SpaceX

Acting NASA Associate Administrator Vanessa Wyche, left, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, and acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro, right, react as they watch the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft splash down with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, Suni Williams, Nick Hague, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, Tuesday, March 18, 2025, from the Space Operations Center at the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters Building in Washington. Image: NASA/Bill Ingalls Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy will now also oversee NASA as its newest interim administrator. The new leadership announcement came in a late-night post by President Donald Trump on his social media site, Truth Social. “Sean is doing a TREMENDOUS job in handling our Country’s Transportation Affairs, including creating a state...

The Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters in Washington D.C. Image: NASA A massive tax and spending package passed by the Senate on Wednesday was approved by the House on Thursday and signed by President Donald Trump on Friday, July 4. The bill, H.R. 1, also referred to as the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ Act, was passed through the reconciliation process, meaning it required a simple majority in both chambers of Congress, avoiding impacts from the filibuster. It is separate from the Fiscal Year 2026 appropriations bills, which include the funding for NASA’s budget along with other agencies, however, there are provisions that do concern America’s space agency. Moon and Mars The legislation earmarks $9.995 billion to be available until Sept. 30, 2032, for projects that have backing by politicians i...

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Launch Complex 39A with the Meteosat Third Generation Sounder (MTG-S1) satellite from the European Oganisation for the Exploration of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT). Image: Michael Cain/Spaceflight Now A European satellite designed to augment both weather monitoring and assessments of air quality and pollution for Europe and North Africa took flight from Florida on Tuesday evening. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lofted the Meteosat Third Generation Sounder (MTG-S1) satellite into a geosynchronous transfer orbit, setting the spacecraft up to operate in a geostationary Earth orbit, roughly 36,000 km (~22,369 mi) above the equator. The mission lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 5:04 p.m. EDT (2104 UTC) on Tuesday, July ...

Axiom Space’s fourth flight to the International Space Station got off to a sky-lighting start with blastoff from historic pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. Image: Michael Cain/Spaceflight Now Retired astronaut Peggy Whitson, America’s most experienced space flier, and three rookie crewmates from India, Poland and Hungary blasted off on a privately-financed flight to the International Space Station early Wednesday — the fourth non-government mission mounted by Houston-based Axiom Space. Strapped into a new SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule making its maiden flight, Whitson, test pilot Shubhanshu Shukla of India, European Space Agency astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland, and Hungarian engineer Tibor Kapu roared away from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center at 2:31 a.m. EDT. Lighting...

United Launch Alliance launches its Atlas 5 rocket on June 23, 2025 with the second batch of 27 Project Kuiper satellites for Amazon towards low Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Image: Michael Cain/Spaceflight Now Update June 23, 7:23 a.m. EDT: ULA launched its Atlas 5 rocket. For a second time this year, United Launch Alliance launched an Atlas 5 rocket carrying 27 of Amazon’s Project Kuiper internet satellites into low Earth orbit. This was just the second production batch that will make up a constellation of more than 3,200 satellites eventually. Monday was also the second attempt to launch this mission, dubbed Kuiper 2 by ULA, following a nitrogen purge issue connected to the rocket’s booster engine that caused a scrub on June 16 and for t...