Space News & Blog Articles



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.

A SpaceX supply ship blazed a trail through the atmosphere over the southeastern United States Thursday night and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean east of Florida, returning home with 2.3 tons of research specimens and cargo from the International Space Station.

A view of the International Space Station captured Sept. 28 by a cosmonaut on the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft. Credit: Roscosmos

Photos taken by a Russian cosmonaut Tuesday from a Soyuz spacecraft show new exterior views of the International Space Station, with two SpaceX Dragon spaceships, a Northrop Grumman Cygnus supply craft, and the lab’s new roll-out solar arrays visible.

Actor William Shatner. Credit: NASA

Blue Origin confirmed Monday that actor William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk on “Star Trek,” will fly into space on a suborbital launch Oct. 12 from West Texas.

File photo of the most recent Falcon Heavy launch in June 2019. Credit: SpaceX

The next flight of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, previously scheduled for this month, has been pushed back to early 2022 after more delays caused by its U.S. military payload, a Space Force spokesperson said.



STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION

Live coverage of the Expedition 65 mission on the International Space Station. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.

File photo of a Falcon 9 launch. Credit: Michael Cain / Spaceflight Now / Coldlife Photography

The Italian Space Agency says it has booked a launch with SpaceX as soon as November for a COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation radar remote sensing satellite, shifting the spacecraft from a European Vega C rocket to a Falcon 9 flight from Cape Canaveral.

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION



EDITOR’S NOTE: NASA TV’s live coverage of the Soyuz MS-18 relocation begins at 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT).

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket blasts off from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, with the Landsat 9 satellite. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

NASA and United Launch Alliance deployed a new Landsat satellite in orbit Monday after liftoff on an Atlas 5 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, marking the 2,000th launch from the West Coast spaceport since 1958 and extending a series of Earth observations used by farmers, urban planners, and climate scientists.

A United Launch Atlas 5 rocket is set for launch with the Landsat 9 satellite, a joint project between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, and four small CubeSat rideshare payloads.

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of an Atlas 5 rocket with the Landsat 9 Earth observation satellite for NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket awaits liftoff from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, with the Landsat 9 satellite. Credit: Alex Polimeni / Spaceflight Now

The launch of a Landsat environmental monitoring satellite Monday from California’s Central Coast will be the first liftoff of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket since the company confirmed there will be 29 more Atlas 5 flights before the Atlas family’s retirement.

The Landsat 9 satellite is set for launch Sept. 27 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. These photos show the encapsulation of the environmental monitoring spacecraft inside the payload fairing of its Atlas 5 launcher.

European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet snapped this view of two SpaceX Dragon spacecraft docked at the International Space Station during a spacewalk Sept. 12. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft is seen docked at the top-facing port of the Harmony module, while a Cargo Dragon capsule is docked with the forward port in the background. Credit: NASA/ESA/Thomas Pesquet

With the all-civilian Inspiration4 crew mission back on Earth, SpaceX’s director of human spaceflight programs says the company is seeing increased interest in more private astronauts flights to orbit, and may expand its fleet of reusable Dragon spaceships to accommodate the growing demand.



Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft returned to the Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at Kennedy Space Center on Aug. 19 for troubleshooting. Credit: Boeing

The head of NASA’s space operations division said this week an unpiloted test flight of Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule to the International Space Station, delayed from August by valve problems, will likely not launch until next year.