What was to have been America’s third lunar landing in April 1970, became a struggle to safely return the crew after an oxygen tank explosion crippled the crew’s spacecraft. During a reunion of key players involved in the Apollo 13 mission, they recalled what has been termed “NASA’s finest hour.”
On Feb. 15, 2020, a Northrop Grumman spacecraft was launched atop an Antares rocket from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The Cygnus capsule, christened the “S.S. Robert H. Lawrence,” will deliver more than 7,400 pounds of cargo to the International Space Station. The name honors the first African American to be selected as an astronaut.
NASA’s Space Shuttle Endeavour first arrived at her home spaceport, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, on May 7, 1991. Following exactly one year of completing assembly, rigorous tests and processing, the newest orbiter “set sail”into the skies over the Atlantic Ocean. The maiden voyage marked one of the most dramatic examples of the value of humans in spaceflight.