
As @NASA_SLS prepares to send humans beyond Earth orbit next year, AmericaSpace looks back at #GeminiXI which retains the record for the highest-flying non-lunar mission with a human crew. […]
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![]() Dragon Endeavour rises from historic Pad 39A on Saturday evening. The Falcon 9 is now the seventh American-made booster to have lofted American astronauts to space in almost six decades. Photo Credit: Mike Killian/AmericaSpace Last month, America observed 59 years since Alan Shepard became the nation’s first man in space. Tucked inside his tiny […] ![]() The “Mercury Seven”, pictured in an early training photograph. From left to right are Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Wally Schirra, Al Shepard and Deke Slayton. Photo Credit: NASA Best known as the residence of the fourth First Lady of the United States, on this day in 1959 the Dolley […] ![]() Three of the new raw images taken during Cassini’s first dive between Saturn and its innermost rings. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute After waiting with bated breath last night, everyone following Cassini’s first-ever dive through the gap between Saturn and its rings let out a collective sigh of relief – the spacecraft made […] ![]() Artist’s conception of Cassini’s final flyby of Titan on April 21. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech This week marks another important milestone in the Cassini mission at Saturn – as of today, the spacecraft is conducting the last Ring-Grazing Orbit of its mission as it prepares for the Grand Finale, which will culminate in the […] ![]() Savoring his first experience of weightlessness, Deke Slayton traverses through the Docking Module during his one and only space mission. Photo Credit: NASA By the middle of March 1962, Donald “Deke” Slayton—decorated U.S. Air Force fighter pilot and test pilot and veteran of the grueling Project Mercury selection campaign, during which he had […] ![]() New image of Saturn’s tiny moon Pan, which orbits inside the Encke Gap of Saturn’s rings. A thin “skirt” or ridge of material surrounds the moon’s equator, giving it a “ravioli” or “dumpling” appearance. Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/Ian Regan NASA’s Cassini mission may be entering its last several months now, but that […] ![]() Deke Slayton, one of the “Original Seven” NASA astronauts, was grounded from his Mercury mission 55 years ago, this month. Photo Credit: NASA Fifty-five years ago, America was a nation in euphoria. Astronaut John Glenn returned triumphantly to Earth on 20 February 1962, after orbiting Earth three times in his Mercury capsule—named “Friendship […] ![]() Blurred and somewhat lacking in detail, this image of John Glenn in orbit aboard Friendship 7 represents one of the United States’ greatest advances in space technology in the 20th century: the effort to achieve piloted orbital flight. Photo Credit: NASA Two months after his death, aged 95, Monday will be a somber […] |