Space News & Blog Articles

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION

EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated July 22 with Pirs undocking delay.

Russia’s Nauka module undergoes launch preparations at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Credit: Roscosmos

A Russian science module in development for more than 20 years is set for liftoff Wednesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on top of a Proton rocket, kicking off an eight-day flight to the International Space Station to boost the lab’s capacity for research.

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Russian Proton rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome with the Nauka science module for the International Space Station. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft moves in for docking at the zenith port on the space station’s Harmony module Wednesday. Credit: NASA TV/Spaceflight Now

Four astronauts rode a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule for a flight from one International Space Station docking port to another Wednesday, clearing the way for arrival of a Boeing Starliner crew ferry ship on an unpiloted test flight later this month.

Oliver Daemen, Jeff Bezos, Wally Funk, and Mark Bezos pose with the New Shepard booster that carried them to space Tuesday. Credit: Stephen Clark/Spaceflight Now

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos took his brother, a pioneering female pilot, and an 18-year-old Dutch student on an automated flight to the edge of space Tuesday, completing a on a 66-mile-high suborbital hop aboard his company’s New Shepard rocket, the latest achievement in a new era of billionaire-backed human spaceflight.

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket and crew capsule from West Texas carrying company founder Jeff Bezos, Mark Bezos, Wally Funk, and Oliver Daemen on a 10-minute flight to suborbital space. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft emerges from the Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing facility early Saturday. Credit: Alex Polimeni / Spaceflight Now

Boeing second Starliner crew ferry spacecraft rolled out of its factory early Saturday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for mounting on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket set for liftoff July 30 on a redo of a problem-plagued unpiloted test flight in 2019.

The Hubble Space Telescope pictured during the final space shuttle servicing mission in 2009. Credit: NASA

NASA said Saturday that the Hubble Space Telescope, now running on a backup payload computer, has resumed scientific observations after a failure knocked the aging observatory offline for more than a month.

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION



STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION

The Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage for NASA’s first Space Launch System test flight was stacked on top of the rocket July 5. Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

The upper stage for the first flight of NASA’s Space Launch System was installed on top of the heavy-lift rocket earlier this month, moving the agency one step closer to liftoff of the Artemis 1 test mission to the moon.

A Chinese Long March 6 rocket lifts off Friday from the Taiyuan space center. Credit: Xinhua

China launched five small satellites designed to detect and monitor global radio transmissions Friday on top of a Long March 6 rocket, joining five similar spacecraft deployed in orbit in 2019.

A Long March 3C rocket lifts off July 6 with China’s new Tianlian 1-05 data relay satellite. Credit: CASC

China launched a fresh satellite for the country’s Tianlian data relay network July 6, reinforcing a fleet of spacecraft designed to connect ground controllers with the country’s space station.

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION

Live coverage of the flight of Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity rocketplane carrying company founder Richard Branson and five crewmates to the edge of space. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.

Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity rocketplane is released for a glide flight over New Mexico last year. Credit: Virgin Galactic

Virgin Galactic-founder Richard Branson and five company crewmates are set to take a barnstorming ride to space Sunday in a bold show of confidence in his company’s readiness to start carrying passengers on brief trips out of the atmosphere.

A Cargo Dragon capsule backs away from the International Space station Thursday, heading for splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. Credit: Thomas Pesquet/ESA/NASA

Wrapping up a 36-day mission to the International Space Station, a SpaceX Cargo Dragon capsule splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico Friday night with biomedical experiments, spacewalk equipment, and other hardware returning from orbit.