NASA’s Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) successfully launched from California at 9:02 a.m. EDT Saturday, embarking on its mission to measure the ice of Earth’s frozen reaches with unprecedented accuracy. ICESat-2 lifted off from Space Launch Complex-2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base on United Launch Alliance’s final Delta II rocket. Ground stations in […]
NASA’s newest communications antenna became operational today following a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Alaska Satellite Facility in Fairbanks. The antenna will increase the agency’s communications support to Earth-observing missions. NASA spacecraft collect massive amounts of scientific data every day, but there are no fiber cables or internet hookups in space. How do they transmit that […]
While seldom in the news, a United States Air Force craft, launched in May of 2015, remained in space for two years, before finally touching down on Sunday, the Air Force announced. The X-37B, which looks like a much smaller version of the U.S. space shuttles, throughout its over 700 days in orbit, conducted a […]
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has had its last close brush with Saturn’s hazy moon Titan and is now beginning its final set of 22 orbits around the ringed planet. The spacecraft made its 127th and final close approach to Titan on April 21 at 11:08 p.m. PDT (2:08 a.m. EDT on April 22), passing at an […]