For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – Precisely 50 years to the day when humans last landed on the Moon on Apollo 17, NASA’s next generation human rated lunar capsule Orion safely returned to Earth, Sunday, Dec. 11, capping a history making month long demonstration mission around the Moon and back with a successful ocean splashdown off the coast
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION, FL – In the dead of the night Sunday, Dec. 11, SpaceX successfully launched a pair of science missions to the Moon placing the commercially built Japanese HAKUTO-R robotic lunar lander for iSpace and NASA’s Lunar Flashlight rideshare cubesat searching for lunar water ice into a lunar transfer orbit from Florida’s
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – NASA’s Orion Artemis 1 spacecraft snapped a series of staggeringly beautiful selfie views with the cratered lunar surface and the crescent Earth rising against an eerie backdrop of the blackness of space as it conducted the critical return flyby powered (RPF) maneuver Monday, Dec. 5 – that irreversibly committed the capsule to
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – NASA’s Orion Artemis 1 spacecraft captured stunning up close imagery of the tortured lunar surface terrain during the unpiloted vehicles 1st close flyby orbiting around the Moon’s far side on Flight Day 6 of the test flight mission on 21 Nov. 2022. I’ve created a trio of up close lunar mosaics from
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – NASA’s uncrewed Orion spacecraft reached the farthest distance from Earth it will travel during the groundbreaking Artemis 1 mission — while also reaching the halfway mark of the flight during Flight Day 13, on Monday, Nov. 28 of the 25.5 day long test flight. The spacecraft also captured stunning imagery of Earth and the
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL –NASA’s Orion crew capsule entered its a distant retrograde orbit (DRO) trajectory around the Moon after completing a critical thruster firing on Friday afternoon, Nov. 25, of the main engine required for lunar orbit insertion on Flight Day 10 of the 25.5-day long Artemis 1 unpiloted test flight mission. Orion’s Orbital Maneuvering
NASA’s Orion Completes Outbound Powered Lunar Flyby Firing with Luscious Lookbacks to Earth and Moon
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – NASA’s new era of Artemis exploration continues gathering momentum as the unpiloted Orion crew capsule successfully completed its outbound powered flyby (OPF) engine burn Monday morning, Nov. 21 and made its closest flyby of the Moon – keeping the human space vehicle and Artemis 1 mission precisely on track for targeting
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – The Artemis Era of exploration officially opened today with the spectacularly beautiful nighttime blastoff of NASA’s mammoth SLS moon rocket for the first time on the Artemis 1 mission on Wednesday, Nov. 16, from the Kennedy Space Center on its maiden lunar test flight with the Orion crew capsule, that puts America back on the
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – The countdown clock is ticking for the nighttime liftoff of NASA’s $4.1 Billion Artemis 1 Moon rocket just past midnight on Wed. Nov. 16 from launch pad 39B at the Kennedy Center in Florida on an uncrewed lunar test flight around the Moon and back – after NASA managers cleared the
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM PLAYALINDA BEACH/KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – Here’s a last look at NASA’s Artemis 1 Moon rocket standing vertical at launch pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday, Nov. 7, just prior to the impending landfall of Hurricane Nicole on Florida’s East Coast tracking for overnight Thursday, Nov. 10 and consequently face hurricane