goals of landing Americans on the moon and Mars, expressed reservations about the idea of generating revenue through space station experiments and merchandising the agency’s logo on T-shirts and other products. The full story about the exchange between Bridenstine and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is online at Aerospace
Read moreRetired U.S. Air Force Gen. Richard Myers generally likes the Trump administration’s proposal to revive U.S. Space Command, which he led from 1998 to 2000, as long as it adds value to space operations. “I think if there were a U.S. Space Command like there used to be it would obviate the need for a Space Force,” Myers told me in a phone interview. Full story by Tom Risen available on Aerospace America.
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