Space News & Blog Articles

Firefly’s new MLV manufacturing and integration building in Bertram, Texas. Image: Firefly Aerospace

In the months following its fourth flight of it Alpha rocket, Firefly Aerospace continues to push forward with work on two new rockets in partnership with Northrop Grumman. On Wednesday, Firefly is set to hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony marking a manufacturing expansion to support the work flows on the Antares 330 rocket and its sequel, the Medium Launch Vehicle (MLV).

The expansion, which boosted its manufacturing space from 92,000 to 207,000 square feet, also includes a new engine test stand, with can withstand up to 230,000 pounds of thrust. This addition supports the test campaign for Firefly’s Miranda and Vira engines.

“After Firefly signed the MLV agreement with Northrop Grumman, we went immediately to work on our Briggs expansion, which has been completed in less than a year’s time,” said Bill Weber, CEO of Firefly Aerospace in a statement. “Along with the expansion, we’re taking advantage of automated machinery to further advance our rapid production schedule while improving efficiencies and lowering costs.”

Firefly and Northrop Grumman are aiming to launch the first flight of the Antares 330 rocket in 2025. Seven Miranda engines will power the first stage of this rocket, while Northrop Grumman’s Castor 30XL solid rocket motor will power the second stage, as it did for the Antares 230. Northrop Grumman is also providing both vehicle integration and launch pad operations up at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

Later that year, the companies are expected to debut the MLV. It will use the first stage developed for the Antares 330, but will feature a liquid-fueled upper stage and a single Vira engine. The Vira engine was previously referred to as a Miranda vacuum engine as recently as Nov. 2023.

SpaceX performed a deployment test of its new emergency egress system from the crew access tower at Space Launch Complex 40 on Monday, Feb. 26, 2024. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now

SpaceX is closing in on certifying its launch pad at Space Launch Complex 40 to support astronaut and cargo missions with its second-generation Dragon spacecraft. On Monday, the company performed a test of its new emergency egress system featuring a type of deployable slide.

The red slide flew out of a storage container positioned on the crew access tower and deployed along pre-stationed cables that extend to the ground, safely away from where a Falcon 9 rocket would stand. It differs notably from the slide-wire style baskets featured at Launch Complex 39A.

Bill Gerstenmaier, SpaceX’s vice president of Build and Flight Reliability, alluded to Monday’s test during a teleconference about the forthcoming Crew-8 mission to the International Space Station. He said before they use the new tower to support an astronaut mission, they would like to test it out on one of their Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) flights.

“We would like to do a cargo flight first, if we can, and we think CRS-30 is probably the right time to do that,” Gerstenmaier said. “And the work’s pretty much completed at the pad. Got some stuff to do next week, but we’ll be in good shape for CRS-30.”

That mission is set for sometime in mid-March, though the date is still being shored up. Joel Montalbano, NASA’s ISS Program Manager, said it comes during an incredibly busy year for the Space Station.

The four members of the SpaceX Crew-8 mission pose in front of the NASA Gulfstream plane at Space Florida’s Launch and Landing Facility. (Left to right) Roscosmos Cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin and NASA Astronauts Jeanette Epps, Matthew Dominick and Michael Barratt. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now

Set against a bright, blue Florida skyline, the three astronauts and one cosmonaut who make up the SpaceX Crew-8 mission touched down at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Sunday afternoon.

The crew’s Gulfstream cruised in for a landing at the Space Florida Launch and Landing Facility at about 1:45 p.m. (1845 UTC). They were greeted on the tarmac by, Jennifer Kunz, a KSC Associate Director, and Dana Hutcherson, Deputy Director Commercial Crew.

“Coming out here to the Cape, every time, I’m a kid in a candy store,” said Matthew Dominick, a NASA astronaut and the commander of the Crew-8 mission.

While the upcoming mission will be the first spaceflight for Dominick, he worked for NASA for seven years leading up this launch.

“It’s an incredible time to be involved in spaceflight. Who would’ve though five or six years ago that this would be the fifth flight of Endeavour that we get to go on? Who would’ve though five or six years ago that the competition for launch or the constraint to launch would be a launch pad?” Dominick said, referring to the recent launch of the IM-1 robotic mission to the Moon. “We delayed our launch a few days because there’s stiff competition to get out there to 39A. It’s not a rocket constraint, it’s a pad constraint.”

File photo of Starlink V2 Mini satellites being prepared for launch in a payload processing facility at Cape Canaveral. Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX is preparing to launch its biggest batch of second generation Starlink satellites to date on Saturday. The company loaded 24 Starlink V2 Minis onto its Falcon 9 rocket, which is preparing for flight at Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Liftoff of the Starlink 6-39 mission is set for 6:41 p.m. EST (2341 UTC). This will be the 11th dedicated Starlink launch so far in 2024 and includes one more second-generations Starlink satellite than Falcon 9 has carried on recent flights. It’s not clear if SpaceX has achieved this extra capacity by squeezing more performance out of the Falcon 9 vehicle, modifying the flight profile or reducing the mass of each satellite. The first V2 mini delivery mission on Feb. 27, 2023 carried 21 satellites. SpaceX increased the capacity for each Cape Canaveral launch to 22 satellites in May, before raising that number again to 23 in October 2023.

Spaceflight Now will have live coverage starting about one hour prior to liftoff.

About eight and a half minutes after liftoff, the Falcon 9 first stage booster, tail number 1069, will land on the SpaceX droneship, ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas.’ This will be the 59th landing on this droneship and the 215th droneship landing to date.

The Starlink satellites are set to deploy from the Falcon 9 upper stage a little more than an hour after liftoff and will bring the total number of Starlink satellites launched to 5,896, according to statistics tracked by astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell.

An onboard camera captures the plume from the nine Merlin 1D engines on the first stage of the Falcon 9 as it climbed away from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Feb, 22, 2024. Image: SpaceX.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from the West Coast with another batch of 22 Starlink satellites at 8:11 p.m. PST Thursday (11:11 p.m. EST / 0411 UTC).

The Starlink 7-15 mission roared away from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on the first launch opportunity of the day, heading on a south-easterly trajectory, targeting a 184×178 mile (296×287 km) orbit, inclined at 53 degrees to the equator.

The first stage booster, tail number 1061 was making its 19th flight, which ties the record previously set by booster 1058 before it was lost during recovery operations following a successful launch and landing.

Booster 1061 joined the fleet on the East Coast launching the Crew 1 and 2 missions to the International Space Station. It went on to fly the SXM-8, Cargo Dragon CRS-23, IXPE, Transporter-4 and Transporter-5 missions before transferring to the West Coast where it launched the Globalstar FM15, ISI EROS C-3 and Korea 425 missions. It also flew on eight previous Starlink delivery missions.

After completing its burn, the first stage touched down on the drone ship ‘Of Course I still Love You’ stationed about 400 miles downrange (644km) in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California.

Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander named Odysseus cruises over the near side of the Moon on Feb. 21, 2024, a day ahead of its scheduled landing attempt. Image: Intuitive Machines

Update 2:34 p.m. EST: Intuitive Machines said it “chose to exercise an additional orbit before starting the IM-1 mission landing sequence” and therefore, adjusted the anticipated landing time.

In a day not seen since the Dec. 11, 1972, a lander built in the United States could safely reach the surface of the Moon. Houston-based Intuitive Machines is hoping to snap a more than 50-year absence from the U.S. on the lunar surface, but also a streak of commercial failures to make it safely to the Moon.

Intuitive Machines said they are targeting landing no earlier than 6:24 p.m. EST (2324 UTC) Thursday evening at Malapert A, a crater about 10 degrees from Moon’s south pole. It takes place a week after launching onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Feb. 15 at 1:05 a.m. EST (0605 UTC).

Watch live coverage of the landing starting at 5 p.m. EST (2200 UTC).

The final steps towards the landing attempt will take place over a matter of about an hour and 15 minutes Thursday evening. While subject to change, here’s the landing timeline as it stands currently in EST:

A image of Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander named ‘Odysseus’ captured by one of the spacecraft’s onboard cameras. Image: Intuitive Machines

Achieving a successful lunar landing becomes increasingly more tangible for the team at Intuitive Machines with each passing day since launch. On Wednesday, the Houston-based company announced that it was able to place its robotic lunar lander, named Odysseus, into a 92 km circular orbit around the Moon, clearing the way for a landing attempt on Thursday.

In a social media post, Intuitive Machines said the lander’s main engine burned for 408 seconds to complete the maneuver to enter orbit.

“Initial data indicates the 800 [meters per second] burn was completed within 2 m/s accuracy,” the company stated. “Over the next day, while the lander remains in lunar orbit, flight controllers will analyze the complete flight data and transmit imagery of the Moon.”

The mission thus far is helping to prove out the viability of a propulsion system powered by a combination of liquid oxygen and liquid methane. Trent Martin, the vice president of Space Systems for Intuitive Machines, said IM chose this propellant mixture for its main engine because the company believes it’s “the future of this technology.”

“The second reason we chose it is because we can test it so easily. We test it in our flame range in Houston regularly. We’ve done over 150 rocket fires on multiple iterations of this engine,” Martin said in the run-up to the Feb. 15 launch. “We’ve taken the engine that’s sitting on that spacecraft, with that spacecraft, and fired it as a test fire to prove that that engine will light on the vehicle.”

Indonesia’s Merah Putih 2 awaits launch inside the payload fairing of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at Cape Canaveral. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now.

Indonesia aims to increase broadband internet access across its country through the launch of its latest communications satellite aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The Telkomsat HTS 113BT satellite, also referred to as Merah Putih 2, is set to launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 3:11 p.m. EST (2011 UTC).

There is a two-hour window during which the launch can take place on Tuesday. If needed, there is also a four-hour backup window on Wednesday that opens at 12:53 p.m. EST (1753 UTC).

Spaceflight Now will have live coverage starting about one hour prior to liftoff.

The Falcon 9 first stage booster being used on this mission, tail number B1067, will be making its 17th flight. Its previous launches included Crew-3, Crew-4 and a pair of Cargo Dragon spacecraft missions to the International Space Station. It also launched PSN Satria, another Indonesian communications satellite, in June 2023.

About 8.5 minutes following liftoff, B1067 will land on the SpaceX droneship, ‘Just Read the Instructions.’ This will be the first outing for JRTI since B1058 toppled over while returning to Port Canaveral in Florida in December.

An Electron rocket lifts off from Rocket Lab’s launch site on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula carrying the ADRAS-J satellite for Astroscale. Image: Rocket Lab.

A small satellite that will inspect a discarded rocket body in orbit lifted off Sunday/Monday on a mission to develop techniques for removing space debris. The satellite built by Japan-based Astroscale launched atop a Rocket Lab Electron from the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand at 3:52 a.m. NZDT (9:52 a.m. EST / 1452 UTC).

The Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan satellite or ADRAS-J will approach and monitor the spent upper-stage rocket of an H-2A rocket that launched in January 2009. It is part of the Japanese space agency’s (JAXA) Commercial Removal of Debris Demonstration program and is designed to lay the ground work for a future mission to deobit the rocket stage, tentatively scheduled for 2026. A contract has yet to be awarded for this second phase of the program.

ADRAS-J was deployed 64 minutes into flight after two firings of the Electron’s Curie kick stage to precisely place the spacecraft on course for its rendezvous in space.

“100% mission success,” Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck wrote in a social media post. “Big day for the GNC [Guidance Navigation and Control] team with perfect argument of perigee targeting.”

The mission, nick named “On Closer Inspection”, was the 44th Electron launch to date and Rocket Lab’s second mission of 2024.

Join us for a roundup of the week’s space news with reporters covering the big stories. Spaceflight Now’s Will Robinson-Smith is joined by Chris Davenport of The Washington Post and Gina Sunseri of ABC News. The show goes live at 4 p.m. EST (2100 UTC).

The discussion will include stories like the launch and process of Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander, which is making its way towards the Moon; the warnings on Capitol Hill about Russia’s potential development of an anti-satellite weapon and SpaceX achieving the 300th launch of its Falcon 9 rocket with its latest Starlink mission.

Chris Davenport, The Washington Post:
• Possible Russian aggression in space
• Launch of commercial lunar lander

Gina Sunseri
• Intuitive Machines Moon-bound lander launches
• Warning of ‘national security threat’ from Russian space activity

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands ready to launch the Starlink 7-14 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base. Image: SpaceX

Update: 8:15 p.m. EST: SpaceX scrubbed the launch Wednesday evening.

SpaceX wasn’t able to keep the love of Falcon 9 flights going this Valentine’s Day with a launch launching from California. The company scrubbed the launch attempt of the Starlink 7-14 mission.

The next available opportunity for the Falcon 9 rocket supporting this mission to launch begins at 1:34 p.m. PST (4:34 p.m. EST, 2134 UTC). A reason for the scrub has not been provided by SpaceX.

Spaceflight Now will have live coverage on Launchpad Live starting about 30 minutes before liftoff.

This latest Starlink mission comes sandwiched between two marquee missions for SpaceX: the USSF-124 mission, arranged by the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command, and the IM-1 mission, a robotic lunar lander from Houston-based Intuitive Machines.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, carrying the U.S. Space Force (USSF)-124 payload of missile warning satellites for the Missile Defense Agency and Space Development Agency, completes being raised into its vertical launch position at Space Launch Complex (SLC)-40 on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida ahead of today’s scheduled 5:30 p.m. EST liftoff. Image: SpaceX

SpaceX is aiming to launch its eighth Falcon 9 rocket on a National Security Space Launch (NSSL) mission on Wednesday evening. The launch, named United States Space Force 124 (USSF-124) is targeting liftoff from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at the start of a four-hour launch window that opens at 5:30 p.m. EST (2230 UTC).

If the rest of the schedule holds, this will be the first of up to three launches for SpaceX planned within a nine-hour period of time. It’s also hoping to launch another batch of Starlink satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base and Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lunar lander overnight.

Live coverage of the USSF-124 mission begins about one hour prior to liftoff.

Onboard the Falcon 9 rocket are a batch of six satellites: two for the U.S. Department of Defense’s Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and four for the U.S. Space Forces’ Space Development Agency (SDA). The MDA’s satellites are part of its Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS) program.

“This launch represents a pivotal time for MDA as we enter a new phase of missile warning, tracking and defense,” said Lt. Gen. Heath Collins, director of MDA, in a statement. “These HBTSS satellites are an essential step forward in our efforts to stay ahead of our adversaries.”

Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander, named ‘Odysseus,’ displayed prior to encapsulation inside a pair of SpaceX Falcon 9 payload fairings. Image: SpaceX

Update 11:05 p.m. EST: SpaceX and Intuitive Machines scrubbed the launch attempt for Wednesday morning.

A launch pad billed as the Apollo program’s “Moonport” is once again preparing to send off a mission bound for the Moon. More than 50 years after Apollo 17, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket aims to launch Intuitive Machines’ robotic Nova-C lander, named Odysseus, on a lunar journey Wednesday morning.

The mission, dubbed IM-1, has a 15-second launch window that opens at 1:05 a.m. EST (0605 UTC) at Launch Complex 39A. It will kick off a roughly eight-day journey to the Moon, culminating in a landing late in the day on Feb. 22.

IM-1 will be the second flight for NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. NASA purchased space for six scientific instruments at a cost of just under $118 million. The agency spent about $11 million to design and build the instruments.

Among those are cameras that will help create a 3D rendering of the dust kicked up at landing, a tech demonstration that will help with future landing accuracy and sensor that uses radio waves to detect how much propellant is inside the lander.

The inaugural Vulcan rocket, powered by two Blue Origin-built BE-4 engines, lifts off from SLC-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Jan. 8, 2024. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now

United Launch Alliance entered an important new era for the company with the debut of its Vulcan rocket in early January. The flight was one that was highly anticipated by those both inside and outside ULA and, by all metrics, it was a highly successful mission for ULA.

To mark a month after this inaugural launch, Spaceflight Now sat down with ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno for a discussion about that first certification flight and the year ahead for the company and the rocket.

“This was the cleanest first flight I’ve ever seen. I’ve personally been involved with about three dozen of them,” Bruno said. Prior to his time with ULA, Bruno was the vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin’s Strategic and Missile Defense Systems.

Bruno was among the launch team on console during the countdown, which was run from the Advanced Spaceflight Operations Center (ASOC) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. He said the lack of issues during the countdown threw him for a loop at times.

“It was a very clean countdown. Not an exaggeration, true story, there’s probably 25 minutes or so, I’m sitting on console, silence and I thought my headset was busted,” Bruno said. “I’m like, ‘Maddie, find IT, my headset is broken.’ They come back, ‘No, Tory, there’s literally nothing happening. It’s just that quiet.’”

A long exposure shows the Falcon 9 climbing to orbit and the first-stage entry and landing burns. Image: Michael Cain/Spaceflight Now.

SpaceX launched an environmental research satellite for NASA early Thursday, a nearly $1 billion spacecraft that survived multiple cancellation threats and is now poised to shed new light on climate change and the complex interplay of heat-trapping carbon, aerosols and sea life on global scales.

The Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem mission — PACE — “will dramatically advance our understanding of the relationship between aerosols and clouds, and the global energy balance,” said Karen St. Germain, director of NASA’s Earth sciences division. “This is one of the biggest sources of uncertainty in our ability to model the climate.”

She said PACE is “going to teach us about the oceans in the same way that Webb (the James Webb Space Telescope) is teaching us about the cosmos.” And that includes “a tremendous amount about ocean biology.”

“This is going to really center around understanding phytoplankton, these very small (organisms) that live in the ocean, that are at the foundation of life in our oceans in general.”

Oceans cover 70 percent of the planet’s surface, she added, “and yet the oceans are one of the least well understood parts of the Earth system. PACE is going to profoundly advance our understanding of how the oceans work and how life in the oceans is related to life on land.”

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Vandenberg Space Force Base supporting the Starlink 7-13 mission. Image: SpaceX

Update 8:00 p.m. EST: SpaceX launched the Falcon 9 rocket and recovered the first stage booster on a droneship.

SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket from the West Coast following multiple weather-related scrubs earlier in the week. The rocket supporting the Starlink 7-13 mission lifted off at 4:34 p.m. PST (7:34 p.m. EST, 0034 UTC) on Friday, February 9.

During the first launch attempt on Tuesday evening, launch teams for the Starlink 7-13 mission got down to the final minute of the countdown before calling a scrub. Following a brief stint where they were targeting launch on Wednesday, SpaceX updated the planned launch of the mission  Thursday, Feb. 8. But excessive cloud cover forced them to stand down on Thursday as well.

The Falcon 9 first stage booster for this launch, tail number B1071, will be making its 14th flight. It most recently supported the Starlink 7-8 launch on Dec. 8, 2023.

About 8.5 minutes after liftoff, B1071 will land on the SpaceX droneship, “Of Course I Still Love You,’ which is staged out in the Pacific Ocean. This was the 82nd landing on OCISLY and the 211th droneship landing.

The Falcon 9 with NASA’s PACE mission atop stands ready for launch at pad 40. Image: SpaceX.

Update 2:30 a.m. EST: SpaceX and NASA confirm a successful launch.

SpaceX launched its second NASA mission of the year on Thursday morning. A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Earth-observing spacecraft PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) lifted off at 1:33 a.m. EST (0633 UTC) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Feb. 8.

This was the eighth launch from Florida in 2024 and the seventh for SpaceX from the Space Coast this year.

The PACE launch was the first time a U.S. government mission had targeted a polar orbit from Cape Canaveral in more than 60 years. Polar flights were suspended after a cow in Cuba was killed by falling debris from a failed launch in 1960, sparking protests in Havana.

“At that point, we as a government decided, let’s just take all our polar launch missions to the West and we’ve successfully launched into the polar orbit hundreds of times since the 60s from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California,” said Tim Dunn, the senior launch director for NASA’s Launch Services Program.

NASA’s PACE spacecraft inside a clean room at Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, FL. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now

From the oceans to the atmosphere, there’s still quite a bit we don’t understand about our planet. NASA’s latest Earth-observing spacecraft hopes to greatly expand our knowledge of the globe in just a few years.

The PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) spacecraft is the next payload to launch into orbit that will build upon more than 20 years of direct Earth observation. Dr. Nicola Fox, the associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, described the spacecraft as a “jewel” among the Earth-observing fleet.

“We have a theme in SMD of the search for life elsewhere. And so, we’re obviously excited by bringing the samples back from Bennu, going off and getting ready to launch Europa Clipper later this year to explore the ocean world of Europa, but PACE allows us to explore the ocean world here,” Fox said.

“And if you think that we’re the only planet right now that we know that sustains life and all of the life that we have here started in the oceans. And so, by studying the oceans and studying what’s in there and kind of learning about that, I actually think it’s a really key part of understanding how we would ever go about finding life, or signatures of life, on other worlds.”

After it launches, PACE will head to a 676.5 km (420 mi) orbital altitude with a 98 degree inclination. It will operate in a sun synchronous, polar orbit with 1300 local crossing time. It has a design life of three years, but it carries up to ten years worth of fuel.

For the first time, Sierra Space mated its Dream Chaser spaceplane to the Shooting Star module amid shake table testing at NASA’s Armstrong Test Facility in Ohio. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now

An orbital-class spaceplane is one step closer to returning to the International Space Station. As part of an on-going test campaign, Sierra Space mated its Dream Chaser spaceplane to its Shooting Star module for the first time at NASA’s Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Sandusky, Ohio.

The spaceplane will be the third and final cargo spacecraft contracted by NASA to shuttle supplies and science experiments to the International Space Station as part of the Commercial Resupply Services 2 (CRS-2) contact. In 2016, Northrop Grumman, Sierra Space and SpaceX were awarded several flights each under the agreement that had a maximum value of $14 billion.

“It brings all of us at Sierra Space a great sense of pride and a profound reflection that what we are doing is truly important,” said Tom Vice, the CEO of Sierra Space. “The work we are doing will change everything and it will lay new footsteps for the next generation to follow.”

The company faced several years of development delays in getting Dream Chaser to this point. But recently, the spaceplane, dubbed ‘Tenacity,’ began its final slate of testing before it’s shipped down to Florida for launch.

“We are coming out of years of development, years of hard work, years of resolving really tough engineering challenges that come from revolutionizing the way we do things,” Vice said. “And we are really excited that this year we enter orbital operations for NASA. It is a year that we change how we connect Earth and space.”

Collins Aerospace tested its next generation spacesuit during a recent parabolic flight. This was part of its Crew Capability Assessment. Image: Collins Aerospace

Astronauts who work onboard the U.S. side of the International Space Station are one step closer to getting new spacesuits.

On Tuesday, teams with Collins Aerospace, an RTX business, completed a testing series called the Crew Capability Assessment. This is one of several milestones laid in NASA’s Exploration Extravehicular Activity Services (xEVAS) contract valued at $97.2 million and awarded to Collins in December 2022.

Collins is designing its suit in collaboration with ILC Dover and Oceaneering. Former NASA astronauts, John “Danny” Olivas and Dan Burbank, each donned the suit and performed a series of test objectives while onboard a Zero Gravity plane that’s able to perform parabolic maneuvers to simulate microgravity for short bursts. They were surrounded by several support personnel who were gathering data about the suit performance.

In total, they performed 40 parabolas during the flight. Collins said the primary goals included “evaluation of the suit’s pressure garment system fit and functionality, use of International Space Station tools and interfaces, and reviewed performance of the new Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or EMU, against the current design.”

“Throughout a series of entry and exit tasks, crew mobility assessments and suit donning, we observed that the suit performed as designed, affording increased range of motion and ease of movement,” said Peggy Guirgis, general manager, Space Systems, for Collins Aerospace, in a statement.