This time next year, NASA plans to send its first crewed mission to the moon. NPR visited the facility to find out how the astronauts are preparing for this high stakes exploration.
NASA
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With no crew aboard, spacecraft Starliner lands without a hitch
The spacecraft landed in New Mexico early Saturday morning leaving two astronauts behind on the International Space Station. The crew members will return to earth in February aboard a SpaceX craft.
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NASA delays next crew launch to buy time at the space station for troubled Starliner
Starliner’s test pilots, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, should have returned by mid-June. NASA is weighing its options for returning the two, including a ride home in a rival SpaceX capsule.
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NASA still doesn’t know when two astronauts will be able to come home
NASA still is not sure when two astronauts might come home in Boeing’s new Starliner spacecraft.
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Astronomers are scrambling to save the world’s most powerful X-ray space telescope
NASA is facing a tight budget and wants to wrap up the Chandra X-ray Observatory, but astronomers don’t want to see the 25-year-old X-ray space telescope mission go.
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NASA says it accidentally sent out an emergency signal meant for training purposes
A NASA simulation accidentally aired on the space agency’s livestream. NASA said all crew members are healthy, safe and preparing for a spacewalk scheduled for Thursday.
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NASA astronaut Bill Anders, who took famous photo of Earth during Apollo, dies at 90
Awestruck, Anders snapped the timeless shot of the glorious blue and white planet rising over the horizon of the gray and lifeless moon, and “how tiny and fragile and precious and finite it is.”
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Private mission to save the Hubble Space Telescope raises concerns, NASA emails show
When a private space traveler said he wanted to take a SpaceX capsule on a mission to improve the aging Hubble telescope, NASA studied the options. Internal emails show concern about the risk.
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NASA’s chief is worried about China getting back to the moon first. Here’s why
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told NPR he sees the U.S. in an urgent race with China to find water on the moon, and that he trusts SpaceX, despite Elon Musk’s increasingly controversial profile.
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He missed a chance to be the first Black astronaut. Now, at 90, he’s going into space
Edward J. Dwight Jr. is set to be on the next Blue Origin rocket into space. The rare opportunity comes more than six decades after he was passed over to become a NASA astronaut.
