Month: October 2022

NASA continues to lay out its crewed moon plans. The space agency has ordered three more Orion crew capsules from aerospace giant Lockheed Martin, in a deal worth $1.99 billion. The spacecraft will be used for NASA’s Artemis moon program — specifically, Artemis missions six through eight. “Lockheed Martin is honored to partner with NASA to deliver Orion spacecraft for NASA’s Artemis missions,” Lisa Callahan, vice president and general manager for commercial civil space at Lockheed Martin, said in a statement (opens in new tab) on Thursday (Oct. 20). “This…

Fan films are the ultimate expression of love for blockbuster Hollywood film and TV franchises and nowhere is the passion more evident than within that vast and colorful galaxy far, far away. To celebrate that creativity, we’ve put together this list of our favorite Star Wars fan films. More than perhaps any other intellectual pop culture property, Star Wars incites do-it-yourself filmmakers to render their own creative interpretations of the heroes, villains, aliens, and creatures that inhabit this expansive space opera universe. Amateur shorts spawned from every corner of Star Wars’…

The second and only remaining operational data recorder aboard NASA’s magnetosphere-observing Geotail spacecraft has failed, jeopardizing a mission that has been in operation for three decades. NASA scientists are working with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Japan’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), partners on the Geotail mission, to determine the best path forward for the project, according to a NASA statement.  The problem with the recorder occurred on June 28 and was spotted by researchers at JAXA. Since the discovery, scientists have been conducting tests to…