For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – NASA has once again delayed the launch of the mammoth James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) by seven months and is now targeting liftoff for Oct. 31, 2021, from French Guiana, due to impacts from the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, as well as technical challenges. The latest Webb launch postponement from March 30 to October
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – Making significant progress after multiple delays NASA’s $2.7 Billion Perseverance Mars rover has at last been joined to the top of the mighty United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket that will hurl it from our Home Planet to the Red Planet as soon as the end of this month – on a
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM TITUSVILLE, FL – The newest GPS III series navigations satellite for the U.S. military and the Space Force has been encapsulated inside its payload fairing and transported to the launch site joining atop a brand new SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for a launch planned on Tuesday, June 30 – and the weather outlook is improving. “The
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that will launch the Crew Dragon Demo-2 spacecraft, with NASA astronauts aboard, on the company’s second demonstration flight and first crewed flight to the International Space Station on May 27, 2020. Credits: SpaceX For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – With just over three weeks to go until the history making launch of
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – Marking a significant step forward in landing Americans on the Moon by 2024 NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced the selection of three U.S. companies – Blue Origin, SpaceX and Dynetics – to design and develop the critical human landing systems (HLS) under the agency’s Artemis moon landing program. Blue Origin won by
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM TITUSVILLE, FL – SpaceX engineers finally completed a successful lunchtime static fire test of the Falcon 9 first stage engines on Friday, April 17 for the upcoming seventh Starlink launch of broadband internet satellites now targeting Thursday from the Florida Space Coast – amidst the ongoing coronavirus pandemic that has forced closures of public places, schools
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – In a long awaited announced nearly a decade in the making NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine today set May 27 as the target date for the Return of American Human Spaceflight launches with two NASA astronauts set to fly to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX commercial Dragon spacecraft on the Demo-2
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – The American-Russian crew of Expedition 62 returned safely to an Earth vastly changed by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic early this morning Friday, April 17 after departing the International Space Station in their Soyuz spacecraft last night Thursday, April 16 for a safe soft landing just hours later in Kazakhstan. The trio of
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – The ESA/JAXA BepiColomo spacecraft just captured an eerie combination sequence of selfie and Earth images moving in the background as the robotic vessel was conducting a gravity assisted flyby of our home planet amidst the COVID-19 crisis gripping the planet to set the probe on the path to its ultimate destination –
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – Following the problem plagued maiden launch of Boeing’s Starliner astronaut crew capsule in December, the company announced they will fly a second uncrewed test flight to verify the space taxi is safe and reliable enough to be entrusted to launch NASA astronauts in the future to the International Space Station (ISS). Boeing