In this image from Sept. 5, 1983, Guion “Guy” Bluford checks out the sample pump on the continuous flow electrophoresis system (CFES) experiment in the middeck of the Earth-orbiting space shuttle Challenger. Forty years ago today, he launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, becoming the […]
This artists’ impression is of the Mariner 10 mission. Mariner 10, which launched on Nov. 3, 1972, was the first mission to perform an interplanetary gravity assist, using a flyby of the planet Venus to alter its path to meet Mercury. This allowed the spacecraft to meet Mercury on three occasi
This week in 2011, space shuttle Atlantis, mission STS-135, launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to the International Space Station. STS-135 carried the Raffaello multipurpose logistics module to deliver supplies, logistics, and spare parts to the orbiting lab. This was the final launch of the
