Author: Ken Kremer

Watch for Ken’s continuing onsite coverage of NASA, SpaceX, ULA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and more space and mission reports direct from Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Stay tuned here for Ken's continuing Earth and Planetary science and human spaceflight news. Dr. Kremer is a research scientist and journalist based in the KSC area, active in outreach and interviewed regularly on TV and radio about space topics. Ken’s photos are for sale and he is available for lectures and outreach events.

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Touches and Samples Asteroid Bennu

For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – After a journey of over 200 million miles (321 million km) from Earth NASA’s daring OSIRIS-REx mission touched and sampleg Asteroid Bennu for six seconds with its pogo stick like TAGSAM robotic arm exactly as planned with incredible precision on Oct. 20 and successfully collected NASA’s first ever samples of asteroidal dust

SpaceX Launches New Batch Starlink Satellites Darting Through Clouds, 2nd This Week from Space Coast: Photos

For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL –   After a scrub for technical reasons resulting from the Falcon 9 rocket on Thursday, SpaceX at last launched the vehicle at lunchtime today, Saturday, Oct. 24 carrying another batch of 60 Starlink broadband internet satellite darting through thick clouds on its way to low Earth orbit (LEO) from the Florida Space Coast.

Soyuz Trio with NASA Astronaut Chris Cassidy Return Safely to Earth

For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL –   A Soyuz trio including veteran NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy returned safely to Earth after living and working in Earth’s orbit for 196 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS) making a soft touchdown in Kazakhstan late Wednesday. The Russian American trio of spaceflyers comprising Expedition 63 cosmonauts Ivan Vagner and Anatoly Ivanishin of

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Briefly Lands on Asteroid Bennu for Sample Collection Attempt

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – After a four year  journey NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft successfully unfurled its robotic arm and briefly landed on and touched Asteroid Bennu as planned to attempt NASA’s first ever sample collection of asteroidal dust and pebbles from the surface for delivery to Earth in 2023. It then rapidly

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Set for Sampling Attempt at Asteroid Bennu Oct. 20: Watch Live

For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL –  NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is all set for the first sampling attempt at Asteroid Bennu targeted to happen Tuesday afternoon, Oct. 20 – after a four year journey from Earth and arriving in orbit 2 years ago for detailed science imaging, spectroscopy, analysis and site selection! This is NASA’s first asteroid sample

All 4 Landing Legs Retracted on 3x Flown SpaceX Falcon 9 as Team Targets 2nd 6x Flown Booster Launch Oct. 18: Photos

For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM PORT CANAVERAL, FL – Following last Thursday’s (Oct. 8) stellar sunset return of the 3x flown and landed SpaceX Falcon 9 1st stage from the 13th Starlink mission to Port Canaveral and Florida’s Space Coast atop the ‘Of Course I Still Love You’ (OSICLY) droneship the crane crew hoisted the booster off the ship and onto

NASA Webb Space Telescope Completes Rigorous Tests Required for Rocket Launch

For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – After years of hard work and long hours by many teams of dedicated workers NASA’s fully assembled James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has at last fully and successfully completed all of the very harsh prelaunch environmental stress testing involving acoustics and vibrations required to clear the mammoth observatory for a rocket  launch to space

NASA Astronaut Kate Rubins Launches to Space Station with Russian Crewmates on Historic Soyuz Flight

For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL –   NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and her two Russian cosmonaut crewmates successfully blasted off for the International Space Station early this morning aboard their Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft on a milestone mission marking the historic end of an era for American astronauts aboard the Russian vessels that also counts as the 2oth anniversary of continuous, uninterrupted  human

NASA Delays Crew 1 Launch from Halloween to NET November to Investigate Falcon 9 Engine Issue

For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL –   NASA announced today that the launch of 4 astronauts aboard a Space X Crew Dragon spacecraft on the commercial Crew-1 human mission to the International Space Station (ISS) has been delayed from Halloween to no earlier than (NET) early-to-mid November to investigate concerns with the Merlin engines that power their Falcon