National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Subterms

    Latest story

    138 Shares109 Views

    How NASA Would Struggle Without SpaceX if Trump Cancels Musk’s Contracts

    by

    If President Trump cancels the contracts for Elon Musk’s private spaceflight company, the federal government would struggle to achieve many goals in orbit and beyond.In 2006, a small, little-known company named Space Exploration Technologies Corporation — SpaceX, for short — won a NASA contract to ferry cargo and supplies to the International Space Station.At that moment, SpaceX had not yet launched anything to orbit and would not succeed until two years later with its tiny Falcon 1 rocket. But since then, the Elon Musk-founded company has become the linchpin of all American civilian and military spaceflight.It started in 2010 with the launch of the first Falcon 9 rocket. By 2012 the launcher was sending cargo to the space station.NASA money helped finance the development of the Falcon 9, and SpaceX capitalized on the NASA seal of approval to entice companies to launch their satellites with SpaceX.It became the Southwest Airlines of the rocket industry, selling launches and hauling satellites into orbit at a lower price than most other rockets then available.That story repeated during the Obama administration when SpaceX won a contract to take astronauts to the space station, which it did for the first time in May 2020 during the first administration of President Trump.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    More stories

    • 138 Shares73 Views

      in Elections

      Trump to Withdraw Musk’s Ally as Nominee for Top NASA Job

      by

      Jared Isaacman was a close associate of Elon Musk, whose SpaceX company has multiple contracts with NASA.President Trump on Saturday said that he planned to withdraw his nomination of Jared Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur and close associate of Elon Musk’s, to be the next NASA administrator, days before Mr. Isaacman’s expected confirmation to the role by the Senate.Mr. Trump in recent days told associates he intended to yank Mr. Isaacman’s nomination after being told that he had donated to prominent Democrats, according to three people with knowledge of the deliberations who were not authorized to discuss them publicly. Mr. Trump said on social media on Saturday that he had conducted a “thorough review of prior associations” before deciding to withdraw the nomination.Mr. Trump added that he would “soon announce a new Nominee who will be Mission aligned, and put America First in Space.”The U-turn was the latest example of how Mr. Trump uses loyalty as a key criterion for top administration roles, and came at a fraught moment for the space agency. NASA has so far been spared the deep cuts that have hit the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and other federal research agencies. But the Trump administration’s budget proposal for 2026 seeks to slice the space agency’s budget by one-quarter, lay off thousands of employees and end financing for a slew of current and future missions.The Trump administration also wants to overhaul NASA’s human spaceflight program, ending the Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule initiatives after the Artemis III mission that is to land astronauts on the moon in 2027 and adding money to send astronauts to Mars in the coming years, something that had been a priority for Mr. Musk.People inside and outside NASA had hoped that Mr. Isaacman’s arrival as administrator would help provide stability and a clearer direction for the agency, which has been operating under an acting administrator since the beginning of Mr. Trump’s term.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Musk Leaves Washington Behind but With Powerful Friends in Place

      by

      The world’s richest man created disruption and fear before giving up on revamping government. But his companies will now face less oversight.Just three months ago, Elon Musk stood before a crowd of roaring conservatives and held up a chain saw. He was at the height of his influence, swaggering in a self-designed role with immense power inside and outside the government.“We’re trying to get good things done,” he said, using the chain saw as a metaphor for the deep cuts he was making in government. “But also, like, you know, have a good time doing it.”Mr. Musk’s time in government is over now. His good time ended long before.Mr. Musk is leaving his government position after weeks of declining influence and increasing friction with both President Trump and shareholders of his own private companies. But Mr. Trump on Thursday suggested that he was still aligned with one of his chief political patrons, saying that he would appear with Mr. Musk at the White House on Friday afternoon for a news conference. “This will be his last day, but not really, because he will always be with us, helping all the way,” Mr. Trump wrote in a post on his social media site. “Elon is terrific!”Mr. Musk’s time in Washington has brought significant benefits to his fastest-growing company, SpaceX, the rocket and satellite communications giant. Musk allies were chosen to run NASA and the Air Force — two of SpaceX’s key customers — and one of the company’s major regulators, the Federal Communications Commission.But Mr. Musk never came close to delivering on the core promise of his tenure: that he could cut $1 trillion from the federal budget.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      DOGE Cuts Hobble Office That Would Aid NASA and SpaceX Mars Landings

      by

      The Astrogeology Science Center, which has helped astronauts and robots reach other worlds safely, is facing a substantial number of job reductions.An office in an obscure corner of the federal government that NASA has relied on to safely land astronauts on the moon and robotic probes on Mars is facing pressure to cut its tight-knit team of experts by at least 20 percent, according to two people familiar with the mandate.The thinning of the staff has already started at the Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Ariz., the people said, the result of an assortment of voluntary resignation offers put forward by the Department of Government Efficiency, led by the billionaire Elon Musk. More employees are expected to be laid off in the coming weeks, following a new open call for early retirements and resignations on April 4. The office, which is part of the U.S. Geological Survey under the Department of the Interior, has been subject to the cost-cutting efforts initiated in a mass email that Mr. Musk’s team sent across the federal government in January.Representatives for the Interior Department, the U.S.G.S. and the astrogeology center did not reply to requests for comment on the staff reductions or their potential ramifications.The cuts could affect crewed missions to Mars in the future, a key goal of Mr. Musk, who founded SpaceX. He has said he conceived of the company to make human life multiplanetary.Matthew Golombek, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who has worked on the selection of landing sites for multiple probes to Mars, described the Astrogeology Science Center’s precision mapping as “the gold standard that basically everyone in the community uses.”At the start of the year, the office had 53 employees. Eight are already set to leave, with more encouraged to consider the latest offer.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Dave Pelz, Scientist Turned Golf Instructor, Is Dead at 85

      by

      After working at NASA, he became a renowned expert on putting and shots close to the green through his coaching, books, television appearances and training aids.Dave Pelz, who left his job as a scientist at NASA to study the short game of golf, a detour that would make him a celebrated guru of putts and wedge shots, died on March 23 at his home in Dripping Springs, Texas, near Austin. He was 85.David Pelly, Pelz’s stepson and the chief executive of his company, Dave Pelz Golf, said the cause was prostate cancer.While most golfers focus more on how to drive long distances, Pelz concentrated on the short game — shots from within 100 yards, including putting and chipping and blasting out of bunkers with a wedge. In his early statistical research, he found that 80 percent of shots lost to par occur within that distance, and that putting makes up 43 percent of the game.“Golfers think that their first two shots are the game,” he said on the PBS talk show “Charlie Rose” in 2010. “They drive almost every hole. They hit to the green almost every hole. But what they don’t think about is that after you hit those first two shots, and you don’t hit the green, there are two, three or four more shots.”As a golf instructor, Pelz demonstrated putting techniques in 1999. He found that putting makes up 43 percent of the game.Bill Kennedy/The New York TimesPelz, recognizable in his trademark broad-brimmed sun hat, became a major influence on the short game. He developed training aids and created clubs (he had about 20 patents); wrote instruction books; had his own Golf Channel show; opened schools for amateurs at golf resorts; and coached professional golfers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Blue Ghost’s Long Day on the Moon

      by

      <!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> –> <!–> –><!–> –><!–> –>Landing<!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> –> <!–> –><!–> –><!–> [–><!–>Several companies and countries have aimed to land on the moon in recent years. The map below shows the crewed Apollo moon landing sites, as well as more recent robotic landings from China, […] More

    • 113 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      SpaceX Scrubs Launch of NASA SPHEREx and PUNCH Missions

      by

      The spacecraft, SPHEREx and PUNCH, had been expected to launch on a SpaceX rocket on Saturday.Two NASA missions will have to wait longer for a launch aboard a single rocket. Both aim to unravel mysteries about the universe — one by peering far from Earth, the other by looking closer to home.SpaceX on Saturday night announced on the website X around two hours before the scheduled launch time of 10:09 p.m. Eastern that it needed to continue checking the Falcon 9 rocket that was to lift the vehicles to orbit.The company said it would announce the next launch attempt when it was possible to do so from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.The rocket’s chief passenger is SPHEREx, a space telescope that will take images of the entire sky in more than a hundred colors that are invisible to the human eye. Accompanying the telescope is a suite of satellites known collectively as PUNCH, which will study the sun’s outer atmosphere and solar wind.What is SPHEREx?SPHEREx is short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer. The mouthful of a name is fitting for the vastness of its goal: to survey the entire sky in 102 colors, or wavelengths, of infrared light.The space telescope, which looks like a giant megaphone, will record around 600 images each day, capturing light from millions of stars in our cosmic backyard and even more galaxies beyond it. Using a technique called spectroscopy, SPHEREx will separate the light into different wavelengths, like a glass prism splitting white light into a rainbow of colors. The color spectrum of an object in space reveals information about its chemical makeup and distance from Earth.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      How to Watch Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 Moon Landing

      by

      The lunar lander is the first of three robotic spacecraft aiming to set down on the moon this year.Blue Ghost during an orbit of the moon about 62 miles above the surface on Feb. 24. The footage is sped up 10 times.By Firefly AerospaceThe moon will be a busy place this year. There are three robotic spacecraft in space right now that are aiming to set down on the moon’s surface.The first of those to arrive — the Blue Ghost lunar lander, built by Firefly Aerospace of Austin, Texas — will attempt to land early Sunday.When is the landing and how can I watch it?The landing is scheduled for 3:45 a.m. Eastern time on March 2. Firefly will begin live coverage of the landing at 2:20 a.m. from its YouTube channel.What is Blue Ghost’s destination?This mission is headed to Mare Crisium, a flat plain formed from lava that filled and hardened inside a 345-mile-wide crater carved out by an ancient asteroid impact. Mare Crisium is in the northeast quadrant of the near side of the moon.What is Blue Ghost taking to the moon?The lander is carrying a variety of scientific and experimental payloads to the lunar surface, including 10 for NASA. Those include a drill to measure the flow of heat from the moon’s interior to the surface, an electrodynamic dust shield to clean off glass and radiator surfaces, and an X-ray camera.That cargo is part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Service, or CLPS, which aims to put NASA equipment on the moon at a cheaper price than if NASA built its own lunar lander. The agency will pay Firefly $101.5 million if all 10 payloads reach the lunar surface, and a bit less if the mission does not fully succeed.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 163 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      NASA’S Lunar Trailblazer Hitches Ride to the Moon to Map Water for Astronauts

      by

      Lunar Trailblazer, an orbiter that shared a launch on Wednesday with the commercial Athena lander, will help scientists understand where the moon’s water is, and what form it takes.The moon is not bone dry, scientists now know. But how many drops of water will thirsty astronauts find? No one knows for sure.A robotic NASA spacecraft called Lunar Trailblazer, which launched Wednesday night from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is aiming to provide a detailed map from orbit of the abundance, distribution and form of water across the moon.Lunar Trailblazer tagged along for the ride to space on the same SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as Athena, a commercial lunar lander built by Intuitive Machines of Houston, which will deploy a NASA instrument to drill in the moon and sniff for water vapors.Athena will study one spot on the moon. Lunar Trailblazer will provide a global picture of water on the moon.“That’s another exciting thing for us as we get more science into space with one launch,” Nicola Fox, the associate administrator for NASA’s science mission directorate, said during a news conference before the launch.Less than an hour after liftoff, Lunar Trailblazer and Athena went their separate ways. Athena is taking a direct path to the moon, with landing scheduled for March 6, while Lunar Trailblazer set off on a meandering but fuel-efficient journey that will take four months to reach its destination. After it enters orbit, the spacecraft will make observations for at least two years.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More