Tag: Kennedy Space Center

NASA Selects Three New Venture-Class Launch Service Providers

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Credit: NASA NASA has selected three additional companies to provide launch services for future agency missions through its VADR (Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare) contract. The companies awarded are: Arrow Science and Technology LLC of Webster, Texas Impulse Space Inc. of Redondo Beach, California Momentus Space LLC of San Jose, California The VADR contract is a firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity instrument with an ordering period through Feb. 3, 2027 and a maximum total value of $300 million across all VADR contracts. NASA selected the new launch providers in accordance with VADR’s…

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Leadership to Discuss NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test

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Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft that launched NASA’s Crew Flight Test astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station is pictured docked to the Harmony module’s forward port. (Credit: NASA) NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and leadership will hold an internal Agency Test Flight Readiness Review on Saturday, Aug. 24, for NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test. About an hour later, NASA will host a live news conference at 1 p.m. EDT from the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Watch the media event on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app,…

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FAQ: NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test Return Status

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7 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Editor’s note: This article was updated Aug. 20, 2024, to reflect the latest information from NASA’s Office of Communications. NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams arrived at the orbiting laboratory on June 6 aboard the Boeing Starliner after lifting off on June 5 from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. During Starliner’s flight to the space station, engineers noticed some of the spacecraft’s thrusters did not perform as expected and several leaks in…

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Rescuers at the Ready at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center 

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3 Min Read Rescuers at the Ready at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center  Credits: NASA/Kim Shiflett If there’s an emergency at the launch pad during a launch countdown, there’s a special team engineers at Kennedy Space Center teams can call on – the Pad Rescue team. Trained to quickly rescue personnel at the launch pad and take them to safety in the event of an unlikely emergency, NASA’s Pad Rescue team at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida has been in place since the Apollo Program. Today they help support crewed…

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NASA Invites Media to Watch Artemis II Rocket Adapter Roll Out

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Crews are preparing to move a key adapter for NASA’s Space Launch System rocket out of Marshall Space Flight Center’s Building 4708 to the agency’s Pegasus barge. The cone-shaped launch vehicle stage adapter connects the rocket’s core stage to the upper stage and helps protect the upper stage’s engine that will help propel the Artemis II mission around the Moon. Credits: Sam Lott/NASA To mark progress toward the first crewed flight test around the Moon in more than 50 years for the benefit of humanity, NASA will welcome media Wednesday,…

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A Practiced Escape

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NASA/Kim Shiflett In preparation for NASA’s Artemis II crewed mission, teams at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida practice getting out of the emergency escape, or egress, basket on Aug. 9, 2024. The baskets, similar to gondolas on ski lifts, are used in the case of a pad abort emergency to enable astronauts and other pad personnel a way to quickly escape from the mobile launcher to the base of the pad and where waiting emergency transport vehicles will then drive them away. Image credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

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NASA Funds Research Projects Advancing STEM Career Development

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Credit: NASA NASA has awarded $6 million to 20 teams from emerging research institutions across the United States supporting projects that offer career development opportunities for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students. This is the third round of seed funding awarded through the agency’s MOSAICS (Mentoring and Opportunities in STEM with Academic Institutions for Community Success) program, formerly the Science Mission Directorate Bridge Program. The program seeks to expand access to NASA research opportunities in the science and engineering disciplines, as well as to NASA’s workforce. “The STEM workforce continues…

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NASA Teams Change Brakes to Keep Artemis Crew Safe

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Teams with NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems Program, in preparation for the agency’s Artemis II crewed mission to the Moon, begin installing the first of four emergency egress baskets on the mobile launcher at Launch Complex 39B at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024. The baskets, similar to gondolas on ski lifts, are used in the case of a pad abort emergency to enable astronauts and other pad personnel a way to quickly escape away from the mobile launcher to the base of the pad…

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NASA Seeks Student Missions to Send to Space in 2026, Beyond

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Technicians with the University of Kansas prepare their KUbeSat-1 for integration at Firefly’s Payload Processing Facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California on Thursday, April 25, 2024. Credit: NASA NASA announced a new round of opportunities for CubeSat, developers to build spacecrafts on that will fly on upcoming launches through the agency’s CSLI (CubeSat Launch Initiative). CubeSats are a class of small spacecraft called nanosatellites. The initiative provides space access to U.S. educational institutions, certain non-profit organizations, and informal educational institutions such as museums and science centers, as well as NASA centers focused on workforce development,…

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