NASA

SALT LAKE CITY — A year after announcing plans to offer rideshare missions to geostationary orbit, Impulse Space says the demand has been strong enough to plan an annual series of them. At last year’s Small Satellite Conference, Impulse Space said it would offer rideshare missions to GEO using its high-energy Helios orbital transfer vehicle under development. The company said it was prompted to offer the service by the number of “microGEO” spacecraft under development with masses of one ton or less. “We’re going to gauge the demand and see if it’s real,” Tom Mueller, founder and chief executive of Impulse Space, said at the time. A year later, Impulse has concluded the demand is real. “Twelve months ago, we got up here and we were saying that we think there is a market for GEO r...

Space Center Houston joins the space exploration community in mourning the loss and celebrating the extraordinary life of former astronaut Captain Jim Lovell, who passed away at age 97.  Lovell’s contributions to the U.S. space program are monumental. Selected by NASA as an astronaut in 1962, he served on four pivotal space missions and played a key role in shaping the future of human spaceflight. He was a backup pilot for Gemini 4, a backup commander for Gemini 9, and a backup commander to Neil Armstrong for the historic Apollo 11 lunar landing.  On December 4, 1965, Lovell and Frank Borman launched aboard Gemini 7, completing a 330-hour mission that included the first successful rendezvous of two manned, maneuverable spacecraft in orbit, a milestone that helped make future Moo...

Explore This Section Perseverance Home Mission Overview Rover Components Mars Rock Samples Where is Perseverance? Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Mission Updates Science Overview Objectives Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Perseverance Raw Images Images Videos Audio More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions Mars Home 2 min read Linking Local Lithologies to a Larger Landscape This image from NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover, taken by the Mastcam-Z instrument’s right eye, shows a collection of ridge-forming boulders. The rover acquired this image looking south along the ridge while exploring the “Westport” regio...

TAMPA, Fla. — Skyrora has become the first British company to secure a launch license from the U.K.’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), though a lack of available launch pads could push its first suborbital flight from SaxaVord Spaceport into 2026. The CAA license, announced Aug. 4, allows for up to 16 launches from SaxaVord using Skylark L, an 11-meter suborbital rocket with a 50-kilogram payload capacity. Skylark L flew for the first time in 2022 from Iceland using the company’s mobile launch facility. It reached 300 meters, well short of the 100-kilometer Kármán line, because of a software issue. The rocket is designed to de-risk technologies that will be used in Skyrora XL, a vehicle twice as tall and capable of placing up to 315 kilograms into low Earth orbit. While t...