HOUSTON (NASA PR) — A pair of news conferences on Thursday, March 31, at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston will highlight the agency’s upcoming SpaceX Crew-4 mission to the International Space Station. The mission will be NASA’s latest crew rotation flight involving a U.S. commercial spacecraft carrying astronauts.

The agency will hold a mission overview news conference at 10:30 a.m. EDT and a crew news conference at noon. Both news conferences will air live on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website.

HOUSTON (NASA PR) — NASA experts will join a virtual news conference hosted by Axiom Space to preview the launch of Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1), the first private astronaut mission to the International Space Station. The briefing will take place at 11 a.m. EST Monday, Feb. 28.

The virtual press conference will be available on Axiom Space’s YouTube channel at:

https://www.youtube.com/axiomspace

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA intends to issue a sole source modification to SpaceX to acquire up to three additional crew flights to the International Space Station as part of its Commercial Crew Transportation Capabilities (CCtCap) contract. The additional crew flights allow NASA to maintain an uninterrupted U.S. capability for human access to the space station.

HOUSTON (NASA PR) — Running more than 30 minutes ahead of schedule, the SpaceX Crew-3 astronauts docked to the International Space Station at 6:32 p.m. EST Thursday, Nov. 11, less than 24 hours after launching from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, Kayla Barron, and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Matthias Maurer opened the hatch of their Crew Dragon spacecraft Endurance at 8:25 p.m. and participated in […]

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA has selected National Geographic to help tell the story of Artemis II, the first Artemis flight that will carry astronauts around the Moon and back to Earth aboard the agency’s Orion spacecraft.

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. (NASA PR) — NASA will provide coverage of the upcoming prelaunch and launch activities for the agency’s SpaceX Crew-3 mission with astronauts to the International Space Station. This is the third crew rotation mission with astronauts on the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft and the fourth flight with astronauts, including the Demo-2 test flight, as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.

The launch is targeted for 2:21 a.m. EDT Sunday, Oct. 31, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Crew Dragon Endurance is scheduled to dock to the space station at 12:10 a.m. Monday, Nov. 1. Prelaunch activities, launch, and docking will air live on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website.

HOUSTON (NASA PR) — NASA has reassigned astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada to the agency’s SpaceX Crew-5 mission to the International Space Station as part of the Commercial Crew Program.

Mann and Cassada will serve as spacecraft commander and pilot, respectively, for the Crew-5 mission. Additional crew members will be announced later.

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced Tuesday the agency is creating two new mission directorates that will best position the agency for the next 20 years.

The move separates the agency’s current Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate into the new Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate (ESDMD) and Space Operations Mission Directorate.

NASA is making the changes because of increasing space operations in low-Earth orbit and development programs well underway for deep space exploration, including Artemis missions.

Leadership will discuss the change and the future of NASA during an employee town hall broadcast live on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website at noon EDT today.

Media are invited to a follow-on teleconference at 2:30 p.m., with audio streaming live online.

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA has selected five U.S. companies to help the agency enable a steady pace of crewed trips to the lunar surface under the agency’s Artemis program. These companies will make advancements toward sustainable human landing system concepts, conduct risk-reduction activities, and provide feedback on NASA’s requirements to cultivate industry capabilities for crewed lunar landing missions.

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

NASA has denied a claim in a Russian publication that one of its astronauts, Serena Maria Auñón-Chancellor, might have suffered a mental breakdown while aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and drilled a hole in a Soyuz spacecraft in order to get back to Earth earlier than planned.