This morning, SpaceX’s new Crew Dragon capsule successfully docked with the International Space Station, bringing the company’s first crew to the orbiting outpost. Their arrival marks another major milestone for SpaceX’s first crewed mission of the Crew Dragon, which successfully took off yesterday, May 30th, from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Russia has lost its long-held monopoly as the only country able to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station following the flawless manned launch by US company SpaceX.
The Russian space agency congratulated the United States and Elon Musk’s SpaceX on the first crewed flight ever by a private company, but experts said the launch should be a wakeup call for Roscosmos.
“The success of the mission will provide us with additional opportunities that will benefit the whole international programme,” cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, Roscosmos executive director for crewed space programmes, said in a brief video address.
An increasingly likely catastrophe can cause major disruptions in space flight and our daily lives.
SpaceX is scheduled to launch the first crewed flight of its Crew Dragon capsule on May 30th at 3:22PM ET. Follow along as the crew, astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, suit up and board their capsule as the clock counts down to their liftoff.
Circa 2019
Scientists have longed to create the perfect energy source. Ideally, that source would eventually replace greenhouse gas-spewing fossil fuels, power cars, boats, and planes, and send spacecraft to remote parts of the universe. So far, nuclear fusion energy has seemed like the most likely option to help us reach those goals.
The big problem? It’s difficult to harness, and we’re nowhere near producing it at the scales we need in order to cause a seismic shift in energy policy. That’s why teams of researchers across the world are racing to improve our understanding of this reaction.
Continue reading “The Navy’s Patent for a Compact Nuclear Fusion Reactor Is Wild” »
The spacecraft engine that will help take humans to Mars may be based on a University of Michigan prototype.
Watch history unfold on Saturday, May 30, as NASA and SpaceX launch astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley to the International Space Station. This mission marks the first time since the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011 that humans will fly to the space station from U.S. soil. The mission’s first launch attempt on Wednesday, May 27 was scrubbed due to weather conditions.
Tune in starting at 11 a.m. EDT as NASA and SpaceX provide joint, live coverage from launch to arrival at the space station. Teams are targeting 3:22 p.m. EDT for the launch of the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft atop a Falcon 9 rocket from historic Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Crew Dragon is scheduled to dock to the space station on Sunday, May 31.
Continue reading “Making History: NASA and SpaceX Launch Astronauts to Space!” »
A SpaceX Crew Dragon space capsule is attempting to carry two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station for a historic mission.
NASA has estimated a 1-in-276 chance that the astronauts on the SpaceX rocket could die during the company’s first crewed mission.
Still, commercial crew has managed to move faster and stay on budget compared to other NASA projects which explicitly eschew private capital and insist that NASA is the only suitable customer for their wares. The agency estimates it saved as much as $30 billion by building its new spacecraft this way.
What if THIS is the most important thing that happens in 2020?
