Verified facts grounded in source documentation.
NASA plans to launch ExoTerra’s high-impulse solar-electric propulsion system into orbit on a cubesat in December 2021.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine identified budgetary challenges, rather than technical issues, as the biggest risks to developing lunar landers and emphasized the need to fund the Human Landing System at 100%.
NASA anticipated in a 2020-07-22 media advisory that the first operational Crew Dragon mission, Crew-1, would launch no earlier than late September.
NASA limited the number of media personnel on site at Kennedy Space Center for the Mars 2020 launch and required most pre-launch briefings to have remote access.
The 2020-07-15 flight was the Minotaur 4’s first launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA’s Wallops Island Facility.
Rocket Lab carried out a VCLS launch when a Rocket Lab Electron rocket successfully launched 10 cubesats for NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative and three additional payloads for other customers on a December 2018 launch.
In January, NASA selected Axiom Space to use a docking port on the International Space Station for a module that Axiom Space plans to launch in the second half of 2024.
NASA no longer expects astronauts on the Artemis 3 mission in 2024 to use the Gateway, and instead plans for the Orion spacecraft to dock directly with the lunar lander, most likely in near-rectilinear halo orbit.
NASA currently plans to launch the next commercial crew mission, Crew-1, on 2020-08-30 with four astronauts from NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) aboard.
NASA plans to enter into a sole source Blanket Purchase Agreement with Airbus Defence and Space GEO Inc. for unique commercial optical and radar satellite imagery.
NASA expects the first launch of the Space Launch System to take place in late 2021.
NASA raised the Mars 2020 mission to the highest priority because its rover Perseverance has a narrow launch window between mid-July and early August 2020.
NASA and the Department of Defense have worked for almost 20 years to develop an AFTS that is available for use by all range users under International Traffic in Arms Regulations and can reduce the cost of access to space.
Vallis Schröteri is the largest rille on the Moon and was under consideration by NASA as a landing site for the canceled Apollo 18 mission.
NASA announced a four-person crew for the first operational Crew Dragon mission on 2020-03-31 that features three NASA astronauts and one astronaut from the Japanese space agency JAXA.
If SpaceX’s Demo-2 flight occurs on schedule and is successful, NASA will likely launch the first operational Crew Dragon mission, Crew-1, in 2020-06-30.
The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) was selected by NASA in early 2017 as the most recent SMEX mission chosen for development.
After AEHF-6, Parsons’ next launch manifest integration job will be a secondary payload that will ride with Landsat-9, an Earth observation satellite that NASA plans to launch in 2021.
Boeing received its first commercial crew award from NASA in 2010 as part of the Commercial Crew Development program.
NASA plans to expand the capabilities and roles of the lunar Gateway with international and commercial partners after 2024.