NASA’s SLS rocket, Orion spacecraft still targeting 2021 maiden flight
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. – The mega-rocket even more powerful than the Saturn V is coming together at the Kennedy Space Center and also NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. On the Gulf Coast Saturday, the Space Launch System is scheduled for a major engine test. The rocket is key to NASA’s Artemis program with plans to return humans to the lunar surface by 2024. And by the year 2024, NASA still plans on SLS and Orion sending the first man and next woman to the Moon. Artemis I would become the first launch from KSC launch complex 39B since 2009.
Boeing, NASA set March date for Starliner orbital test flight redo
Boeing and NASA announced March 29, 2021 for the next launch of the capsule designed to carry astronauts to the International Space Station. There won’t be any humans on this flight but it’s the final test before Boeing can launch astronauts for NASA. Boeing revealed the mission patch for OFT-2 slated for March 2021 (WKMG 2020)After an extensive joint investigation with NASA, Boeing officials say they are ready for orbital flight test 2, or OFT-2. The Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft near the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. If OFT-2 goes well, Starliner will next launch three NASA astronauts, Nicole Mann, Mike Fincke and Barry “Butch” Wilmore.
American astronaut, Russian cosmonauts return to Earth
***11:33 p.m. 10/21/2020***A trio of space travelers has safely returned to Earth after a six-month mission on the International Space Station***ORIGINAL***One American and two Russian space explorers will depart their temporary home on the International Space Station Wednesday evening and journey back to Earth in a spacecraft, landing in Kazakhstan. After spending 195 days in space, NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner will depart the ISS in the Russian Soyuz spacecraft just after 7:30 p.m. The hatch closed earlier in the day after Cassidy handed over command of the space station to Russian cosmonaut Sergey Ryzhikov. NASA astronauts Kate Rubins and Russian cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov also remain on the ISS. This will mark the second crewed flight for the private U.S. company since the return to human spaceflight from Florida earlier this summer.