The Space Store

The iconic Hubble telescope has been operating for 31 years and has given us some of the most spellbinding insight into space. But, for two weeks now, the Hubble has been out of order, and NASA’s top engineers are working hard to get it up and running once again.

The uncrewed mission will test the end-to-end capabilities of the Starliner spacecraft and Atlas V rocket from launch to docking to a return to Earth in the desert of the western United States. Following a successful completion of the OFT-2 mission, NASA and Boeing are targeting late 2021 for NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT), Starliner’s first flight with astronauts aboard.

SpaceX Dragon, known as Falcon 9, delivers NASA cargo to the International Space Station (ISS), holding almost 7,500 pounds of supplies, equipment, and gear to astronauts on the orbiting lab, thus proving Dragon’s essential role in NASA’s regular operations. While SpaceX and NASA have not always seen eye to eye in the past, it’s clear that NASA needs this particular SpaceX technology, and this...