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In a key milestone for NASA’s plan to return humans to the moon, the space agency today announced that SpaceX will build the vehicle that will land astronauts on the lunar surface. The current plan, known as Artemis, calls for astronauts to launch on NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, fly to lunar orbit on the space agency’s Orion space capsule, and then transfer to SpaceX’s Starship rocket to make the final descent to the surface.
The contract, worth $2.9 billion, will go toward developing a moon-ready version of the Starship rocket. The futuristic-looking vehicle is still in the prototype stage, with testing ongoing at a Texas facility. SpaceX beat out proposals from Jeff Bezos’ company Blue Origin which has been working with defense contractors Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Draper and Dynetics, a defense contractor based in Huntsville, Alabama.
SpaceX Surprised By High Liquid Oxygen Levels In Rocket Prior To NASA Crew Launch Apr 15, 2021 20:36 EDT
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. s (SpaceX) vice president of build and reliability, Mr. Willian Gerstenmaier, stated today that his company discovered excess levels of oxidizer on the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket. The anomaly was discovered during a test abort in Texas, explained the executive, whose company is now further investigating the issue.
His comments came during a teleconference hosted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) after the duo completed the flight readiness review for NASA s upcoming Crew-2 mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The Crew-2 mission is part of the agency s Commercial Crew Program (CCP), which successfully resumed ISS flights from the homeland U.S. last year.
NASA just approved the SpaceX Crew-2 launch: Date and Details
Chris Davies - Apr 16, 2021, 10:36am CDT
NASA has given the green-light for the SpaceX Crew-2 mission to launch in a week’s time, it’s been confirmed, with four astronauts after headed out to the International Space Station. The decision was made after a Flight Readiness Review (FRR) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, which decided the record-setting launch was safe to go ahead.
It’ll be the second showing for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which looks to outsource the agency’s space flights to private companies. SpaceX successfully demonstrated that could work with the first Crew Dragon mission, Crew-1, which launched in November 2020 and safely reached the International Space Station complete with four new astronauts.
Endeavour moved to 39A as astronauts arrive and Crew-2 mission is cleared for launch
April 16, 2021
Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur, Thomas Pesquet, and Akihiko Hoshide have arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for their upcoming launch to the International Space Station on the same day their spaceship, the Crew Dragon
Endeavour, was moved to its sea-side launch pad.
NASA and SpaceX are currently targeting launch of the Crew-2 mission on Thursday, April 22 at 06:11 EDT / 10:11 UTC from LC-39A ahead of docking 23 hours later on Friday, April 23rd.
Ticking off important milestones for NASA and SpaceX for the Commercial Crew Program, Crew-2 is SpaceX’s second long-duration mission to the International Space Station (ISS). It is the first crewed mission using a previously flown Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 first stage.