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Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
SpaceX Dragon flight to ISS draws near
SpaceX and NASA have completed a successful flight readiness review (FRR) for the Dragon's upcoming visit to the International Space Station.
NASA collects round three of CCDev proposals
NASA is soliciting a third round of proposals from private spaceflight companies looking to send astronauts to the International Space Station.
Lovely Lovejoy pictures
Just a few of the amazing photos of Comet Lovejoy that have been taken from the southern hemisphere over the last few days. Comet Lovejoy is the first Kreutz sungrazer to have been discovered from the ground in 40 years, and after its surprising survival of its passage close to the Sun, it has been putting on a spectacular show in southern skies.
Expedition 30, SpaceX and Stratolaunch
An update on upcoming missions to the International Space Station (ISS).
One-astronaut game of baseball in the International Space Station
A fun video of Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa playing baseball aboard the ISS.
Have two spacecraft ever docked to two separate space stations on the same day?
The Chinese spacecraft Shenzhou 8 docks with space station Tiangong 1, on the same day a Progress resupply capsule arrives at the International Space Station.
Decoding SpaceX's re-usable spacecraft concept
Breaking down the futuristic technologies for SpaceX's reusable Grasshopper spacecraft, as shown in a recent promotional video.
Video: Soaring over Earth
This amazing video has already been posted by basically every other space blogger but I can't resist featuring it too, especially because I just realized that it was not made by NASA but instead by a member of the public digging into public NASA archives of image data -- yay for amateurs!
Express Mail to Low Earth Orbit
Concern about the supply chain for the ISS has been growing steeply over the last months. The final flight of Atlantis turned the ominous shadow of a future without the shuttle into a glum reality. And only a few weeks later, we have witnessed, with some degree of a shock, the first failure of a Progress mission in many years.
Progress comes to a halt
The first post-shuttle resupply mission in ISS history got off to a rocky start, as a Russian Progress cargo spacecraft failed to reach orbit, crashing into south central Russia.
Looking down on a shooting star
This photo is making the rounds of Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and whatever other social network you care to name today. It was shot by astronaut Ron Garan from the Space Station, and it's a meteor seen from above. Way cool.
What's up in human spaceflight: the gas station edition
An update on human spaceflight, including orbital propellant depots, suborbital test flights and an Orion crew capsule test aboard a Delta IV Heavy.
What's up in human spaceflight: a Dragon approaches
Private spaceflight company SpaceX has secured tentative approval with NASA to combine its next test flight with an actual ISS docking.
Venus, and the Moon, and Atlantis, and ISS, and Magellan
Pam Chadbourne, one of the many engineers who made the Magellan Radar Mapper mission possible, sent this note out to Magellan team members this morning, and graciously permitted me to post it here.
Discovery's penultimate mission to the Space Station
Planetary Society volunteer Ken Kremer witnessed the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery on its STS-131 mission to the International Space Station in person and filed this report on the successful mission.
Pretty picture: Fly through the aurora
Space Station astronaut Soichi Noguchi is an awesome photographer. This image is going straight into the
Pretty Picture: ISS in the X-band
This is from the
Endeavour Launch Ignites Night Sky
Planetary Society volunteer Ken Kremer is reporting for us from the Kennedy Space Center, where he is covering the launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour, set to launch this weekend.
Endeavour Crew Arrives at KSC
The crew for the STS-130 flight of shuttle Endeavour arrived at the Kennedy Space Center late in the evening on Tuesday February 2. Blastoff is slated for February 7 at 4:39 AM and will be the final night time shuttle launch.
Atlantis Rockets to Orbit on crucial ISS resupply flight
Space Shuttle Atlantis and her crew of six rocketed into orbit on Monday (November 16) precisely as planned at 2:28 PM EST from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida.