Author: Marcia Dunn
-
NASA’s asteroid hunter Lucy soars into sky with diamonds — and Colorado connections
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A NASA spacecraft named Lucy rocketed into the sky with diamonds Saturday morning on a 12-year quest to explore eight asteroids. Seven of the mysterious space rocks are among swarms of asteroids sharing Jupiter’s orbit, thought to be the pristine leftovers of planetary formation. The 12-year mission to study the ancient…
-
William Shatner, TV’s Capt. Kirk, blasts into space
VAN HORN, Texas • Hollywood’s Captain Kirk, 90-year-old William Shatner, blasted into space Wednesday in a convergence of science fiction and science reality, reaching the final frontier aboard a ship built by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin company. The “Star Trek” actor and three fellow passengers hurtled to an altitude of 66.5 miles over the West…
-
SpaceX launches test rocket, breaks apart before landing
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX chalked up another failed landing Tuesday for its futuristic, bullet-shaped Starship, as the prototype Mars rocket broke apart right before touchdown. A camera on the rocket froze not quite six minutes into the test flight, and dense fog in South Texas obscured views of the ruptured rocket. Other video…
-
WATCH: 2 astronauts make historic flight aboard SpaceX rocket
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A rocket ship built by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company thundered away from Earth with two Americans on Saturday, ushering in a new era of commercial space travel and putting NASA back in the business of launching astronauts from U.S. soil for the first time in nearly a decade. NASA’s Doug Hurley…
-
Apollo 15 astronaut Al Worden, who circled moon, dies at 88
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. • Apollo 15 astronaut Al Worden, who circled the moon alone in 1971 while his two crewmates test-drove the first lunar rover, died Wednesday at age 88. Worden died in his sleep at a rehab center in Houston after treatment for an infection, said friend and colleague Tom Kallman. “Al was an…
-
50 years after 1st lunar landing, White House targets moon again with Colorado crew vehicle (VIDEO)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida • Fifty years after humanity’s first lunar footsteps, the moon is back in NASA’s court. The White House wants U.S. astronauts on the moon pronto — by 2024, a scant five years from now. The moon will serve as a critical proving ground, the thinking goes, for the real prize of sending…
-
Apollo 11 astronaut returns to launch pad 50 years later
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. • Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins returned Tuesday to the exact spot where he flew to the moon 50 years ago with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Collins had the spotlight to himself this time — Armstrong has been gone for seven years and Aldrin canceled. Collins said he wished his two…
-
NASA craft hurtles toward tiny, icy world beyond Pluto
LAUREL, Md. • The NASA spacecraft that yielded the first close-up views of Pluto hurtled toward a New Year’s Day rendezvous with a tiny, icy world a billion miles farther out, in what would make it the most distant cosmic body ever explored by humankind. New Horizons was on course to fly past the mysterious,…
-
‘Flawless’: NASA craft lands on Mars after perilous journey
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. • A NASA spacecraft designed to drill down into Mars’ interior landed on the planet Monday after a perilous, supersonic plunge through its red skies, setting off jubilation among scientists who had waited in white-knuckle suspense for confirmation to arrive across 100 million miles of space. Flight controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion…
-
Mars revisited: NASA spacecraft days away from risky landing
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. • Mars is about to get its first U.S. visitor in years: a three-legged, one-armed geologist to dig deep and listen for quakes. NASA’s InSight makes its grand entrance through the rose-tinted Martian skies on Monday, after a six-month, 300 million-mile journey. It will be the first American spacecraft to land since…