For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – NASA has awarded Lockheed Martin a trio of contracts critical to carrying out the world’s first ever Mars Sample Return (MSR) campaign in order to successfully retrieve and return the first ever soil and rock samples from the Martian surface to Earth – currently being gathered by the Perseverance rover and destined
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) snapped an absolutely stunning ‘selife’ of its 18 segment primary mirror as part of the initial alignment process in progress for the primary mirror – after the mammoth international observatory arrived at its final orbital destination at the L2 Lagrange Point on 24 Jan. 2022, sliding
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM JETTY PARK, FL – It was a valiant effort that came up short as the 1st attempt by new launch provider Astra to launch their 3.3 rocket on an experimental demonstration mission sponsored by NASA failed to deliver four cubesats to low Earth orbit from Florida’s Spaceport, Thursday afternoon, Feb. 10, when an anomaly took place
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM JETTY PARK, FL – A T Zero telemetry issue detected upon ignition of the first stage engines forced Astra – a new small sat mission launch provider – to scrub the 2nd attempt to launch their 1st operational rocket on an orbital flight test from Cape Canaveral on a demonstration mission with four cubesats sponsored by
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – Culminating an arduous two decade long development and million mile journey since launching on Christmas Day, the massive international James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) finally arrived at its final orbital destination at the L2 Lagrange Point on 24 Jan. 2022, sliding gently into its new home a million miles from earth –
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM JETTY PARK, FL – Astra was forced to scrub the 1st attempt to launch their 1st operational rocket on an orbital flight test from Cape Canaveral on a cubesat mission sponsored by NASA due to a failure in a critical radar hardware system operated by the U.S. Space Force in the Eastern Range that must be
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has at last fully unfurled from its origami like prelaunch state after engineers successfully completed the last major deployment Saturday, Jan. 8, and swung open the last of two three segment side wings to wholly unfold and lock in place its 21-foot (6.5 m) gold-coated primary
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – In another major milestone NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the tripod assembly holding the observatory’s secondary mirror successfully unfolded and latched to deploy the 2.4-foot (0.74-meter) mirror into place – which is essential for reflecting light from the distant Universe gathered by the primary mirror into the powerful science instruments so
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – Mission controllers with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have successfully completed the deployment, separation and tensioning of the observatory’s massive five-layered sunshield to pull them completely taut into final operational position on Tuesday, Jan. 4 – which is considered as the most riskiest of actions of the telescopes entire month-long extremely
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – U.S. President Joe Biden has approved a long-term extension of operations of the International Space Station (ISS) through 2030, as announced by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on New Year’s Eve, Dec. 31, shortly before ringing in the new year and coming on the heels of a phenomenally successful year for the space