Mission Reports

NASA celebrates first historic helicopter flight on Mars

A navigation camera on NASA’s Perseverance rover captured this view of the Ingenuity helicopter’s historic flight Monday. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech An automated mini-helicopter driven by two fast-spinning, counter-rotating rotors took off from the surface of Mars, hovered for 30 seconds, then successfully landed Monday to complete the historic first powered flight of a powered aircraft on …

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Photos: Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon roll out to pad 39A

A Falcon 9 rocket with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft rolls up the ramp to pad 39A Friday. Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft rolled out to pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Friday. Hydraulics raised the 215-foot-tall (65-meter) rocket vertical on the historic launch pad in …

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NASA schedules first Mars helicopter test flight for Monday

One of the cameras on the Perseverance rover’s Mastcam-Z instrument took this picture of the Ingenuity helicopter April 9. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU After some long-distance troubleshooting, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter will attempt the first flight of its kind on another world Monday in a demonstration that could open the door to a new era of interplanetary …

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Russian capsule brings home three space fliers

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION The Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft lands in Kazakhstan. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls Two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut undocked from the International Space Station and plunged back to Earth early Saturday, landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan amid preparations in Florida for launch of another station-bound crew Thursday aboard a …

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Crew Dragon astronauts arrive at Kennedy Space Center for launch preps

European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet, Crew-2 pilot Megan McArthur, Crew-2 commander Shane Kimbrough, and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Friday for final launch preparations. Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani An all-veteran crew of four astronauts jetted into NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Friday for the final few days of rehearsals, briefings, …

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Space station crew set for landing in Kazakhstan

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Members of the Expedition 64 and 65 crews aboard the International Space Station this week during a handover between Soyuz missions. Credit: Sergey Kud-Sverchkov/Roscosmos Two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut wrapping up a six-month stay aboard the International Space Station readied their Soyuz ferry ship for a fiery …

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NASA, SpaceX clear crew capsule for launch next week

Bill Gerstenmaier, SpaceX’s vice president of build and flight reliability, participates in a Flight Readiness Review for the Crew-2 mission Thursday. Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett NASA and SpaceX officials are moving forward with preparations to launch the next commercial Crew Dragon mission to the International Space Station next week after a Flight Readiness Review Thursday, pending …

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SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavour meets Falcon 9 rocket for launch next week

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft arrives at the company’s Falcon 9 hangar April 13 near pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: SpaceX SpaceX trucked its Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft — refurbished with a new heat shield and structural enhancements — across the Cape Canaveral spaceport this week for attachment to a …

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Blue Origin practices crew operations on suborbital test flight

Blue Origin’s New Shepard booster lifts off at 12:51 p.m. EDT (11:51 a.m. CDT; 1651 GMT) Wednesday. Credit: Blue Origin Blue Origin, the space company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, took another step toward launching people to the edge of space Wednesday with a suborbital test flight of its New Shepard booster and crew capsule …

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Astrobotic selects SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy to launch robotic lunar lander

A Falcon Heavy rocket lifts off in April 2019 with the Arabsat 6A commercial communications satellite. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II / Spaceflight Now A commercial lunar lander built by Astrobotic will launch from the Kennedy Space Center on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket in late 2023 to deliver a water-hunting NASA rover to the moon’s …

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