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If You Thought Your Life Was a Mess, Spare a Thought for Boeing's Massively Failed Starliner Spacecraft

Even after pouring $2 billion into its much-maligned Starliner spacecraft, NASA and Boeing remain committed to getting back off the ground. As Ars Technica reports, the head of NASA's commercial crew program, Steve Stich, revealed last week that Boeing and its propulsion supplier, Aerojet Rocketdyne, are making considerable changes to the astronaut shuttle following a disastrous first crewed mission to the International Space Station last year. The spacecraft experienced several "in-flight ano

After a partly successful test flight, European firm eyes space station mission

Last month, the parachutes on Hélène Huby's small spacecraft failed to deploy, and the vehicle and its cargo crashed into the ocean on Earth. It was both a success and a failure. The success was that after Huby founded The Exploration Company in Europe, she managed to move nimbly with the "Mission Possible" spacecraft such that it cost less than $25 million to build and reached space in less than three years. The vehicle ticked off a number of successes in spaceflight before making a controlle

If You Thought Your Life Was a Mess, Spare a Thought for Boeing's Starliner

Even after pouring $2 billion into its much-maligned Starliner spacecraft, NASA and Boeing remain committed to getting back off the ground. As Ars Technica reports, the head of NASA's commercial crew program, Steve Stich, revealed last week that Boeing and its propulsion supplier, Aerojet Rocketdyne, are making considerable changes to the astronaut shuttle following a disastrous first crewed mission to the International Space Station last year. The spacecraft experienced several "in-flight ano

Boeing’s Starliner Won’t Get to Fly This Year, but the Wonky Spacecraft Is Far From Dead

It’s been more than a year since Starliner’s failed test flight left a crew stranded in space, and Boeing’s spacecraft still isn’t ready to fly. In a recent update, NASA officials said they are working toward launching a mission aboard Starliner in 2026, and there probably won’t be any astronauts involved. During a press briefing last week, Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager, told reporters that Boeing is making several changes to its Starliner spacecraft to keep its thrusters

The ISS is nearing retirement, so why is NASA still gung-ho about Starliner?

After so many delays, difficulties, and disappointments, you might be inclined to think that NASA wants to wash its hands of Boeing's troubled Starliner spacecraft. But that's not the case. The manager of NASA's commercial crew program, Steve Stich, told reporters Thursday that Boeing and its propulsion supplier, Aerojet Rocketdyne, are moving forward with several changes to the Starliner spacecraft to resolve problems that bedeviled a test flight to the International Space Station (ISS) last

Remember That Asteroid NASA Deflected in a Test of Saving Earth? We Have Bad News

In late 2022, NASA celebrated its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) as a massive success, a proof of concept for saving humanity in case a similar space rock were to ever head straight for Earth. The small spacecraft smashed into asteroid Didymos' moonlet Dimorphos at a violent 14,000 mph, knocking it severely off course. But three years later, astronomers found that the collision had some unintended consequences. As detailed in a paper published last week in the Planetary Science Journa

With Varda Space, leading Silicon Valley players make big bet on making drugs in space

Pharmaceutical scientists come up against a hard limitations here on Earth: gravity. Varda Space wants to change that. The company has raised a massive new round to turn space into the “ultimate high ground” for the production of critical pharmaceutical components that can be brought back to Earth and used to make finished drugs. The company’s $187 million Series C funding round announced Thursday will be used to build out a new laboratory facility that could transform Varda’s orbital manufact

Investors appear to like a company with big space manufacturing ambitions

After flying three missions into low-Earth orbit this year, Varda Space Industries appears to be making credible progress toward developing the nascent manufacturing-in-space industry. Investors seem to think the same, as the California-based company announced an impressive $187 million Series C round of funding on Thursday. This brings the company's total amount of money raised since its founding in 2021 to $325 million. "A decent chunk of the capital is going to go toward scaling up our prod

After successfully entering Earth's atmosphere, a European spacecraft is lost

A European company that seeks to develop orbital spacecraft for cargo, and eventually humans, took a step forward this week with a test flight that saw its "Mission Possible" vehicle power up and fly successfully in orbit before making a controlled reentry into Earth's atmosphere. However, after encountering an "issue," the Exploration Company lost contact with its spacecraft a few minutes before touchdown in the ocean. In an update on LinkedIn Tuesday morning, the company characterized the te

Alert: There's a Lost Spaceship in the Ocean

It's lost forever? Dive Mind In science fiction, we often have the trope of a spacecraft becoming lost in space — but what about being lost at sea? That's what happened this week with an eight-foot-wide experimental spacecraft flown by a European aerospace outfit called The Exploration Company, according to a company statement on LinkedIn. When the vehicle came back to Earth, mission control lost contact with the craft when it entered the ocean. "The capsule was launched successfully, powere

A European Startup’s Spacecraft Made It to Orbit. Now It’s Lost at Sea

A European company that seeks to develop orbital spacecraft for cargo, and eventually humans, took a step forward this week with a test flight that saw its Mission Possible vehicle power up and fly successfully in orbit before making a controlled reentry into Earth's atmosphere. However, after encountering an “issue,” the Exploration Company lost contact with its spacecraft a few minutes before touchdown in the ocean. In an update Tuesday morning on LinkedIn, the company characterized the test

A European Startup's Spacecraft Made It to Orbit. Now It's Lost at Sea

A European company that seeks to develop orbital spacecraft for cargo, and eventually humans, took a step forward this week with a test flight that saw its Mission Possible vehicle power up and fly successfully in orbit before making a controlled reentry into Earth's atmosphere. However, after encountering an “issue,” the Exploration Company lost contact with its spacecraft a few minutes before touchdown in the ocean. In an update Tuesday morning on LinkedIn, the company characterized the test

After successfully entering Earth’s atmosphere, a European spacecraft is lost

A European company that seeks to develop orbital spacecraft for cargo, and eventually humans, took a step forward this week with a test flight that saw its "Mission Possible" vehicle power up and fly successfully in orbit before making a controlled reentry into Earth's atmosphere. However, after encountering an "issue," the Exploration Company lost contact with its spacecraft a few minutes before touchdown in the ocean. In an update on LinkedIn Tuesday morning, the company characterized the te

SpaceX's String of Starship Failures Continues With Massive Rocket Explosion

SpaceX's ongoing mission to prepare Starship spacecraft for trips to the moon and, eventually, Mars suffered a setback when a spacecraft exploded this week in South Texas. The explosion happened during what SpaceX called routine testing in preparation for Starship's 10th flight since 2023, which was expected to happen later this month. SpaceX uses a different rocket design to launch its Starlink internet satellites. On X, the space company wrote, "On Wednesday, June 18 at approximately 11 p.m

The Mysterious Inner Workings of Io, Jupiter’s Volcanic Moon

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Scott Bolton’s first encounter with Io took place in the summer of 1980, right after he graduated from college and started a job at NASA. The Voyager 1 spacecraft had flown past this moon of Jupiter, catching the first glimpse of active volcanism on a world other than Earth. Umbrella-shaped outbursts of magmatic matter rocketed into space from all over Io’s surface. “They looked amazingly beautiful,” said Bolton, who is now based a