Space News & Blog Articles



This illustration from United Launch Alliance shows the Atlas 5 rocket that will launch the Lucy mission, and an artist’s concept of the Lucy spacecraft visiting the Trojan asteroids. Credit: United Launch Alliance

NASA and United Launch Alliance officials met Wednesday and cleared an Atlas 5 rocket for launch from Cape Canaveral before dawn Saturday with the Lucy asteroid mission, a robotic spacecraft to visit unexplored asteroids in the outer solar system.

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of an Atlas 5 rocket with NASA’s Lucy mission, a robotic explorer to study the Trojan asteroids in the outer solar system. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome with 36 OneWeb broadband satellites. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION

NASA mission specialist Kayla Barron, pilot Tom Marshburn, commander Raja Chari, and European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer participate in the Crew Equipment Interface Test at Area 59, home of Dragon spacecraft processing at Cape Canaveral Space force Station. Credit: SpaceX

The four astronauts set to blast off Oct. 30 to the International Space Station visited Cape Canaveral over the weekend for a test run inside SpaceX’s new Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft, one of the last training events before they return to Florida on launch week.

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket and crew capsule from West Texas carrying actor William Shatner, Planet co-founder Chris Boshuizen, microbiologist Glen de Vries, and Blue Origin vice president Audrey Powers on a 10-minute flight to suborbital space. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.

The French-flagged MN Colibri transport ship arrived Tuesday at the Pariacabo harbor in Kourou, French Guiana, with the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/P. Baudon/E. Prigent

The James Webb Space Telescope, a successor to Hubble, arrived at the European Space Agency’s launch base Tuesday in Kourou, French Guiana, for final checkouts and fueling ahead of blastoff in December on top of an Ariane 5 rocket.

The Landsat 8 remote sensing satellite captured this view of La Palma in visible and infrared wavelengths, showing the smoke plume and lava flow from the Cumbre Vieja volcano. Credit: NASA/USGS

Satellites and astronauts orbiting Earth have been tracking the eruption of a volcano on the Spanish island of La Palma for the last three weeks, revealing a red-hot river of lava pouring out of the ground and flowing into the Atlantic Ocean.

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION

The Orion Stage Adapter with the Artemis 1 mission’s rideshare payloads installed. Credit: NASA/Cory Huston

Workers at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center have lifted the Orion Stage Adapter on top of the Space Launch System moon rocket, adding the structure housing 10 CubeSat rideshare payloads heading into deep space on the Artemis 1 mission. But three of the CubeSat missions missed their opportunity to fly on the first SLS mission.



Students at Boston University work with CuPID spacecraft during pre-launch testing. Credit: NASA

Ground teams are stepping through testing of three small CubeSats launched with the Landsat 9 remote sensing satellite last month, preparing the small spacecraft for exoplanet observations and communications experiments. NASA says engineers have not established contact with another CubeSat designed for space weather research.

Japan’s fifth Epsilon rocket, originally set for liftoff Sept. 30, is visible inside a gantry structure at the Uchinoura Space Center. Credit: JAXA

The launch of a solid-fueled Japanese Epsilon rocket with nine small satellites, originally scheduled to blastoff last week, has been grounded until after the flight of a larger H-2A launcher later this month, Japan’s space agency said Friday.

European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer and NASA astronauts Thomas Marshburn, Raja Chari, and Kayla Barron pose for a photo during training at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California. Credit: SpaceX

The astronauts who will ride SpaceX’s newest Dragon spaceship into orbit later this month said Thursday they named their spacecraft “Endurance” as a tribute to the human spirit and a historic sailing vessel used by Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton.

A crane raises the Lucy spacecraft, encapsulated inside its payload fairing, atop an Atlas 5 rocket Thursday. Credit: United Launch Alliance

Teams at Cape Canaveral transferred NASA’s Lucy asteroid explorer to a United Launch Alliance integration building Thursday and mounted the robotic science probe atop an Atlas 5 rocket for liftoff later this month, using a booster originally built to send astronauts into space.

NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada view the rollout of a Boeing Starliner spacecraft before a test flight in December 2019. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

NASA has reassigned two rookie astronauts from missions on Boeing’s troubled Starliner crew capsule to a SpaceX crew mission to the International Space Station late next year, a move agency officials said will allow the astronauts to gain spaceflight experience for future lunar expeditions.

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft docked at the International Space Station on May 1, 2021. Credit: NASA

SpaceX is about to double the size of its fleet of Crew Dragon spaceships. The company is debuting a new spacecraft for a NASA launch later this month, and is building a fourth human-rated capsule that should be ready for flight early next year, a SpaceX official said Wednesday.

Live coverage of the countdown and launch Japan’s Epsilon rocket with nine small Japanese and Vietnamese technology demonstration satellites. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.



NASA’s Lucy spacecraft is prepared for encapsulation last month inside the payload shroud of its Atlas 5 launcher. Credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky

Fueled up for a 12-year mission of exploration, NASA’s Lucy science probe is nearly ready for launch Oct. 16 from Florida’s Space Coast to begin a journey through the solar system to visit eight asteroids, a record number for a single mission.