The mission kicked off Thursday evening with a Florida launch, and the Starliner — which is designed to carry astronauts but is flying without people for this test — docked with the ISS Friday night at 8:28 pm ET. The docking occurred about an hour later than expected as ground crews worked through a few … Read more
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., May 20 (Reuters) – Boeing’s (BA.N) new Starliner crew capsule docked for the first time with the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday, completing a major objective in a high stakes do-over test flight into orbit without astronauts aboard. The rendezvous of the gumdrop-shaped CST-100 Starliner with the orbital research outpost, currently … Read more
Launch of the capsule, called the Starliner, is scheduled for 6:54 pm ET Thursday from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. If all goes well, the Atlas V rocket will vault the capsule into orbit, after which it will detach and spend about 24 hours free flying through orbit before it arrives at the ISS … Read more
That, however, did not come to fruition. Errors, delays and failures beleaguered the spacecraft’s development. There was a botched test flight, software issues, sticky valves and a lawsuit involving an executive at a subcontractor who is said to have lost his leg during the Starliner test. After initially giving SpaceX closer scrutiny than Boeing, officials … Read more
It’s not a stairway to heaven – it’s a doorway on Mars. The image of what looks to be a symmetrical, hand-hewn Martian portal, captured May 7 by NASA’s Curiosity rover, has ignited a cosmic array of speculation, conspiracy theories and dreams of intelligent life on the red planet. “If you zoom in all the … Read more
The latest is scheduled for Friday evening with the launch of 53 of SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites out of California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base. It will be the twelfth Starlink launch so far this year, and it could be followed over the weekend with another mission set to take off out of Florida. It’s been … Read more
The CST-100 Starliner is scheduled for a May 19 Florida launch atop an Atlas 5 rocket to the International Space Station, with Boeing aiming to show NASA that the spacecraft is safe to ferry astronauts to and from the orbiting outpost. Software failures cut short a similar 2019 uncrewed test flight. The mission is a … Read more
A SpaceX launch left a wild phenomenon in the Falcon 9 rocket traveled to space at break-neck speeds. Clear weather conditions and early morning sun rays lit up the rocket’s exhaust plume creating a “space jellyfish”. On average, Elon Musk and SpaceX will launch a rocket once a week this year. This morning, a Falcon … Read more
Despite saying the fix needed to make the rocket capture work is “trivial,” Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck told reporters at a post-flight briefing that the company will need to go back to the testing phase. The plan is to build a better replica of the rocket booster to use in simulations so that the … Read more
This mission, labeled “There and Back Again,” took off at 6:50 pm ET. Company communications advisor, Murielle Baker, after initially declaring success, came onto the companies webcast to acknowledge the pilot of the helicopter dropped the rocket “at his discretion” after experiencing a “different load characteristic” than he had during test runs of the catch. … Read more