Civil
Stories about US and international civil space missions, including those led by NASA and ESA.
Poland Signs the Artemis Accords
ICYMI: Poland signed the Artemis Accords Tuesday, joining 12 other countries in a US-led agreement to pursue cooperative and sustainable space exploration. NASA announced the founding group of eight member countries at last year’s International Astronautical Congress (IAC). It’s incrementally added more since. The agreement establishes principles for peaceful space exploration, and directs member states to register space…
Senate Appropriations Committee Orders NASA to Fund Two Landers
The Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday released its fiscal year 2022 appropriations bill. We’ll Ctrl+f to the part you’re here for: The bill would provide ~$24.8 billion to NASA, almost exactly what the agency asked for in its 924-page FY22 budget request (yes, we counted). Allocating nearly $25 billion to NASA would be a 6+% bump over FY21, which was a 3% boost…
Lucy Blasts Off
Up and away Lucy went in the wee hours of Saturday morning, hitching a ride on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket. The robotic asteroid hunter is now traveling at a brisk ~67,000 mph, per NASA. Lucy blasted off from launch complex 41 in Cape Canaveral at 5:34 AM ET. The launch of the Lockheed-built…
Soyuz MS-18 Crew Returns to Earth
Cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, actress Yulia Peresild, and director Klim Shipenko landed in Kazakhstan yesterday. Novitskiy was in space for 191 days; Peresild and Shipenko were there for 12. The crew’s Soyuz MS-18 undocked from the ISS at 9:14 ET on Saturday night and landed just after midnight. Unexpected plot twist: Due to unintentional MS-18 thruster firing, the ISS…
China Completes 37th Orbital Launch of 2021, Readies Second Crewed Mission to Tiangong
Yesterday, China successfully launched a Long March 2D rocket to orbit, carrying the H-alpha Solar Explorer and 10 additional small satellites. H-alpha is China’s debut solar observatory, SpaceNews reports. The telescope-equipped spacecraft is headed for 517-KM, sun-synchronous orbit. The mission was China’s 37th orbital launch of 2021. Next up: Shenzhou 13. Hours after this hits your…
