Artist’s concept of the Lucy spacecraft flying past a Trojan asteroid. Credit: Southwest Research Institute
NASA is ready to launch a $981 million mission to the distant reaches of the solar system Saturday, kicking off a 12-year expedition to visit a group of unexplored asteroids that may offer clues to help scientists decipher how the planets formed more than 4 billion years ago.
The 188-foot-tall Atlas 5 rocket crowned with NASA’s Lucy asteroid probe rolled out to its launch pad Thursday at Cape Canaveral. These aerial views, captured by a drone and released by NASA, show the launch vehicle moving along rail tracks to Space Launch Complex 41.
Live coverage of China’s Shenzhou 13 mission, a planned six-month expedition to the Chinese space station. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.
Artist’s concept of the completed Chinese space station. Credit: CMSA
On the eve of the next crew launch to the Chinese space station, a spokesperson for China’s human spaceflight agency repeated Thursday the country’s invitation for international astronauts to fly to the new orbiting space lab.
Credit: Alex Polimeni/Spaceflight Now
An Atlas 5 rocket emerged from its hangar and rolled to a launch pad at Cape Canaveral Thursday with NASA’s Lucy asteroid probe. The launch of the Lucy spacecraft Saturday will mark the final planetary science mission in the storied history of the Atlas program.
Chinese astronaut Ye Guangfu, commander Zhai Zhigang, and astronaut Wang Yaping meet Chinese media in a pre-launch press conference at the Jiuquan space center Thursday. Credit: CCTV
China’s first six-month human spaceflight mission, set to become a regular occurrence for the rest of the decade, is poised for launch Friday to kick off a trip to the country’s Tiangong space station.
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.
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.
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.
All Rights Reserved. 2025. SpaceZE.com
