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☆ Latest Updates: NASA Astronauts Prepare for First Launch on Boeing Starliner
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-06 | by ( Kenneth Chang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are the NASA astronauts set for Boeing’s flight test of the Starliner spacecraft. She was a test pilot in the U.S. Navy and has more than 3,000 hours flying 30 different aircraft. Mr. Wilmore, a native of Tennessee, was also a Navy test pilot, and he flew combat missions over Iraq and Bosnia in the 1990s. After a glitch-filled test flight in December 2019 with no crew aboard, delays shuffled the astronaut assignments. Indeed, none of the astronauts that NASA named in 2018 to fly on the test flight are on the upcoming test flight.

Persons: Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins, Ms, Williams, Wilmore, Mr, ” Organizations: NASA, Boeing, U.S . Navy, Navy, Station Locations: Ohio, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Iraq, Bosnia

☆ NASA Seeks ‘Hail Mary’ for Its Mars Rocks Return Mission
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-15 | by ( Kenneth Chang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The cost of a proposed NASA mission to gather rocks on Mars and return them to Earth is spiraling upward and slipping further into the future. So on Monday, space agency officials asked for ideas on simplifying the mission and trimming its price tag. “The bottom line is that $11 billion is too expensive,” Bill Nelson, the NASA administrator, said during a news conference on Monday. “And not returning samples until 2040 is unacceptably too long.”The mission, known as Mars Sample Return, is central to the search for signs that life may have existed on the red planet. NASA had hoped that Mars Sample Return would cost $5 billion to $7 billion, and that the rocks would arrive on Earth in 2033.

Persons: Bill Nelson Organizations: NASA

But the rattling shook buildings in New York City and drove startled residents into the streets. Image The command room of New York City Emergency Management. Today’s earthquake Magnitude 4.8 Conn. Pa. 1964 4.5 1994 4.6 250-mile radius from New York City Md. 250-mile radius from New York City Del. While earthquakes in New York City are surprises to most, seismologists say the ground is not as stable as New Yorkers might believe.

Persons: “, Kathy Hochul, ” Gov, Philip D, Murphy, Con Edison, Eric Adams, ”, Adams, Zach Iscol, Dave Sanders, Ron Hamburger, Valorie Brennan, Ada Carrasco, The New York Times “ I’ve, Kristina Feeley, Feeley, Folarin, “ There’s, Kolawole, Lazaro Gamio, Riyad H, Mansour, Janti, Hamburger, Michael Kemper, Clara Dossetter, David Dossetter, Dossetter, ’ ”, Lola Fadulu, Gaya Gupta, Hurubie Meko, Michael Wilson, William J . Broad, Kenneth Chang, Emma Fitzsimmons, Sarah Maslin Nir, Erin Nolan, Mihir Zaveri, Maria Cramer, Grace Ashford, Camille Baker, Liset Cruz, Michael Paulson, Patrick McGeehan, Troy Closson Organizations: ”, United States Geological Survey, Police Department, Fire Department, Con, Gracie Mansion, The New York Times, Whitehouse, New York City Emergency Management, Credit, Lamont, Columbia University, Maine CANADA, New York City Del, Lincoln Center, New York Philharmonic, United Nations, Children U.S, Security, New York Police, United Airlines, Newark Liberty International Airport Locations: Newark, New Jersey, Manhattan, Philadelphia, Boston, New York City, New York, Rockland County, Murphy of New Jersey, Whitehouse, N.J, California, Japan, Zach Iscol , New York, New, Northridge, Los Angeles, Califon, Marble, Ramapo, New York , New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Palisades, N.Y, N.H, Pa, New York City Md, Del, Va, Maine, R.I, Md, Palestinian, Gaza, East Coast, “, York, San Francisco, Gaya

☆ NASA Picks 3 Companies to Help Astronauts Drive Around the Moon
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-03 | by ( Kenneth Chang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

NASA will be renting some cool wheels to drive around the moon. Space agency officials announced on Wednesday that they have hired three companies to come up with preliminary designs for vehicles to take NASA astronauts around the lunar south polar region in the coming years. After the astronauts return to Earth, these vehicles would be able to self-drive around as robotic explorers, similar to NASA’s rovers on Mars. The self-driving capability would also allow the vehicle to meet the next astronaut mission at a different location. “Where it will go, there are no roads,” Jacob Bleacher, the chief exploration scientist at NASA, said at a news conference on Wednesday.

Persons: Jacob, Venturi Organizations: NASA, Houston Locations: Golden, Colo, Hawthorne , Calif

☆ SpaceX Blazes Forward With Latest Starship Launch
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-14 | by ( Kenneth Chang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The third try turned out to be closer to the charm for Elon Musk and SpaceX, as company’s mammoth Starship rocket launched on Thursday and traveled about halfway around the Earth before it was lost as it re-entered the atmosphere. At 8:25 a.m. Central time, Starship — the biggest and most powerful rocket ever to fly — lifted off from the coast of South Texas. The ascent was smooth, with the upper Starship stage reaching orbital velocities. About 45 minutes after launch, it started re-entering the atmosphere, heading toward a belly-flop splashdown in the Indian Ocean. Then communications with Starship ended, and SpaceX later said the vehicle had not survived the re-entry.

Persons: Elon Musk Organizations: SpaceX, NASA Locations: South Texas

☆ Live Updates: SpaceX Prepares to Launch Third Starship Flight
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-14 | by ( Kenneth Chang | Michael Roston | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

ET Kenneth Chang andSpaceX is trying for a third time to launch Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, on a journey part of the way around Earth. The vehicle flew twice last year from a SpaceX launch site in Boca Chica, Texas, along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. There is a 110-minute window during which the flight could launch, so the company could launch later as is often the case during test flights. The Starship system consists of two stages — the Super Heavy rocket booster and the upper-stage spacecraft, which is also called Starship. SpaceX’s second Starship flight, on Nov. 18, achieved several milestones, including an in-flight procedure called hot staging in which the upper-stage engines start firing before the booster stage drops away.

Persons: Kenneth Chang, Elon Musk, SpaceX’s Organizations: SpaceX, NASA, SpaceX’s, New York Times Locations: Boca Chica , Texas, Gulf of Mexico

☆ What Is SpaceX’s Starship? It’s Really a Mars Ship.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-14 | by ( Kenneth Chang | More About Kenneth Chang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

NASA’s new Space Launch System rocket, which made its first flight in November 2022, holds the current record for the maximum thrust of a rocket: 8.8 million pounds. The maximum thrust of the Saturn V rocket that took NASA astronauts to the moon during the Apollo program was relatively paltry: 7.6 million pounds. An even more transformative feature of Starship is that it is designed to be entirely reusable. That means all of the really expensive pieces — like the 33 Raptor engines in the Super Heavy booster and six additional Raptors in Starship itself — will be used over and over instead of thrown away into the ocean after one flight. Starship and Super Heavy are shiny because SpaceX made them out of stainless steel, which is cheaper than using other materials like carbon composites.

Persons: Musk Organizations: Saturn, NASA, Super, Raptors, SpaceX

Such blackouts happen, for instance, when SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule returns to Earth from the International Space Station with its complement of four astronauts. Mission controllers must wait with bated breath to be reassured that the spacecraft’s heat shield has held up and protected the crew during atmospheric re-entry. Until Starship succumbed to the intense forces of re-entry on Thursday, SpaceX used its Starlink internet satellites to relay the live video feed. The Starlink satellites are in higher orbits, and sending signals upward — away from the plasma — is easier than trying to communicate through it to antennas on the ground. Before it parachuted to the ground, its Winnebago capsule recorded a day-glow re-entry.

Persons: Varda Organizations: International, SpaceX

☆ Odysseus Moon Lander to Power Down, With Aim to Extend Time on Surface
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-28 | by ( Kenneth Chang | More About Kenneth Chang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Odysseus is not dead yet. But it will soon be time to say, “Good night, moon lander.”Last week, Odysseus, a privately built robotic lunar lander, became the first American spacecraft to set down on the moon in more than 50 years, and the first nongovernmental effort ever to accomplish that feat. But like the Homeric Greek hero it was named after, the lander has not had an easy journey with a neat happy ending. In a news conference on Wednesday, Intuitive Machines, the Houston-based company that built Odysseus, said the spacecraft continued to operate, but that it would be put into a planned shutdown later on Wednesday. “We’ve conducted a very successful mission,” said Steve Altemus, the chief executive of Intuitive Machines.

Persons: Odysseus, “ We’ve, ”, Steve Altemus Locations: Houston

☆ Odysseus Sends Moon Landing Photos Home With Time Running Out
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-26 | by ( Kenneth Chang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Odysseus, the American robotic spacecraft that landed on the moon last week, is likely to die in the next day or so. Communications with the toppled lander remain limited and will end when sunlight is no longer shining on the solar panels, Intuitive Machines, the Houston-based company that built and operates Odysseus, said on Monday morning. The company also released images that the spacecraft took as it descended, but none yet from the surface. Odysseus is the first American spacecraft to land on the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972, and the first private one ever to successfully set down there in one piece. However, during the landing on Thursday evening, the lander, about 14 feet tall, appears to have been traveling faster than planned and ended up tipped over on its side.

Persons: Odysseus Organizations: Communications Locations: Houston

☆ Moon Lander Is Lying on Its Side but Still Functional, Officials Say
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-23 | by ( Kenneth Chang | More About Kenneth Chang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

One day after its historic landing, the first private spacecraft on the moon is in good condition but has toppled over, the company that built it reported on Friday. The spacecraft, named Odysseus, set down in the moon’s south pole region on Thursday evening, the first U.S. vehicle to land softly on the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. Initially, Intuitive Machines, which built Odysseus, said that the craft had landed upright, but a subsequent analysis of data showed that it had come to rest at an angle. That means the spacecraft’s antennas are not pointed at Earth, limiting the amount of data that can be sent back and forth. Engineers at Intuitive are still trying to extract more information from the spacecraft.

Persons: Odysseus Organizations: Engineers Locations: U.S

☆ A U.S.-Built Spacecraft Lands on the Moon for the First Time Since 1972
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-22 | by ( Kenneth Chang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

For the first time in a half-century, an American-built spacecraft has landed on the moon. The robotic lander was the first U.S. vehicle on the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972, the closing chapter in humanity’s astonishing achievement of sending people to the moon and bringing them all back alive. The lander, named Odysseus and a bit bigger than a telephone booth, arrived in the south polar region of the moon at 6:23 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday. The landing time came and went in silence as flight controllers waited to hear confirmation of success. Then Tim Crain, the chief technology officer of Intuitive Machines, the Houston-based company that built Odysseus, reported that a faint signal from the spacecraft had been detected.

Persons: Odysseus, Tim Crain Locations: American, U.S, Houston

☆ Moon Landing The Spacecraft Odysseus Prepares for Its Shot at the Moon
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-22 | by ( Kenneth Chang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

And whatever happens during Thursday’s landing attempt, expect more companies to race toward the moon in the years ahead. NASA is looking to send astronauts to the moon in the coming years, and robotic spacecraft will go there first. For NASA, buying rides on private spacecraft to take instruments and equipment to the moon is cheaper than building its own vehicles. Some of the companies that NASA had selected to bid for CLPS missions have already gone out of business. Among other ambitious business ideas: mining the moon for helium-3 for future fusion power plants on Earth.

Persons: Peregrine Organizations: NASA, Payload Services, International Space

☆ Jeff Bezos’s Big Rocket Moves Into View and Closer to Launch
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-21 | by ( Kenneth Chang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

There’s an easy knock against the space dreams of Jeff Bezos and his rocket company, Blue Origin: In its 24th year of existence, the company has yet to launch a single thing to orbit. Blue Origin’s accomplishments to date are modest — a small vehicle known as New Shepard that takes space tourists and experiments on brief suborbital jaunts. By contrast, SpaceX, the rocket company started by the other high-profile space billionaire, Elon Musk, today dominates the launch market. On Wednesday, Blue Origin hopes to change the narrative, holding a coming-out party of sorts for its new big rocket. The rocket, as tall as a 32-story building, lay horizontally on the trusses of a mobile launch platform.

Persons: Jeff Bezos, New Shepard, Elon Musk Organizations: SpaceX, Cape Canaveral Space Force Locations: Florida

☆ U.S. Moon Landing: How to Watch and What to Know
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-21 | by ( Kenneth Chang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On Wednesday morning, a robotic lunar lander launched by a Houston company got closer to reaching the moon. If all goes well, it will become the first private spacecraft ever to make a soft landing there and the first American mission to arrive there since Apollo 17 in 1972. When is the landing and how can I watch it? Although it is a private mission, the main customer is NASA, which paid $118 million for the delivery of six instruments to the moon. NASA TV will stream coverage of the landing beginning at 4:15 p.m. on Thursday.

Persons: Odysseus Organizations: Houston, NASA

☆ A Spacecraft Named Odysseus Prepares to Launch to the Moon, Again
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-14 | by ( Kenneth Chang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

A robotic lunar lander is scheduled to launch in the early morning hours of Thursday, one day after a technical glitch postponed the first launch attempt. It is also the latest private effort to send spacecraft to the moon. But the company in charge of the latest effort, Intuitive Machines of Houston, is optimistic. “I feel fairly confident that we’re going to be successful softly touching down on the moon,” said Stephen Altemus, the president and chief executive of Intuitive Machines. We’ve tested and tested and tested.

Persons: ”, Stephen Altemus, We’ve Organizations: Houston

☆ It Started as Winter Break. It Ended With a Doomed Moon Mission.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-09 | by ( Kenneth Chang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A gaggle of students from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh traveled to Florida last month during their winter break. The students, many of them studying to be engineers and scientists, went there to watch a rocket launch that would send a small 4.8-pound robotic rover that they had helped build on its journey to the moon. Afterward, they hoped to have time for some sun and fun, renting a large house just three blocks from the beach. The rover, named Iris, headed toward the moon on schedule in a perfect inaugural flight of Vulcan, a brand-new rocket. “We had a mission,” said Connor Colombo, the chief engineer for Iris.

Persons: ”, Nikolai Stefanov, Iris, “, Connor Colombo, I’m Organizations: Carnegie Mellon University Locations: Pittsburgh, Florida

☆ Messi’s ‘miracle’ return stirs Chinese anger and conspiracy theories
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-08 | by ( Simone Mccarthy | Chris Lau | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

“(He) played in five of the six preseason games and only missed the game in Hong Kong, China! Don’t come to China, China doesn’t welcome you,” another user wrote in a post liked by 20,000 others. “Why didn’t Messi play in Hong Kong or participate in the handshake with HK (the Hong Kong) chief executive? Messi's no-show sparks an outcry in Hong Kong on February 4, 2024. One social media user noted that it was not only Messi who played in Tokyo, but not Hong Kong.

Persons: Lionel Messi, Messi didn’t, Messi, “ Messi, Hong Kong, Kenneth Fok, Hu Xijin, didn’t Messi, ” Hu, ”, Louise Delmotte, “ Don’t, Hong, David Beckham, Beckham, Gerardo “ Tata ” Martino, Luis Suárez couldn’t, Philip Fong, “, nimbly, Regina Ip, ” “ Messi, Kenneth Chan, Taylor Swift, ’ Organizations: Hong Kong CNN, Sunday, Major League Soccer, Inter Miami, Vissel, Hong, CNN, Weibo, HK, Global Times, Inter, National Basketball Association, Houston Rockets, Soccer, Ardent, Messi, Argentina national, Australia, Inter Miami's, Getty, The Inter Miami, Hong Kong Baptist University Locations: China, Hong Kong, Argentine, Japan, Vissel Kobe, Tokyo, Beijing, State, China’s Sichuan, Argentina, AFP, Asia

☆ Ingenuity, the NASA Helicopter Flying Over Mars, Ends Its Mission
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-25 | by ( Kenneth Chang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Ingenuity, the little Mars helicopter that could, can’t anymore. At least one rotor broke during the robotic flying machine’s most recent flight last week, NASA officials announced on Thursday. Ingenuity remains in contact with its companion, the Perseverance rover, which has been exploring a dried-up riverbed for signs of extinct Martian life. Ingenuity arrived on Mars in the undercarriage of the Perseverance rover in February 2021. “They can rely on what we’ve accomplished,” Theodore Tzanetos, the Ingenuity project manager, said in a news conference on Thursday evening.

Persons: ‘, ” Bill Nelson, ” Theodore Tzanetos, ” Organizations: NASA Locations: Mars

☆ Axiom Launch Shows How Government Astronauts Now Fly Commercial
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-18 | by ( Kenneth Chang | More About Kenneth Chang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A private mission launched four astronauts to the International Space Station on Thursday. Unlike on earlier such flights, none of the passengers are wealthy space tourists paying their own way to orbit. The private astronaut mission, Ax-3, is the third for Axiom, which is also developing its own space station and making new spacesuits for NASA. In 2019, NASA opened up its part of the space station to visitors, a reversal from earlier policies. (Russia has hosted a series of space tourists on the International Space Station since 2001.)

Persons: NASA’s Organizations: International, Space, SpaceX, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, NASA Locations: Italy, Sweden, Turkey, Houston, Florida, Russia

☆ American Company’s Moon Lander Disintegrates in Earth’s Atmosphere
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-18 | by ( Kenneth Chang | More About Kenneth Chang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A spacecraft that was headed to the surface of the moon has ended up back at Earth instead, burning up in the planet’s atmosphere on Thursday afternoon. But the spacecraft never got close to its landing destination on the near side of the moon. The main payloads on the spacecraft were from NASA, part of an effort to put experiments on the moon at a lower cost by using commercial companies. Astrobotic’s launch was the first in the program, known as Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS. NASA paid Astrobotic $108 million to transport five experiments.

Organizations: Astrobotic Technology, Pittsburgh, NASA, Payload Services

☆ Japan Becomes the Latest Country to Land on the Moon
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-12 | by ( Kenneth Chang | More About Kenneth Chang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A Japanese robotic spacecraft successfully set down on the moon on Friday — but its solar panels were not generating power, which will cut the length of time it will be able to operate to a few hours. With this achievement, Japan is now the fifth country to send a spacecraft that made a soft landing on the moon. The spacecraft, the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, was intended to demonstrate precision landing, within a football field of a targeted destination rather than an uncertainty of miles that most landers are capable of. The technology could also be useful for future missions like those in NASA’s Artemis program . Japan is a partner in that program, which will send astronauts back to the moon in the coming years.

Persons: landers Organizations: JAXA, Smart Locations: Japan

☆ SpaceX Makes Progress in 2nd Launch of Giant Moon and Mars Rocket
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-18 | by ( Kenneth Chang | More About Kenneth Chang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

SpaceX, Elon Musk's spaceflight company, launched its Starship rocket from the coast of South Texas on Saturday, a mammoth vehicle that could alter the future of space transportation and help NASA return astronauts to the moon. Saturday’s flight of Starship, a powerful vehicle designed to carry NASA astronauts to the moon, was not a complete success. SpaceX did not achieve the test launch’s ultimate objective — a partial trip around the world ending in a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. But the test flight, the vehicle’s second, did show that the company had fixed key issues that arose during the earlier test operation in April. All 33 engines in the vehicle’s lower booster stage fired, and the rocket made it through stage separation — when the booster falls away and the six engines of the upper stage light up to carry the vehicle to space.

Organizations: SpaceX, Elon Musk's, NASA Locations: South Texas

☆ SpaceX Starship Launch Elon Musk’s Giant Moon and Mars Rocket Fuels Up for Its 2nd Launch
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-18 | by ( Kenneth Chang | Michael Roston | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

“There are really a tremendous number of changes between the last Starship flight and this one,” Mr. Musk said. With hot staging, Starship’s upper-stage engines will ignite while the booster is still attached and some of the booster engines are still firing. Hot staging, which is commonly used on Russian rockets, could improve the performance of Starship by 10 percent, Mr. Musk said. Hot staging also “results in kind of blasting the booster,” Mr. Musk said. “We don’t know with accuracy what the most important thing is, because we’ve not yet reached orbit,” Mr. Musk said.

Persons: ” Elon Musk, Musk, ”, Mr, “ It’s, ” Mr, we’ve Organizations: SpaceX, Twitter, Federal Aviation Administration

☆ SpaceX Is Ready for the 2nd Launch of Its Starship Moon and Mars Rocket
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-16 | by ( Kenneth Chang | More About Kenneth Chang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

SpaceX is preparing for the second test flight of Starship, the giant rocket that is being built to carry NASA’s astronauts to the surface of the moon and Elon Musk’s ambitions to Mars. The Federal Aviation Administration granted regulatory approval for the launch on Wednesday, setting up an attempt on Friday morning. SpaceX will stream the launch live on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter that is also owned by Mr. Musk. There is a two-hour window during which SpaceX could launch. Test missions frequently lift off later in a launch window as flight managers work to assure that systems are functioning as designed.

Persons: Elon Musk’s Organizations: SpaceX, Federal Aviation Administration, Boca, Mr Locations: Boca Chica , Texas, Gulf of Mexico, Brownsville

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