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[1/3] Spectators look on as SpaceX's next-generation Starship spacecraft, atop its powerful Super Heavy rocket, is prepared for launch from the company's Boca Chica launchpad on an uncrewed test flight, near Brownsville, Texas, U.S. November 17 2023. Starship is mounted atop its towering Super Heavy rocket booster in what will be the second attempted flight of both vehicles together. The launch had been scheduled for Friday but was pushed back by a day for a last-minute swap of flight-control hardware. SpaceX is aiming to at least exceed Starship-Super Heavy's performance during its April 20 test flight, when the two-stage spacecraft blew itself to bits less than four minutes into a planned 90-minute flight. SpaceX has since reinforced the launch pad with a massive water-cooled steel plate, one of dozens of corrective actions that the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration required before granting a launch license on Wednesday for the second test flight.

Persons: Joe Skipper, SpaceX's, Elon Musk, Artemis, Bill Nelson, Nelson, Musk, Joey Roulette, Steve Gorman, Will Dunham Organizations: Boca Chica, REUTERS, blastoff, NASA, Saturn, SpaceX, Reuters, U.S . Federal Aviation Administration, Thomson Locations: Brownsville , Texas, U.S, CHICA , Texas, Texas, of Mexico, Boca Chica, Hawaii's, Mars, China, New York, Los Angeles, Boca Chica , Texas

WASHINGTON, May 31 (Reuters) - A NASA panel formed last year to study what the government calls "unidentified aerial phenomena," commonly termed UFOs, was due to hold its first public meeting on Wednesday, ahead of a report expected in coming weeks. The focus of Wednesday's four-hour public session "is to hold final deliberations before the agency's independent study team publishes a report this summer," NASA said in announcing the meeting. The panel represents the first such inquiry ever conducted under the auspices of the U.S. space agency for a subject the government once consigned to the exclusive and secretive purview of military and national security officials. The NASA study is separate from a newly formalized Pentagon-based investigation of unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs, documented in recent years by military aviators and analyzed by U.S. defense and intelligence officials. "There is no evidence UAPs are extraterrestrial in origin," NASA said in announcing the panel's formation last June.

Persons: Joey Roulette, Steve Gorman, Robert Birsel Organizations: NASA, U.S, Pentagon, UAP, Thomson Locations: U.S, Washington, Los Angeles

WASHINGTON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Blue Origin, the private space company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was awarded its first interplanetary NASA contract on Thursday to launch a mission next year to study the magnetic field around Mars, the U.S. space agency and company said. Blue Origin has flown previous NASA missions with its smaller, suborbital New Shepard rocket, which can carry research payloads on short, microgravity trips to the edge of space and back. Blue Origin, known for its astro-tourism business for wealthy customers and celebrities, is one of 13 firms NASA chose last year for its Venture-class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare missions (VADR) program. VADR essentially is intended to spur private development of private space launch vehicles by assigning lower-cost NASA science missions to new rockets with an unproven record and higher chance of failure. Blue Origin also declined to discuss financial details.

[1/4] NASA's next-generation moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion crew capsule, lifts off from launch complex 39-B on the unmanned Artemis 1 mission to the moon, seen from Sebastian, Florida, U.S. November 16, 2022. REUTERS/Joe Rimkus Jr.Dec 11 (Reuters) - NASA's uncrewed Orion capsule hurtled through space on Sunday on the final return leg of its voyage around the moon and back, winding up the inaugural mission of the 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, was due to parachute into the Pacific at 9:39 a.m. PST (1739 GMT) near Guadalupe Island, off Mexico's Baja California peninsula. They were the last of 12 NASA astronauts to walk on the moon during a total of six Apollo missions starting in 1969. "It is our priority-one objective," NASA's Artemis I mission manager Mike Sarafin said at a briefing last week.

About 90 minutes later, the rocket's upper stage propelled the Orion capsule out of Earth orbit and on its trajectory to the moon, NASA said. And it was quite a sight," Artemis mission manager Mike Sarafin told a post-launch NASA briefing, using words from biblical scripture. LAUNCH PAD HEROICSWednesday's launch was not without its own drama. [1/2] NASA's next-generation moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion crew capsule, lifts off from launch complex 39-B on the unmanned Artemis 1 mission to the moon, seen from Sebastian, Florida, U.S. November 16, 2022. It was so bright, so loud, you could feel it," said NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, an Artemis crew candidate.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Nov 15 (Reuters) - Ground teams at Kennedy Space Center prepared on Tuesday for a third try at launching NASA's towering, next-generation moon rocket, the debut flight of the U.S. space agency's Artemis lunar program, 50 years after Apollo's last moon mission. NASA flight-readiness crews were eager for success after 10 weeks beset by engineering difficulties, two hurricanes and two trips from the spacecraft's hangar to its launch pad. Two previous launch attempts, on Aug. 29 and Sept. 3, were aborted because of fuel line leaks and other technical problems that NASA has since resolved. While moored to its launch pad last week, the rocket endured fierce winds and rains from Hurricane Nicole, forcing a two-day flight postponement. NASA defends the program as a boon to space exploration that has generated tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in commerce.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Nov 16 (Reuters) - NASA'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. [1/3] NASA's next-generation moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion crew capsule, lifts off from launch complex 39-B on the unmanned Artemis1 mission to the moon at Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. November 16, 2022. REUTERS/Joe Skipper 1 2 3Addressing mission control moments after liftoff, Artemis launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson saluted the hard work of her colleagues. SPACEFLIGHT STRESS TESTGetting the SLS-Orion spacecraft off the ground was a key hurdle for the ambitious Artemis program. NASA's Office of Inspector General has projected total Artemis costs at $93 billion by 2025.

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