Technology

NASA Sets Date for Boeing Starliner Crew Flight Test

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft approaches the International Space Station on May 20, 2022.

NASA has set a tentative date of No Earlier Than (NET) Monday, April 22, 2024 for what is expected to be the final test flight of the Starliner capsule. Should this Crew Flight Test (CFT) go smoothly then the Starliner-1 mission with Canadian astronaut Joshua Kutryk onboard would launch NET early 2025.

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NASA Report Sparks Debate over Cost Effectiveness of Space-Based Solar Power

Space Based Solar Power concept

NASA has released a report on space-based solar power that acknowledges its viability, but questions its cost-effectiveness.  While NASA grants that the technology could be used as a renewable source of energy by 2050, they raised concerns as to its potential cost vis-a-vis terrestrial generation, which sparked responses focused on whether NASA’s cost assumptions were accurate or overly pessimistic. This page is for subscribers only. …

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Simple Error Could Have Resulted in Intuitive Machines Mission Failure

On Feb. 22, 2024, Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lunar lander captures a wide field of view image of Schomberger crater on the Moon approximately 125 miles (200 km) uprange from the intended landing site, at approximately 6 miles (10 km) altitude. Image credit: Intuitive Machines

At this stage of the Intuitive Machines IM-1 mission, there is good reason for the company and NASA to celebrate. The Odysseus descent and landing was mostly successful. The news that the spacecraft tipped over and possibly broke a “leg” though does take some shine off the exuberance. However, what was barely discussed at the almost hour and a half news conference Friday was the …

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Intuitive Machines Odysseus Lands on the Moon

Intuitive Machines mission control during the descent and landing of the Odysseus spacecraft

It was a nail bitting experience and it took some time to get confirmation, but Intuitive Machines has successfully landed its robotic spacecraft Odysseus on the Moon’s south pole. It is the first time in over 50 years that an American spacecraft has landed on the Moon and the first ever successful south pole landing as well as the first successful commercial landing.

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SFL and NOSA Achieve Laser-Based Sat-to-Ground Communications from a CubeSat

Artist rendering of NorSat-TD microsatellite developed by Space Flight Laboratory (SFL)

Toronto’s Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) and the Norwegian Space Agency (NOSA) say that they have successfully transferred data from a small CubeSat to a ground station using a laser-based optical link. This is a first for Dutch-built laser communications devices, and one of the few times that it’s been done on a small satellite and which posed a challenge with the various payloads.  This page …

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NordSpace Completes Flight-ready Rocket Engine Test, Aims for Suborbital Flight in 2024

Hot fire of the Hadfield-10 engine. Image credit: NordSpace.

Markham, Ontario based NordSpace finished their first test of a flight-ready rocket engine on Feb. 8 with the plan of launching to suborbital space later in the year. In an interview with SpaceQ, CEO Rahul Goel shared some details on funding, fuels and more. This page is for subscribers only. Already a subscriber? Log in. Fact-driven space news, columns, business, policy, technology and more. Support …

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Canadensys Aerospace Built Imagers Set for Lunar Launch

An imager built by Canadensys Aerospace that will be on the Intuitive Machines IM-1 lunar mission

The upcoming second launch of a NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) mission to the Moon will include imagers from Canadensys Aerospace for the International Lunar Observatory Association and Intuitive Machines. The latter was partially funded by the Canadian Space Agency through the Lunar Exploration Accelerator Program.

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