SpaceX

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon has continued charting its history-making course through space by successfully delivering astronauts to the International Space Station, becoming the first privately built spacecraft to do so.

The launch of the SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the ISS marks two historic events. It is the first crewed launch from American soil since the retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet in 2011, and the first ever crewed commercial mission to go into orbit.

NASA and SpaceX were forced to scrub the Demo-2 mission 17 minutes before its scheduled liftoff. The first manned mission to launch from American soil since 2011 and the first commercial manned launch was called off due to storm conditions.

The stage is set for a landmark launch for NASA, with the final dress rehearsal now complete ahead of Wednesday’s Demo-2 mission that will see US astronauts launched into space from American soil for the first time in nine years.

Through its Artemis mission, NASA will endeavor to return humans, including the first woman, to the Moon in the year 2024, and it has just narrowed down the field of firms that will help carry the astronauts safely down to the lunar surface.

SpaceX has announced that it will mount a sun visor on each of its Starlink satellites and have them perform controlled maneuvers, to make them less visible to the public and astronomers making detailed observations of the night sky.

In the first manned mission to launch from American soil since the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011, NASA has announced the Demo-2 Crew Dragon mission will lift off on May 27 with NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley aboard.

On April 3, 2020 at Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA and SpaceX carried out a test of launch pad evacuation systems as part of the run-up to the first manned flight of the Crew Dragon.

NASA has selected SpaceX to carry cargo to the space agency's deep-space Gateway outpost. Under the first Gateway Logistics Services contract, SpaceX will deliver pressurized and unpressurized supplies to the Gateway station for the Artemis program.

The introduction of 26 thousand new megaconstellation satellites could have a significant effect on ground-based astronomy, according to a new study commissioned by the European Southern Observatory.

Space Adventures has announced that it has signed an agreement with SpaceX to fly paying passengers aboard the aerospace company's Crew Dragon spacecraft, which will mark the first time that space tourists will be launched aboard an American rocket.

SpaceX has successfully deployed 60 communication satellites to bolster the population of its Starlink megaconstellation. The launch saw the third landing of a Falcon 9 core stage, and the impressive catch of a fairing half as it fell to Earth.