It’s going to take a lot more than a doggy paddle to explore the oceans hidden below the icy surfaces of some of the solar system’s most intriguing moons. That’s why NASA engineers are already working on an underwater rover they hope could one day tackle the challenges posed by ocean worlds like Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon
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Boeing’s crew capsule bound for the International Space Station took its next big step on that journey yesterday (Nov. 21) as it moved from the company’s facility out to its Florida launch site. The CST-100 Starliner capsule is due to make its first flight, an uncrewed test mission, on Dec. 17. The spacecraft will spend its final month on
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX’s plans to bring global internet coverage to the world just took another leap forward as its 9th Falcon 9 rocket flight of the year launched 60 new Starlink internet satellites into orbit Monday (Nov. 11). The satellites rode into space atop a veteran Falcon 9 first stage, ending a nearly three-month launch
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WASHINGTON – Made In Space’s new satellite-construction robot could herald a new generation of autonomous machines working on the moon — and perhaps even Mars. At the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) here on Oct. 25, representatives from NASA and the California-based company Made In Space talked about the forthcoming opportunities for in-space manufacturing, which they say will
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SpaceX, the private spaceflight company known for reusable rockets and a giant, shiny Starship, will begin offering its own satellite internet service in 2020, according to SpaceNews. In fact, the U.S. Air Force is already testing it in planes. To build the service, SpaceX will have to launch up to eight Falcon 9 rockets filled with the
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WASHINGTON — Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos on Tuesday (Oct. 22) unveiled a “national team” for his company’s plan to land astronauts on the moon for NASA’s Artemis program, with three veteran aerospace companies joining the project. The U.S. companies Draper, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman will join Blue Origin’s bid to build a crewed lunar
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The commercial resupply mission will launch no earlier than Nov. 2. A Northrop Grumman Innovations Systems launch of a commercial cargo ship to the International Space Station for NASA on Oct. 21 will now liftoff on Nov. 2, NASA officials said. The NG-12 Cygnus spacecraft is scheduled to launch to the International Space Station aboard an
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Blue Origin’s first crewed spaceflight probably won’t take place this year after all. The company, which was founded in 2001 by Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos, had been hoping to start launching people to space aboard its suborbital New Shepard vehicle before the end of 2019. But the chances of meeting that target are low at this point,
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BOCA CHICA, Texas — Elon Musk has a Starship, and one day he expects it will help SpaceX reach other worlds. Standing beneath a towering Starship Mk1, a prototype for SpaceX’s massive reusable launch system, Musk laid out his plan for interplanetary travel at the company’s South Texas test site here on Saturday (Sept. 28) —
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Space Mysteries: If you travel through a black hole, where do you go? So there you are, about to leap into a black hole. What could possibly await should — against all odds — you somehow survive? Where would you end up and what tantalizing tales would you be able to regale if you managed to
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy’s MQ-25 Stingray refueling drone, destined to be the first carrier-launched autonomous unmanned aircraft integrated into the service’s strike arm, took its first test flight from MidAmerica Airport in Illinois, Boeing announced Thursday. The two-hour flight, remotely controlled by Boeing pilots, tested the basic flight functions of the aircraft, a Boeing statement said.
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What might it take to feed a million people on Mars? Lab-grown meat, tunnel-grown crops and cricket farms, a new study finds. When it comes to plans for crewed missions to Mars, NASA typically assumes round trips with only brief stopovers on the Red Planet. However, commercial space companies have emerged with the goal of
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