space trip news

• [ March 21, 2024 ] Roscosmos scrubs Soyuz crew launch 20 seconds before liftoff Mission Reports
• [ March 20, 2024 ] Dragon soars from Cape Canaveral’s pad 40 on SpaceX’s 30th cargo mission to the Space Station Falcon 9
• [ March 19, 2024 ] SpaceX launches Falcon 9 rocket on sunset Starlink flight from Vandenberg Space Force Base Falcon 9
• [ March 14, 2024 ] SpaceX launches Starship on the third flight test of the program Mission Reports
• [ March 13, 2024 ] SpaceX launches Starlink mission on third attempt from Kennedy Space Center Falcon 9

Dragon soars from Cape Canaveral’s pad 40 on SpaceX’s 30th cargo mission to the Space Station

The Commercial Resupply Services-30 (CRS-30) mission featured the first launch of a Dragon spacecraft to the ISS from pad 40 since the final first-generation SpaceX cargo ship flew in March 2020.

Roscosmos scrubs Soyuz crew launch 20 seconds before liftoff

SpaceX launches Starship on the third flight test of the program

SpaceX launches Falcon 9 rocket on sunset Starlink flight from Vandenberg Space Force Base

SpaceX launches Starlink mission on third attempt from Kennedy Space Center

Rocket Lab launches fourth satellite for Japanese Earth-imaging company, Synspective

Crew-7 returns home following six-month stay at the International Space Station

SpaceX completes double launch day with its second Starlink mission

SpaceX launches Starlink mission, prepares to undock a Crew Dragon from ISS Monday

News from the Press Site: A roundup of the week’s space news

SpaceX tentatively targets March 14 for third Starship flight

Crew Dragon docks with space station after smooth rendezvous

SpaceX launched Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral with 23 Starlink satellites

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Virgin Galactic successfully flies tourists to space for first time

Six individuals were aboard VSS Unity space plane, including first mother-daughter duo to venture to space together

Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity, the reusable rocket-powered space plane carrying the company’s first crew of tourists to space, successfully launched and landed on Thursday.

The mission, known as Galactic 02, took off shortly after 11am ET from Spaceport America in New Mexico .

Aboard the spacecraft were six individuals total – the space plane’s commander and former Nasa astronaut CJ Sturckow, the pilot Kelly Latimer, as well as Beth Moses, Virgin Galactic’s chief astronaut instructor who trained the crew before the flight.

The spacecraft also carryied three private passengers, including the health and wellness coach Keisha Schahaff and her 18-year-old daughter, Anastasia Mayers, both of whom are Antiguan.

According to Space.com, Schahaff won her seat onboard the Galactic 02 as part of a fundraising competition by Space for Humanity, a non-profit organization seeking to democratize space travel. Mayers is studying philosophy and physics at Aberdeen University in Scotland. Together, Schahaff and Mayers are the first mother-daughter duo to venture to space together.

“When I was two years old, just looking up to the skies, I thought, ‘How can I get there?’ But, being from the Caribbean, I didn’t see how something like this would be possible. The fact that I am here, the first to travel to space from Antigua, shows that space really is becoming more accessible,” Schahaff said in a statement last month.

The mission also marks the most women flown in a single mission to space.

Onboard the flight was also the former Olympian Jon Goodwin, who participated in the 1972 Olympics in Munich as a canoeist. At 80 years old, Goodwin was the second passenger with Parkinson’s disease and the first Olympian to embark on a trip to space.

“When I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2014, I was determined not to let it stand in the way of living life to the fullest. And now for me to go to space with Parkinson’s is completely magical,” he said in a news release. “I hope this inspires all others facing adversity and shows them that challenges don’t have to inhibit or stop them from pursuing their dreams,” Goodwin said .

Galactic 02 is a suborbital flight. However, despite VSS Unity not reaching orbit, the trajectory allows passengers to experience several minutes of weightlessness at an altitude high enough for them to see the Earth’s curvature, Space.com explains .

Following liftoff, Virgin Galactic’s carrier plane VMS Eve transported VSS Unity to an altitude of about 44,300ft. Eve then dropped Unity, which then fired its own rocket motor and ascended to suborbital space. Passengers onboard experienced approximately 3Gs.

Live footage inside the spacecraft showed the passengers unstrapping themselves from their seats and peering out down to Earth through the windows as they floated throughout the spacecraft.

In a press conference after the flight, Schahaff recounted her experience, saying: “Looking at Earth was the most amazing … It was so comfortable. It really was the best ride ever. I would love to do this again.

“This experience has given me this beautiful feeling that if I can do this, I can do anything,” she added.

Mayers, who is the second-youngest person to go to space, said: “I was shocked at the things that you feel. You are so much more connected to everything than you would expect to be. You felt like a part of the team, a part of the ship, a part of the universe, a part of Earth. It was incredible and I’m still starstruck.”

To Goodwin, the experience was far more dramatic than he expected.

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“The pure acceleration, Mach 3 [2,301mph, 3,378 ft per second] in eight and a half seconds was completely surreal. The re-entry was a lot more dramatic than I imagined it would be. In fact, I would have said it was out of control if I didn’t know anything different,” he said.

“It was a completely surreal experience. But the most impressive thing was looking at Earth from space. The pure clarity was very moving, quite surreal. It was without a doubt the most exciting day of my life,” he added.

In a statement released following the flight, Sturckow said: “It is a surreal and humbling experience to have flown Unity today. The wonder and excitement of spaceflight never loses its magic.”

Latimer echoed similar sentiments, saying: “In my entire career, from the Air Force Academy to being a test pilot for Nasa, nothing tops what I have just experienced at the controls of VSS Unity. Going to space today fulfilled an ambition I’ve had since I was a child.”

The Virgin Galactic founder, Sir Richard Branson, also hailed the flight, tweeting: “Today we flew three incredible private passengers to space: Keisha Schahaff, Anastatia Mayers and Jon Goodwin. Congratulations Virgin Galactic commercial astronauts 011, 012 and 013 – welcome to the club!”

Despite Galactic 02 being Virgin Galactic’s second commercial spaceflight mission, it is the first flight to carry private customers. In June, Galactic 01 carried three crew members from the Italian air force and the National Research Council of Italy.

In July 2021, Branson traveled to space and back onboard the VSS Unity, a mission that marked the billionaire’s entry into the new era of space tourism helmed by other billionaires including the SpaceX founder, Elon Musk, and Blue Origin founder, Jeff Bezos.

According to Virgin Galactic, the company has already booked a backlog of about 800 customers. Tickets have ranged from $250,000 to $450,000.

Galactic 03, the company’s third commercial spaceflight, is planned for September.

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SpaceX makes history with first all-civilian spaceflight

SpaceX has made history. Again.

The spaceflight company founded by the billionaire Elon Musk launched four private  passengers into orbit Wednesday on the first mission to space with an all-civilian crew .

A reusable Falcon 9 rocket carrying Jared Isaacman, a 38-year-old tech entrepreneur, Sian Proctor, a 51-year-old geoscientist, Chris Sembroski, a 42-year-old aerospace data engineer, and Hayley Arceneaux, a 29-year-old physician assistant, lifted off shortly after 8 p.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The four-person crew will now spend three days in orbit around Earth before re-entering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean.

It’s not the first time that private passengers have paid to fly in space, but the so-called Inspiration4 mission is the first expedition into orbit without any professional astronauts on board. The historic flight represents the next stage in the evolution of human spaceflight, as access to the cosmos expands beyond just governments and their space agencies.

“The door is wide open,” Isaacman said as he and his crew members reached space.

SpaceX's rocket roared into the night sky from the same launch pad as NASA's Apollo moon missions, as well as the first and last space shuttle flights. During their ascent into orbit, the crew members celebrated excitedly and flashed thumbs-up signs as they cleared each major milestone.

Isaacman, the founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments, a Pennsylvania-based payment processing company, paid an unspecified amount for the three-day joyride in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule. The Inspiration4 mission is part of a charity initiative to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. In addition to giving $100 million to St. Jude, Isaacman donated the three other seats on the Inspiration4 flight to his crew members.

“This dream began 10 months ago,” Isaacman said Tuesday in a preflight briefing. “We set out from the start to deliver a very inspiring message, certainly what can be done up in space and the possibilities there, but also what we can accomplish here on Earth.”

The Crew Dragon spacecraft will circle the planet 15 times each day from an altitude of nearly 360 miles, higher than the current orbits of the space station and the Hubble Space Telescope, according to SpaceX.

The Inspiration4 mission will resemble SpaceX’s routine flights to the International Space Station, except this time, the capsule will not dock at the orbiting lab. As such, the company added a new glass dome to the top of the spacecraft for 360-degree views.

NASA was quick to congratulate the Inspiration4 team Wednesday, tweeting that the launch "represents a significant milestone in the quest to make space for everybody."

The successful launch of the Inspiration4 mission is a key milestone for SpaceX and a boon for the burgeoning space tourism industry. Two months ago, rival billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson both launched to the edge of space in vehicles developed by their own respective aerospace companies. Though both flights over the summer were suborbital jaunts, both Bezos’ Blue Origin and Branson’s Virgin Galactic are planning to offer orbital joyrides for space tourists in the future.

These pioneering flights — for now, limited to those who can afford to spend millions of dollars on a ticket — could accelerate the expansion of private spaceflight, making trips to space more regular, and eventually more affordable.

The first space tourist, American multimillionaire Dennis Tito, launched to the International Space Station on an eight-day expedition in 2001. Tito reportedly paid $20 million to fly to the orbiting outpost aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Until now, only seven civilians, including Tito, had paid to fly in space.

Arceneaux, a bone cancer survivor now works  at St. Jude; Sembroski is a U.S. Air Force veteran; and Proctor is a licensed pilot and former NASA astronaut candidate.

Proctor secured her ticket to space through an online contest conducted by Shift4 Payments and Sembroski won his seat in a charity drive to raise money for St. Jude. 

The crew members have called their journey a “humanitarian mission,” and have spoken about how they hope to inspire people around the world. 

“I want to thank everyone for all the support, encouragement, and love,” Arceneaux tweeted Wednesday , mere hours before the launch. “And thank you to @StJude for being the reason I’m here today. This is for everyone who’s ever been through something difficult, and I know we all have. Hold onto hope because there WILL be better days.”

The Inspiration4 mission is just the start of SpaceX’s ambitions to launch paying customers into orbit. Earlier this year, the company announced that the first private space station crew, led by former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría, will launch to the orbiting lab in early 2022. López-Alegría will be joined by three men who are each paying $55 million to spend eight days at the space station.

In 2018, SpaceX also said Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, founder and CEO of the fashion retailer Zozo, would be the first private passenger to fly around the moon on a mission that is planned for sometime in 2023.

Denise Chow is a reporter for NBC News Science focused on general science and climate change.

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SpaceX Blazes Forward With Latest Starship Launch

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SpaceX Launches Starship for Third Time

The rocket, a version of which will eventually carry nasa astronauts to the moon, traveled almost halfway around the earth before it was lost as it re-entered the atmosphere..

“Five, four, three, two, three, one.” “This point, we’ve already passed through Max-Q, maximum dynamic pressure. And passing supersonic, so we’re now moving faster than the speed of sound. Getting those on-board views from the ship cameras. Boosters now making its way back, seeing six engines ignited on ship. Kate, we got a Starship on its way to space and a booster on the way back to the Gulf.” “Oh, man. I need a moment to pick my jaw up from the floor because these views are just stunning.”

By Kenneth Chang

• March 14, 2024

The third try turned out to be closer to the charm for Elon Musk and SpaceX, as his company’s mammoth Starship rocket launched on Thursday and traveled about halfway around the Earth before it was lost as it re-entered the atmosphere.

The test flight achieved several key milestones in the development of the vehicle, which could alter the future of space transportation and help NASA return astronauts to the moon.

This particular flight was not, by design, intended to make it all the way around the Earth. At 8:25 a.m. Central time, Starship — the biggest and most powerful rocket ever to fly — lifted off from the coast of South Texas. The ascent was smooth, with the upper Starship stage reaching orbital velocities. About 45 minutes after launch, it started re-entering the atmosphere, heading toward a belly-flop splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

Live video, conveyed in near real-time via SpaceX’s Starlink satellites , showed red-hot gases heating the underside of the vehicle. Then, 49 minutes after launch, communications with Starship ended, and SpaceX later said the vehicle had not survived the re-entry, presumably disintegrating and falling into the ocean.

Even so, Bill Nelson, the administrator of NASA, congratulated SpaceX on what he called a “successful test flight” of the system his agency is counting on for some of its Artemis lunar missions.

SpaceX aims to make both the vehicle’s lower rocket booster and the upper spacecraft stage capable of flying over and over again — a stark contrast to the single-launch throwaway rockets that have been used for most of the space age.

That reusability gives SpaceX the potential to drive down the cost of lofting satellites and telescopes, as well as people and the things they need to live in space.

Completing most of the short jaunt was a reassuring validation that the rocket’s design appears to be sound. Not only is Starship crucial for NASA’s lunar plans, it is the key to Mr. Musk’s pipe dream of sending people to live on Mars.

For Mr. Musk, the success also harks back to his earlier reputation as a technological visionary who led breakthrough advances at Tesla and SpaceX, a contrast with his troubled purchase of Twitter and the polarizing social media quagmire that has followed since he transformed the platform and renamed it X. Even as SpaceX launched its next-generation rocket, the social media company was dueling with Don Lemon , a former CNN anchor who was sharing clips from a combative interview with Mr. Musk.

SpaceX still needs to pull off a series of formidable rocketry firsts before Starship is ready to head to the moon and beyond. Earlier this week, Mr. Musk said he hoped for at least six more Starship flights this year, during which some of those experiments may occur.

But if it achieves them all, the company could again revolutionize the space transportation business and leave competitors far behind.

Phil Larson, a White House space adviser during the Obama administration who also previously worked on communication efforts at SpaceX, said Starship’s size and reusability had “massive potential to change the game in transportation to orbit. And it could enable whole new classes of missions.”

NASA is counting on Starship to serve as the lunar lander for Artemis III, a mission that will take astronauts to the surface of the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. That journey is currently scheduled for late 2026 but seems likely to slide to 2027 or later.

The third flight was a marked improvement from the first two launch attempts.

Last April, Starship made it off the launchpad, but a cascade of engine failures and fires in the booster led to the rocket’s destruction 24 miles above the Gulf of Mexico.

In November, the second Starship launch traveled much farther. All 33 engines in the Super Heavy booster worked properly during ascent, and after a successful separation, the upper Starship stage nearly made it to orbital velocities. However, both stages ended up exploding.

Nonetheless, Mr. Musk hailed both test flights as successes, as they provided data that helped engineers improve the design.

Thursday’s launch — which coincided with the 22nd anniversary of the founding of SpaceX — occurred 85 minutes into a 110-minute launch window. The 33 engines in the booster ignited at the launch site outside Brownsville, Texas, and lifted the rocket, which was as tall as a 40-story building, into the morning sky.

Most of the flight proceeded smoothly, and a number of test objectives were achieved during the flight, like opening and closing the spacecraft’s payload doors, which will be needed to deliver cargo in the future.

SpaceX did not attempt to recover the booster this time, but did have it perform engine burns that will be needed to return to the launch site. However, the final landing burn for the booster, conducted over the Gulf of Mexico, did not fully succeed — an area that SpaceX will attempt to fix for future flights.

SpaceX said the Super Heavy disintegrated at an altitude of about 1,500 feet.

SpaceX engineers will also have to figure out why Starship did not survive re-entry and make fixes to the design of the vehicle.

Even with the partial success of Thursday’s flight, Starship is far from ready to go to Mars, or even the moon. Because of Mr. Musk’s ambitions for Mars, Starship is much larger and much more complicated than what NASA needs for its Artemis moon landings. For Artemis III, two astronauts are to spend about a week in the South Pole region of the moon.

“He had the low price,” Daniel Dumbacher, the executive director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a former high-level official at NASA, said of Mr. Musk, “and NASA chose to take the risk associated with that configuration hoping that it would work out. And we’ll see if that turns out to be true.”

To leave Earth’s orbit, Starship must have its propellant tanks refilled with liquid methane and liquid oxygen. That will require a complex choreography of additional Starship launches to take the propellants to orbit.

“This is a complicated, complicated problem, and there’s a lot that has to get sorted out, and a lot that has to work right,” Mr. Dumbacher said.

Thursday’s flight included an early test of that technology, moving liquid oxygen from one tank to another within Starship.

Mr. Dumbacher does not expect Starship to be ready by September 2026, the launch date NASA currently has for Artemis III, although he would not predict how much of a delay there might be. “I’m not going to give you a guess because there is way too much work, way too many problems to solve,” he said.

Kenneth Chang , a science reporter at The Times, covers NASA and the solar system, and research closer to Earth. More about Kenneth Chang

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3 predictions for the future of space exploration — including your own trips

Alejandra Marquez Janse

Mary Louise Kelly

Tinbete Ermyas

Peggy Whitson says more widely available space tourism is realistic. Axiom Space hide caption

Peggy Whitson says more widely available space tourism is realistic.

If you've ever traveled somewhere that left you so enthralled that you wanted to go back over and over, then you get how Peggy Whitson feels about space.

She is a seasoned astronaut who has multiple achievements under her belt: She was the first woman to command the International Space Station, and in 2017 broke the record for most cumulative days in space of any American and female astronaut, with a count of 665.

Whitson retired from NASA nearly five years ago, but last month, at age 63, she packed up the necklace she wore on her wedding day, zipped her spacesuit one more time, and took flight in a SpaceX capsule as commander of the Ax-2 mission. It was sponsored by a private company, Axiom Space, where she now works as the director of human spaceflight. Three paying crew members traveled with her.

After returning to Earth, Whitson spoke with All Things Considered host Mary Louise Kelly and shared a few thoughts about the future of space exploration.

This interview has been edited slightly for clarity and brevity.

The Ax-2 crew in a training session. The group, composed of Whitson (far left) and three paying costumers, spent nine days in space last month. Axiom Space hide caption

The Ax-2 crew in a training session. The group, composed of Whitson (far left) and three paying costumers, spent nine days in space last month.

1. Space exploration will be a mix of public and private money

If you look at even the NASA missions returning to the moon, lots of different private space companies are involved in that process. And that includes Axiom Space, for instance, who are building the spacesuits that will be used by the NASA astronauts as they step on the moon again. So it's exciting to be part of this changing philosophy of space and the efforts of commercial companies like Axiom Space. We intend to build the first commercial space station initially attached to the International Space Station, but to undock before the space station is decommissioned.

I think it's a worldwide relationship between different companies and peoples, and that's what makes it such a special time to be a part of the [Ax-2] mission, because [space exploration] is changing flavor and it's exciting because there are going to be many more opportunities in the future.

The Ax-2 crew returns to Earth. Could this be you one day? Axiom Space hide caption

2. More people will be able to go to space

Obviously some of it will take time to make it not cost-prohibitive, but the fact that we are taking those initial steps is really important now. If you look back at commercial aviation and how that occurred and the development of that process, you know, it also started off to be only a few people could be involved and then later more and more, and so now it's pretty commonplace. I like to think that we're doing some of the same steps in commercial spaceflight now.

3. The goals depend on the person — and the country — that's traveling

Well, the objective of the mission is slightly different, obviously. My personal roles and responsibilities of taking care of the crew and ensuring their safety obviously are very similar. But our objectives were, we had one private astronaut, John Shoffner, who was trying to develop science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) outreach products for educators in the future, as well as doing research. And then we had two government sponsored astronauts from Saudi Arabia – the first female Saudi Arabian to fly in space and go to the International Space Station – and the second male to arrive.

SpaceX mission returns from space station with ex-NASA astronaut, 3 paying customers

So the objectives of the crew weren't all that much different necessarily than a NASA mission, which is outreach and scientific investigations, but these were with the specific goals of expanding outreach in specific areas for Saudi – which hadn't had a person in space for 40 years – and, you know, to inspire their youth as well as inspiring the youth in the United States.

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You Won’t Hear Much About the Next Chapter of Space Travel

Space tourism is getting less transparent, and more like traveling by private jet.

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Of all the high-flying tourism ventures spawned by space-obsessed billionaires, Virgin Galactic, founded by Richard Branson, offers perhaps the most unconventional approach. It doesn’t use big rockets or gumdrop-shaped capsules. Instead, an airplane takes off with a spacecraft strapped to its wing. The spacecraft, shaped like a plane itself, holds the paying customers and more pilots. When the airplane reaches a certain altitude, it releases the spacecraft. The spacecraft’s pilots then ignite its engine, and the vehicle soars straight up, to the fuzzy boundary that separates us from the rest of the universe, before gliding back down and landing on a runway.

The spaceplane experience is a stark contrast to Blue Origin’s suborbital jaunts and SpaceX’s orbital missions, but Virgin Galactic’s passengers still have a few surreal minutes of weightlessness, and they get to see the planet gleaming against the darkness of space. Those passengers have included the first former Olympian to reach space, as well as the first mother-daughter duo and, most recently, the first Pakistani .

In the midst of all that, Virgin Galactic clocked a first that raised some eyebrows: The company withheld the passenger list from the public before a takeoff last month, divulging the travelers’ names only after they had landed. The company never publicly explained its preflight secrecy. (Virgin Galactic did not respond to a request for comment.) Yesterday, Virgin Galactic announced its next flight, scheduled for November; the company kept one of the three listed passengers anonymous, saying only that the person is “of Franco-Italian nationality.”

Virgin is of course within its rights to withhold passenger names before takeoff. After all, airlines and railroads keep private the names of their customers. But Virgin Galactic’s choice to do so marks a subtle shift—the latest in U.S. spaceflight’s arc from a publicly funded national mission to private tourism. NASA, as a taxpayer-funded organization, has always had to provide the public with launch lists and livestreams. But the age of space tourism raises a host of questions: How much openness do space-tourism companies owe the public? How much privacy do they owe their customers? Before the Virgin flight returned home last month, it operated almost like a privately chartered plane, its movements known to relevant aviation agencies but its passengers’ names undisclosed to the public. Commercial spaceflight and air travel are still far from alike, but in this particular aspect, the space-tourism industry may be drifting toward its private-jet era.

Read: The new ‘right stuff’ is money and luck

In practice, the space-tourism industry is barely more than two years old, and it’s “still finding its norms,” says Carissa Christensen, a space consultant and the CEO of BryceTech, an analytics and engineering firm. The first passenger rosters were marquee news in 2021, when Branson and Jeff Bezos were racing to be the first to ride their own spacecraft , and Elon Musk’s SpaceX was working to send a quartet of private astronauts with zero spaceflight experience into orbit.

All three of their companies publicized, and even hyped, the passenger lists, in some cases months in advance. Wally Funk, an octogenarian aviator who had outperformed male candidates in astronaut tests during the 1960s but was kept out of the astronaut corps because she was a woman, flew alongside Bezos . Jared Isaacman, a billionaire businessman, paid for three other people to fly into orbit with him on SpaceX; all of them gave countless interviews before launch. And who can forget the hype ahead of William Shatner’s flight, and the Star Trek star’s unfiltered, emotional remarks after landing?

The rosters became less noteworthy as time went on: The customers were no longer memorable guests who got free rides, but simply very wealthy people who could afford the trips on their own. Last month’s temporarily secret Virgin Galactic fliers included a real-estate investor from Las Vegas, a South African entrepreneur, and a British engineer who founded a company that builds race cars. Michelle Hanlon, a space lawyer and the executive director of the University of Mississippi’s Center for Air and Space Law, told me that she was mildly surprised by Virgin Galactic’s decision to withhold the passengers’ identities before takeoff, but that the decision did not strike her as inappropriate.

“From a paparazzi standpoint, if it’s Ashton Kutcher, the world’s gonna care a little bit more than if it’s Michelle Hanlon,” Hanlon said. (Kutcher did, in fact, purchase a Virgin Galactic ticket in 2012, but he later sold it back to the company after his wife and fellow actor, Mila Kunis, talked him out of going.) And from a legal standpoint, nothing inappropriate occurred, Hanlon said; there are no existing requirements for a private company to disclose passenger names. Space travelers must sign waivers from the Federal Aviation Administration outlining the risks associated with the activity, she said, but the companies they’re flying with are not required to provide the agency with a passenger list.

Read: Jeff Bezos knows who paid for him to go to space

Passenger names aren’t the only details of commercial spaceflight that are becoming more opaque. When SpaceX launched its first set of private astronauts, the company shared significantly less live footage of their experience in orbit than they did when NASA astronauts test-drove the capsule a year earlier. During its last two flights, Virgin Galactic decided not to provide a livestream, giving updates on social media instead.

Because there are no regulations, it’s difficult to say when the companies’ right to privacy becomes a concerning level of secrecy. NASA overshares when it comes to its astronauts and their mission, because the public—which funds the agency—expects it. Americans might also expect a good look at SpaceX customers who visit the International Space Station, which relies on billions of dollars of taxpayer money, and where private visitors share meals with government astronauts. But what about other kinds of SpaceX missions, which go into orbit without disembarking at any government-owned facility? The company developed its crewed launch services with significant investment from NASA, so virtually every SpaceX trip indirectly involves government money. That doesn’t necessarily mean SpaceX is obligated to share as the space agency does, even if people on the ground feel that it should.

Another major difference between NASA missions and private ones, of course, is that astronauts are at work, whereas many space tourists are presumably just having fun. Caryn Schenewerk, a consultant who specializes in commercial spaceflight at her firm CS Consulting, told me that she thinks commercial spaceflight will adopt the practices of other forms of adventure tourism. Take skydiving, for example: Schenewerk said that she has signed paperwork granting the skydiving company permission to use footage of her experience for its own purposes. “There’s some expectation of privacy on the individual’s behalf that then has to be actively waived for the company’s benefit,” she said.

The once-anonymous Virgin Galactic passengers on the September flight have since publicly shared their stories , basking in the awe of their experience. Christensen told me that most future tourists will likely do the same. “A big part of the fun is other people knowing that you’ve done it,” she said. Flying to space isn’t exactly something to be modest about: Fewer than 700 people have done it since human beings first achieved the feat, in the early 1960s, and we know all of their names. If Virgin’s new mystery passenger doesn’t reveal their name, they really will make history.

Read: Seeing Earth from space will change you

Many spacefarers—the Soviet cosmonauts who inhabited the first space station, the American astronauts who shuttled their way into orbit, the Chinese astronauts living in space right now, all of the people who have flown commercial—have spoken about the transformational wonder of seeing Earth from space, a phenomenon known as the overview effect . They reported that they better understood the reality of our beautiful, fragile planet, and that they felt a duty to share their impressions with people on the ground. Gene Cernan, one of the dozen men who walked on the lunar surface, once said, “If only everyone could relate to the beauty and the purposefulness of it … It wouldn’t bring a utopia to this planet for people to understand it all, but it might make a difference.” In this sense, for a space traveler to remain unknown forever would be a sort of anti–overview effect: Just as they may have the right to request some privacy, they have no obligation to bring the transcendent power of their journey back to Earth.

Three years ago, two NASA astronauts made a historic flight on a new SpaceX astronaut capsule. Ahead of the mission, I asked NASA what Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken were going to have for breakfast on the morning of the launch. It was a question with a long tradition in spacefaring history: During the Apollo days, the public was privy to the final Earth-bound meals of history-making astronauts. NASA officials balked, saying they couldn’t divulge that information for privacy reasons. But on the day of the launch, Hurley, as if to sate the space press corps, posted a picture of his steak and eggs on Twitter (as it was still known then).

Hurley and Behnken’s preflight hours seemed like fair game; after all, these men were government employees, doing their job on their assigned mission. But future passengers may decide that we have no business knowing their breakfast order—or even their name.

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Space Tourism Is Here: Booking a Trip to the Final Frontier

The next era of space exploration and innovation is here — and we're all invited. A billionaire space race is underway as Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, and others are testing the technology to take us to places previously visited only by highly trained astronauts. Space tourism is officially taking flight, and it might just save the Earth.

In July 2021, we watched as Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos took to the skies in a giant leap for the space tourism industry, but their launches to the edge of space weren't timed particularly well. Against the backdrop of a global pandemic and climate emergency, two billionaires taking joy rides to space may not have been good optics, but don't underestimate what just happened — and how important it could be for the future of humanity.

With the first crewed launches of Virgin Galactic's supersonic space plane and Blue Origin's reusable rocket, a world of commercial space travel is taking its first step. Both companies plan to begin regular, scheduled trips for paying space tourists in the near future, but their visions stretch back many years to the beginning of human spaceflight.

The Space Race: Then and Now

Bezos's Blue Origin chose an auspicious day to send its first crew to space. July 20, 2021 was exactly 52 years after Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon. But that wasn't the only major space travel anniversary celebrated in 2021.

April 12 was the 60th anniversary of Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becoming the first human to not only reach space, but also go into orbit around Earth. Meanwhile, May 5 saw the 60th anniversary of NASA's Freedom 7 mission, which launched Alan Shepard on a suborbital flight that lasted 15 minutes. He reached an altitude of 101 miles to become the first American in space before his capsule parachuted to splashdown in the ocean.

The name of Blue Origin's New Shepard launch system is no coincidence. Its mission profile is almost identical to America's inaugural 1961 spaceflight, save for billionaire-grade comfy seats and large windows. From Launch Site One near Van Horn in the West Texas desert, that rocket fires a capsule containing up to six people (but no pilot) into space, which then parachutes down 15 minutes later.

The Virgin Galactic experience is different. Its supersonic rocket-powered spaceplane SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity seats six passengers and two highly trained pilots. It takes off on a runway from Spaceport America near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, while strapped to a mothership. At 52,000 feet, it detaches and burns its rocket engine for one minute to reach Mach 3 speeds and touch the edge of space. After a few minutes of weightlessness (and a chance for passengers to see the curvature of Earth against the blackness of space), it glides back to land on a runway.

The Price for a Ticket to Space

These short trips are anticipated to cost between $250,000 and $500,000, but in January 2022, expect to see a truly out-of-this-world private trip to space with an even more astronomical price tag. It will come from the other, arguably much more important billionaire in the space tourism bubble: Elon Musk. Axiom Mission 1 will see his company, SpaceX, launch four private astronauts on behalf of Houston-based space tourism company Axiom Space. An American real estate investor, a Canadian investor, a former Israeli Air Force pilot, and an ex-Space Shuttle pilot will launch on an incredible orbital mission in its Crew Dragon spacecraft.

At $55 million per ticket, this is ultra-aspirational space tourism of the highest order. "The experience is drastically different because they will be launching on a SpaceX rocket and going to the International Space Station (ISS) for 10 days," says Christina Korp, cofounder of Space for a Better World . "They will be doing what real astronauts do, and I don't think it's an accident that Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin did their flights before Axiom's mission." Axiom Space intends to launch a private space station — the first "space hotel" — as early as 2024 to give space tourists somewhere to visit.

The Future of Space Tourism — and of Our Planet

Musk talks of Mars colonies and humanity spreading out into the cosmos, but since 2012, SpaceX has made a lot of money from NASA contracts to launch supplies to the ISS. In the summer of 2020, it began ferrying NASA astronauts there, too. SpaceX's Starship — currently being tested — will land two NASA astronauts, the first woman and the next man, on the moon in 2024.

You see, space tourism is just a sideshow to a bigger and more worthy goal of saving the planet. Next year, Blue Origin plans to test its reusable New Glenn rocket — named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962 — which will be able to take cargo and astronauts into orbit. Bezos has said he thinks we need to go to space to save Earth, specifically by protecting the planet from pollution by moving heavy industry into space. That can only happen when space travel is safe, scheduled, and affordable. Space tourism will help create a competitive space economy, just as mass tourism has lowered the cost of flying.

Similarly, Branson's aim is to increase access to space. "We are at the vanguard of a new space age…Our mission is to make space more accessible to all," he said after his inaugural flight. A microgravity experiment was on board that first flight on July 11, with similar plans for all subsequent trips. Meanwhile, sister company Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne sends small satellites and science payloads into orbit via a small rocket launch from underneath the wing of a Boeing 747.

The scientific spin-offs for all of us down on Earth are currently unknown, but the space community has an incredible track record when it comes to innovation. "Clean energy as solar power is from the space program," says Korp. "Solar panels were invented to power satellites and refined to power spacecraft." Cue GPS, weather forecasting, telecommunications, and even internet access. There are also fleets of satellites large and small that observe how our planet is behaving and changing. "It's the space industry that's monitoring climate change, tracking hurricanes, and learning how to survive in the extreme environment of space — including experiments to grow food with almost no water, for example," says Korp. Every single space mission, including suborbital and even zero-gravity flights, have environmental experiments on board as default.

"This is not about escaping Earth," said Bezos after the flight. "The whole point is, this is the only good planet in the solar system and we have to take care of it." Bezos wants to scale up into affordable space travel. That will enable long-term, commercial projects that ultimately may help prevent further climate change, or at least help us cope with its consequences.

However, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and SpaceX won't be the only way to reach space. Russian space agency Roscosmos is expected to take "citizen space explorers" to the ISS soon, but the most affordable way to get "black sky time" may be with Space Perspective , which will launch a pressurized capsule propelled by a high-performance space balloon.

The six-hour flight will cost around $125,000 per person and launch from Space Coast Spaceport in Florida in 2024. "Unlike short-lived, adrenaline-fueled moments of weightlessness, Space Perspective flights bring you space calm," says Jane Poynter, founder, co-CEO, and CXO of Space Perspective. The flights on Spaceship Neptune involve a gentle ascent at just 12 miles per hour for a six-hour tour of Earth's biosphere, culminating in a view of our beautiful planet from space.

Space tourism is here at last. Instagram had better get ready for "Earth selfies."

Program Credits

Editorial Lead: Elizabeth Rhodes Contributors: Jamie Carter and Stefanie Waldek Visuals Editor: Mariah Tyler Art Director: Jenna Brillhart Designer: Sarah Maiden

10 Things: Going Interstellar

Humanity’s great leap into interstellar space – the space between the stars – is underway. NASA's Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes are both in interstellar space.

For the moment, sending humans to the edge of interstellar space, let alone across the cosmic void to other stars, remains firmly in the realm of science fiction. But scientists and engineers are developing skills and technologies that might help us get there one day.

Here are 10 things we’ve learned about going interstellar.

1. The Space Between

Interstellar space is often called the space between the stars, but more specifically, it’s the region between our Sun’s heliosphere and the astrospheres of other stars.

Our heliosphere is a vast bubble of plasma – a gas of charged particles – that spews out of the Sun. This outflow is known as the solar wind. The bubble surrounds the Sun and stretches beyond the planets. Both Voyager spacecraft had to travel more than 11 billion miles (17 billion kilometers) from the Sun in order to cross the edge of the heliosphere. This bubble is moving through interstellar space as the Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way galaxy. As our heliosphere plows through space, it creates a bow wave, like the wave formed by the bow of a ship.

2. Are we there yet? No. Seriously, this trip is going to take a while.

Since warp drive is still just a fantasy, getting to interstellar space takes a really long time at present. Voyager 1 , the first spacecraft to make it, was about 122 Astronomical Units (Earth is one Astronomical Unit, or AU, from the Sun) – that’s about 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from the Sun – when it exited the heliosphere and entered interstellar space. The spacecraft launched from Florida in 1977 and entered interstellar space in 2012. That’s a 35-year trip. Of course, Voyager 1 didn’t make a beeline for interstellar space – it took the scenic route and toured Jupiter and Saturn first. Voyager 2 , traveling slower than Voyager 1, also toured Uranus and Neptune, and took 41 years to reach interstellar space.

3. What does it look like out there? Where are my interstellar photos?

Sorry, no Voyager selfies. After Voyager 1 took images in 1990 for the "Solar System Family Portrait” that included the famous “ Pale Blue Dot " photo, the cameras were turned off to save power and computer memory for the interstellar mission to come. Additionally, the camera software was removed, and the computers on the ground that understand the software do not exist anymore. The cameras also have been exposed to extreme cold for many years. So, even if mission managers rebuilt the ground computers, reloaded the camera software, and turned the cameras back on, it's not clear they would work.

If it's any consolation, there's not much for the Voyagers to see now except for the stars, and they wouldn't look much different than they did in 1990.

4. Sounds of silence? Not if you know how to listen.

You shouldn't be able to hear anything in interstellar space, because it’s a near-perfect vacuum: There's essentially no medium for the soundwaves to travel though, like air. But Voyager's instruments are much more sensitive than our ears, and the instruments were able to "listen" to other kinds of waves that travel through the interstellar medium. What they heard was music to scientists' ears.

Don Gurnett, the principal investigator for the Plasma Wave Science instrument on Voyager 1, played an audio recording of plasma wave data at a press conference in September 2013. The sounds, he explained, were solid evidence that Voyager 1 had left the heliosphere and was in interstellar space.

Strictly speaking, the plasma wave instrument doesn’t detect sound. It senses waves in the plasma that are generated by eruptions on the Sun, known as coronal mass ejections. These waves influence the interstellar medium, so Voyager can detect them both inside and outside of the heliosphere. The plasma is so diluted that waves traveling through it would be far too weak for our ears to detect. But, because some of those waves fall into the "audio frequency" range, all Gurnett had to do was amplify the sound to make them audible to human ears.

5. Didn’t we have an interstellar visitor?

An intriguing object zipped through our solar system in late 2017. It was on a steep trajectory that told scientists it wasn’t from around here. They determined it was from interstellar space – the first confirmed object from another solar system to visit our solar system.

Scientists named the object ‘Oumuamua , a Hawaiian word meaning "visitor from afar arriving first.”

So what was it? Because 'Oumuamua was the first of its kind and wasn't observed in great detail at close range, researchers found it difficult to draw conclusions . But whatever it was – it was big, it was moving fast, and it was tumbling through space.

'Oumuamua was estimated to be about half a mile (800 meters) long. Astronomers had never seen a natural object with such extreme proportions in the solar system before. It was last detected traveling away from the Sun at about 196,000 mph or 87.3 kilometers per second – on its way back to interstellar space. After January 2018, 'Oumuamua was no longer visible to telescopes, even in space.

6. Boldly going where no spacecraft have gone before.

Only two spacecraft have made it to interstellar space. Voyager 1 was the first, in August 2012. Six years later, its twin, Voyager 2, entered interstellar space on Nov. 5, 2018.

The New Horizons probe that explored Pluto and the Kuiper Belt Object named Arrokoth is also headed toward interstellar space, generally in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius.

NASA's Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 have both stopped functioning, but they also are coasting into interstellar space as ghost ships. Pioneer 10 is heading toward the red star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus. Pioneer 11 is traveling toward the center of the galaxy in the direction of Sagittarius.

7. Escape Velocity: What it takes to go interstellar.

Hundreds of spacecraft have been launched beyond Earth, so why are only five spaceships headed out of our solar system? Well, most spacecraft aren’t meant to leave the solar system. They’re designed to fly by, orbit, or land on a planet.

To go to interstellar space, a probe needs to be launched into a specific orbit, and by a rocket powerful enough to give it the velocity to break free of the Sun's gravity.

Even using our biggest rockets, some probes need a boost. The Voyagers took advantage of a rare arrangement of the outer planets which occurs about every 176 years. The probes used gravity assists to swing from one planet to the next without needing large propulsion systems. Three of the flybys increased the velocity of the probes enough to deliver them to the next planet, climbing further out of the grip of the Sun's gravity.

8. Cosmic Overachievers: Still exploring after all these years.

Voyager 1 and 2 were launched 16 days apart in 1977. Voyager 2 was launched first, but Voyager 1 was on a faster trajectory. They are the longest continuously operating spacecraft. Between them, they’ve explored all the gas giant planets in our solar system.

While the probes are now in interstellar space, they haven’t truly left the solar system. The boundary of the solar system is considered to be beyond the Oort Cloud, a collection of small objects still under the influence of the Sun. Most comets that visit the inner solar system come from the Oort Cloud. It could take the probes 300 years to reach the inner edge of that region.

9. OK, the Voyagers have made it to interstellar space. What now?

Eventually, the Voyagers will pass other stars. Voyager 1 is escaping the solar system at a speed of about 3.5 AU per year, 35 degrees out of the ecliptic plane to the north, in the general direction of the solar apex (the direction of the Sun's motion relative to nearby stars). Voyager 1 will leave the solar system aiming toward the constellation Ophiuchus. In the year 40,272 CE (more than 38,200 years from now), Voyager 1 will come within 1.7 light-years of an obscure star now in the constellation Ursa Minor (the Little Bear or Little Dipper) called Gliese 445.

Voyager 2 is escaping the solar system at a speed of about 3.1 AU per year toward the constellations of Sagittarius and Pavo. In about 40,000 years, Voyager 2 will come within about 1.7 light-years of a star called Ross 248, a small star now in the constellation of Andromeda.

After that, the Voyagers are destined to orbit in the Milky Way as silent ambassadors from Earth – perhaps forever. Each spacecraft carries a Golden Record of Earth sounds, pictures, and messages.

10. Beyond the Voyagers: Next steps for exploring interstellar space

There are no current NASA plans to send new spacecraft to interstellar space, but researchers are exploring a variety of ideas and concepts for what might be possible and scientifically valuable. There are, however, two NASA satellites designed to study interstellar space from relatively close to Earth.

The Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) is a small satellite already orbiting Earth. IBEX has special instruments gathering data to create the first map of the boundary of interstellar space.

NASA is preparing to launch the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) in 2025. The spacecraft will be positioned about 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) away from Earth toward the Sun, at what is called the first Lagrange point or L1. It will help researchers better understand the boundary of the heliosphere.

Related Terms

• The Solar System
• The Universe
• Voyager Program

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Top 10 spaceflight stories of 2021

2021 was a banner year for NASA and the rest of the spaceflight community around the world. From landing on Mars to launching private citizens into space, and everything in between, this year has seen many historic milestones and next-giant leaps. Here we take a look back at all the incredible moments in spaceflight and explore what they mean for the future. 

Perseverance lands on Mars

NASA took a major step forward in its pursuit of life beyond Earth when it launched its newest Mars rover. Named Perseverance , the four-wheeled robotic scout landed on the red planet in February and has spent the first 10 months of its mission driving around and checking out interesting rock formations in the hopes of finding biosignatures, or evidence that life could have existed on Mars. 

The rover also collected its very first sample of the Martian terrain, which is stored in a special tube for safekeeping until a future mission can retrieve it and bring it, along with a host of other samples back to Earth. Scientists have planned a total of 38 samples to be bagged and tagged for the eventual trip back to Earth. This way, scientists can study pristine bits of the Red Planet, to learn more about Mars and how it changed over time. 

Perseverance touched down on Mars inside a massive crater, called Jezero. Here, scientists are hopeful that their robotic helper will be able to locate the first indications of life beyond our planet. This particular landing spot was chosen because it's the home of a giant lake bed, complete with a river delta. Geographic evidence collected by the many robots NASA has stationed around the Red Planet and on its surface, have collected a plethora of data about Jezero and all signs point to this region being one of the top areas on Mars that could have hosted life. 

As such, Perseverance has embarked on a mission that's two fold: look for signs of past life and collect pristine samples of Mars to send back to Earth. To that end, NASA is currently working with the European Space Agency (ESA) on a plan to bring those samples home within the next decade. 

Ingenuity takes flight

The Perseverance rover did not travel by itself to Mars, it brought a small companion. Attached to the rover's belly was a small helicopter. Named Ingenuity , the little rotorcraft was the first of its kind to fly on another world. 

As a technology demonstration mission, Ingenuity's purpose was to prove that such an object could fly in the thin Martian atmosphere. And the plucky little chopper did just that. To date, the 4-pound (18 kilograms) rotorcraft has logged 18 flights , with more on the schedule next year. Its most recent excursion lasted a grand total of 30 minutes, exceeding all of its mission objectives thus far. 

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NASA hopes that Ingenuity will serve as a pathfinder mission for future rotorcraft, just like the Sojourner rover did in the 1990s. That first little rover paved the way for Perseverance and all the other rovers that came before it. 

The agency also hopes that helicopters and rovers can be used in tandem on Mars (and other planets) to scout locations and collect data and imagery of whatever world they're exploring.

Hope Mars mission reaches the Red Planet

NASA isn't the only space agency to send a probe to Mars this year. United Arab Emirates (UAE) sent its first interplanetary spacecraft on a course to Mars in 2020, with it becoming the fifth country to successfully achieve Mars orbit. 

It also marks the first science mission led by an Arab-Islamic country. The orbiter, called Hope , will collect scientific data using three different technologies mounted on the satellite: the Emirates Exploration Imager (EXI), the Emirates Mars Infrared Spectrometer (EMIRS) and the Emirates Mars Ultraviolet Spectrometer (EMUS).

Using these three instruments, the spacecraft will study the Martian atmosphere , looking at dust content, water and ice and how much ozone is in the air. It will also track seasonal changes with the Martian atmosphere to try to understand how it changed over time.

China lands a Mars rover

China made history this year by being the third country to successfully land on the Red Planet. While NASA has celebrated nine successful landings, the touchdown of the Zhurong lander marked the first Martian success for China. 

This ambitious first Mars endeavor, is the first by any country to feature an orbiter, lander, and rover in the same mission. 

Over the course of its mission, called Tianwen-1 , Zhurong will explore an area called Utopia Planitia, which formed billions of years ago when a meteorite smashed into the planet's surface, leaving behind a surface of mostly volcanic material. 

The six-wheeled rover left its landing craft and began exploring the Martian surface soon after landing on May 14. It's equipped with a total of six scientific instruments, similar to the ones carried by NASA's twin Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which will look for water and ice on the Martian surface. 

SpaceX crewed missions

SpaceX may have launched its first human mission for NASA in May 2020, but this year the company moved ahead full steam, launching not one but two different long-duration crewed missions for NASA. 

In 2014, the company (along with Boeing), won a contract to essentially act as a taxi service, ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS) for the U.S. space agency. Both companies have spent the intervening years developing and building their own spacecraft to transport astronauts. 

While Boeing's Starliner spacecraft still needs more testing, SpaceX's Crew Dragon has now carried four different crews of astronauts to the ISS for NASA, with two launching in 2021. As a result, NASA is in talks with SpaceX to contract three additional rides to space as its original contract called for a total of six missions. 

So far crew Dragon has carried 10 NASA astronauts, two Germans and two Japanese crewmembers to the space station. Earlier this month, NASA confirmed Roscosmos announcement that the two agencies are in talks to send the first cosmonaut into space aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft next fall. If all goes as planned, Anna Kikina will fly as part of the Crew-5 mission, which is set to launch in October 2022. 

Related: SpaceX Crew Dragon makes 1st nighttime splashdown with US astronauts since Apollo era

SpaceX was founded with the idea of making life multiplanetary. To that end, the company has set up shop in a tiny South Texas town to develop its first interplanetary craft: a massive, silvery spaceship called Starship. 

Standing nearly 395 feet (120 meters) tall, the retro-looking ship will one day take travelers to the moon and Mars. But first, it has to prove it has what it takes to fly. 

Starship was first announced by SpaceX founder Elon Musk in 2016, but it wasn't until five years later that an assembly line of Starships popped up. The first Starship launch of 2021 launched on Feb. 2 and ended with an epic crash-landing in South Texas. Then SpaceX achieved a major success in March of this year as the company's third full-sized prototype leaped into the air above Boca Chica, Texas, belly-flopped in mid-air, before standing up straight and touching back down on terra firma.

Unfortunately, a few minutes later the craft exploded on its landing pad . It did, however, succeed in proving that not only could Starships fly, but they could also land. This initial success has earned SpaceX some credit with NASA as the Starship was chosen as NASA's initial human lander for its upcoming Artemis moon mission. 

With the next Starship test flight in May, the SN15 ("Serial No. 15") became the first Starship prototype to ace a landing — and remain intact after doing so. 

Inspiration4

Not only did SpaceX launch two crewed missions to the ISS for NASA, but it also launched the first all-civilian orbital mission, named Inspiration4 . As part of a fundraising effort for St. Jude Children Research hospital, the mission launched four private citizens into space aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. 

During the three-day mission, the crew — Jared Isaacman, Hayley Arceneaux, Sian Proctor and Chris Sembroski — orbited the Earth inside their crew Dragon Resilience. That particular spacecraft, which originally carried the Crew-1 astronauts into space, was modified for the Inspiration4 mission. 

In place of its docking adapter, a dome-window (called a cupola) was installed, providing the crew with epic views of the Earth below. 

Isaacman, billionaire and founder of Shift4 payments, booked the flight, donating two of the seats to St. Jude. One went to Arceneaux (a former patient and current physician's assistant), while the other went to Sembroski as part of a fundraising contest. The fourth seat, which went to Proctor, was part of a shark tank-like contest where contestants came up with a business that would raise money for St. Jude. 

The crew carried up a variety of items, some personal and some that have been auctioned off to raise even more money for St. Jude. To date the mission has surpassed its original goal of raising $250 million for the cancer research institute. 

Russia's ASAT test

In November, Russia launched an anti-satellite (ASAT) missile . Its target: one of Russia's own satellites. 

While these types of tests have been conducted in the past, this particular test was especially controversial. That's because it created a massive debris cloud of floating shrapnel, causing havoc for the space station and other satellites that were in its path. 

Earlier tests of this type of technology have essentially aimed at a certain point in the sky, proving that the missile could reach an imaginary target. However, this time it has a real target, leaving behind more than 1,000 pieces of debris . 

China conducted a similar test in 2007, resulting in nearly 2,800 pieces of trackable debris, and with all the other satellites in orbit, these types of tests are becoming increasingly troublesome. 

The ISS was forced to maneuver out of the way of the debris cloud produced by both of these tests in recent months. The Russian event has left many wondering why Russia would potentially endanger its own astronauts living and working on the orbital outpost. 

DART and Lucy

NASA launched not one, but two different asteroid-hunting missions this year. While the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) and Lucy will have very different targets, their goal will be to help scientists better understand these rocky bodies. 

Lucy launched atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket in October, bound for the outer solar system. Its target: a set of Trojan asteroids in orbit around Jupiter. Scientists believe that these rocky bodies are some of the building blocks of the universe. And as such, by studying them, they can unlock some of the secrets of planetary evolution. 

While Lucy will act as a cosmic archaeologist, observing rocky fossils left behind from the formation of the solar system, DART will see what it takes to knock an asteroid off course. 

Dubbed NASA's first mission devoted to planetary protection, the DART spacecraft is heading for a binary asteroid system. Slated to arrive at Didymos next fall, the spacecraft will actually smack into its smaller moon, Dimorphous, in an attempt to move it ever-so-slightly out of orbit. 

If successful, this technology could help NASA and other space agencies protect the Earth from asteroid impacts in the future. 

Launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)

NASA capped off an incredible year with the launch of the decade. The agency has spent 25 years and $10 billion to build its next great space observatory: the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). 

Essentially a giant piece of space origami, the JWST will use a set of golden mirrors to peer into the depths of the universe. Operating in the infrared, JWST will be able to see further back in time, giving scientists a better understanding of the early days of the universe. 

Researchers will also be able to spy on stellar nurseries and massive galaxies to better understand star formation. Additionally, with the help of JWST's powerful mirror, planetary scientists are hoping that they will be able to spy on planets in other star systems, and may even be able to analyze exoplanet atmospheres to better classify these cosmic bodies and determine their habitability. 

Webb launched on Christmas Day and is on its way to its parking spot out in the cosmos. It's begun a complex process to unfold itself and its massive solar array that is the key to keeping the spacecraft cool enough to soak in all the infrared light it needs to in order to complete its vast array of science objectives. 

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the height of SpaceX's stacked Starship and Super Heavy rocket. The combined rocket and booster are about 395 feet (120 meters) tall, not 1,565 feet (477 meters) tall.

Follow Amy Thompson on Twitter @astrogingersnap . Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook .  

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Amy Thompson is a Florida-based space and science journalist, who joined Space.com as a contributing writer in 2015. She's passionate about all things space and is a huge science and science-fiction geek. Star Wars is her favorite fandom, with that sassy little droid, R2D2 being her favorite. She studied science at the University of Florida, earning a degree in microbiology. Her work has also been published in Newsweek, VICE, Smithsonian, and many more. Now she chases rockets, writing about launches, commercial space, space station science, and everything in between.

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Red Wings 'in survival mode' with five-game road trip on tap

Detroit — Thursday's playoff-like victory over the New York Islanders relieved a lot of the pressure and gave the Wings a bit of space in the playoff chase.

But whether or not the Wings actually stay in that Eastern Conference wild-card spot will likely be determined how they do on an upcoming five-game road trip beginning Saturday in Nashville (5 p.m./BSD/97.1).

The Wings then return home to practice, but play Tuesday in Washington (who trail the Wings by three points), Thursday in Carolina, March 30 in Florida and April 1 in Tampa.

"It sounds like a cliche but it's a long road trip, and just the caliber of the opponents on the trip," coach Derek Lalonde said. "We're in survival mode and you have to get every point possible."

Beginning against Nashville is quite a challenge in its own right. The Predators, after winning Thursday in Florida, have earned points in 16 consecutive games, winning 14 of them (14-0-2).

"It'll be a real good challenge," Lalonde said. "They start from the net out. Their goaltending is getting back to the world class form he (Juuse Saros) has shown in the past. It brings confidence to the group, and they are clicking in all areas. Their superstars are playing like superstars and checkers are checking.

"It's been pretty impressive to watch."

More: Niyo: Larkin's back and the Red Wings couldn't be happier

Forward David Perron agreed the quality of opponents on this trip makes it unique, but this time of the season, there aren't any easy games. Perron brought up Tuesday's comeback victory over Columbus, who are near the bottom of the standings.

"You're viewed as supposed to win that game and you're a team that wants to be in the playoffs and that stuff, but it doesn't make the game easy," Perron said. "They play real loose on the other side and they get fired up because they know it's a big game for us and they have extra energy.

"There's no easy games."

But a string of games like these, along with what is at stake, will likely keep the focus and intensity high for a Wings team that tasted a playoff atmosphere at Little Caesars Arena Thursday in a 6-3 victory over the New York Islanders .

"You could tell the intensity of the game from the start to the finish," Perron said. "The building was unbelievable. Hearing the 'Dylan Larkin' chant and all that stuff, the guys really enjoyed it."

The way the Wings recovered from an abysmal first period against Columbus and have strung together five impressive periods — along with getting captain Dylan Larkin back in the lineup (two goals Thursday) — gives the team optimism and momentum headed into the trip.

"To come back against Columbus, our season could have been dead after that," forward Andrew Copp said. "We can't worry about being there (above the playoff line) or out. We have it take it a game at a time. We have enough to worry about with Nashville. We have to worry about tomorrow."

Being in a playoff race like this, or in a game like Thursday's said Lalonde, will benefit many of the younger players on the Wings' roster.

"Part of the growth is being in this position, we haven't been here," Lalonde said. "There's such growth in a game like (Thursday's). That was an intense game. You could feel it in your gut, feel it in the crowd, from the first period from both teams. There's growth in being in those situations.

"We wanted to be battling for it as late as possible (in the season) and now we're here."

Oakland bandwagon

Count Lalonde among the many local sports fans who Friday were solidly behind Oakland's men's basketball team, after the Golden Grizzlies upset Kentucky.

Lalonde came into the interview room wearing an Oakland T-shirt. Lalonde and Oakland coach Greg Kampe lived in the same condo complex two years ago when Lalonde arrived in Detroit and Kampe sent Lalonde a "care package" consisting of Oakland swag and local food and liquor after making fun of Lalonde's golf swing.

"Coach (Kampe), he's on TV quite often (and) rumor has it he took a crack at my golf swing," Lalonde said. "He felt guilty, (so) he actually sent me a legit care package, which was really cool, a basic welcome to Detroit package, which was a huge gesture.

"Perfect timing (to wear the Oakland T-shirt). I appreciated that gesture being new to this town. That was pretty cool (Thursday)."

Lalonde admitted looking up at the scoreboard Thursday as Oakland's score was being updated.

"How could you not?" Lalonde said. "The energy it brought to the building, and they kept showing it and then they started teasing with it, which was pretty smart. They didn’t put the score up, but they put some highlights and then put the score.

"You're kind of watching and thinking they could pull it off. It was pretty cool."

Lalonde's NCAA bracket is doing good, too, because of the Golden Grizzlies.

"I picked Oakland just because it was a family pool, and it hit,” Lalonde said.

Dylan Larkin didn't practice Friday but it wasn't anything to do with his previous injury that sidelined him for eight games before returning Thursday. Lalonde said Larkin caught the bug that has been going around the Wings' locker room but is expected to be in the lineup in Nashville.

... Lalonde said defenseman Jake Walman (lower-body) will miss his third consecutive game Saturday, while goaltender Ville Husso (lower-body) will likely get a conditioning stint in Grand Rapids before returning to the Wings' lineup, which isn't going to happen, it appears, at least through this road trip.

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Red Wings at Predators

▶   Faceoff:   5 p.m. Saturday, Bridgestone Arena, Nashville

▶   TV/radio:  BSD/97.1

▶   Outlook:  The Predators (41-25-4) have been the hottest team in the NHL with a franchise-record 16-game point streak (14-0-2). ...Nashville is coming off a 3-0 victory Thursday in Florida. ...The Wings won the only game between the teams this season. ...LW Filip Forsberg (38 goals), D Roman Josi (53 assists) and G Juuse Saros (30-21-4, 2.78 GAA) pace the Predators.

Two Holland America Line crew members die in onboard 'incident' in Bahamas

Two Holland America Line crew members died on the line’s Nieuw Amsterdam ship on Friday.

The deaths occurred following an “incident in an engineering space” around 9:20 a.m. while the ship was calling at Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas, according to a spokesperson for the line.

“All of us at Holland America Line are deeply saddened by this incident and our thoughts and prayers are with our team members’ families at this difficult time,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “The safety, security and welfare of all guests and crew are the company’s absolute priority.”

Nieuw Amsterdam is currently sailing a week-long Eastern Caribbean cruise that departed from Fort Lauderdale, Florida on Saturday, according to CruiseMapper .

“The appropriate authorities were notified, and the cause of the incident is currently being investigated,” the spokesperson added, noting that earlier reports that the crew members died in a fire on board were incorrect.

Holland America is also offering counseling services to team members.

Nathan Diller is a consumer travel reporter for USA TODAY based in Nashville. You can reach him at [email protected].