Human Spaceflight
Five future astronauts and a teacher you need to know
All five of the women in NASA’s latest class of astronaut candidates followed a passion for adventure and science to get where they are today and are inspirations for the next generation of NASA scientists. Kayla Barron, Zena Cardman, Jasmin Moghbeli, Loral O’Hara and Jessica Watkins are nearing the end of two years of intensive …
International Space Station’s 20 years of transformation
The largest and most complex international construction project in space began on the steppes of Kazakhstan 20 years ago today. Atop its Proton rocket, on Nov. 20, 1998, the Zarya Functional Cargo Block thundered off its launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome to serve as a temporary control module for the nascent International Space Station. …
Meet the astronauts launching a new era of U.S. spaceflight
For the first time since NASA retired its space shuttle fleet in 2011, American astronauts will once again launch to the International Space Station from U.S. soil. The U.S. space agency on August 3 named the teams of astronauts who will fly aboard the first commercial crew missions to and from low Earth orbit. This time, …
NASA pioneer Katherine Johnson celebrates 100th birthday
Katherine Johnson, a trailblazing mathematician whose calculations were instrumental in every major NASA spaceflight program, celebrated her 100th birthday on August 26. Johnson mapped the flight of Alan Shepard, who became the first American in space in 1961. And when John Glenn was preparing for his first orbital flight in 1962, he didn’t trust NASA’s …
America’s gateway to space: LC-39A
The iconic launch pads, Pads 39A and 39B at Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39, have been the starting point for many space flights including the first manned lunar landing. The original design for Launch Complex 39 called for three to five launch pads, designated 39A – 39E, that would have been spaced approximately 1.6 …
ITS: SpaceX’s bold vision for crewed exploration of the solar system
It has long been known that SpaceX’s long term goal is the colonization of Mars. Everyone from the engineers to their CEO, Elon Musk, dreams of a world away from home. In September of 2016, we got a glimpse of how SpaceX is going to get there. At last, the long rumored Interplanetary Transport System …