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: Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders was killed Friday (June 7) when the vintage aircraft he was piloting crashed into the waters off the coast of the San Juan Islands in Washington State. One of the first people to fly to the moon, Anders' greatest legacy may be the now-iconic photograph he took of "Earthrise," inspiring the environment movement. The T-34 Mentor Anders was flying belonged to the Heritage Flight Museum he founded.
: Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are now in Earth orbit, having become the first crew to launch on board Boeing's CST-100 Starliner commercial spacecraft. Lifting off on a ULA Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, Wilmore and Williams are now only the sixth U.S. crew to test fly a new type of American spacecraft. Their mission to and from the International Space Station will test the Starliner's systems.
: David Hilmers and Marsha Ivins, who both flew multiple flights as space shuttle mission specialists, entered the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame on Saturday (June 1). Standing under one of their rides to orbit, the orbiter Atlantis, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, the two were hailed in front of a "full house" of fellow astronauts, space agency officials and the public. Hilmers and Ivins were the 25th inductee class.
: The National Library of Israel has received the diary kept by astronaut Ilan Ramon more than 20 years after it was found among the debris of space shuttle Columbia. The tattered pages, which document Ramon's life and research while in space, were previously held by the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Ramon also wrote notes about the Jewish rituals he was to follow, including reciting the "Kiddush," the blessing over the wine.
: A Gemini capsule is included on Blue Origin's NS-25 New Shepard mission patch as a reference to what could have been. Gemini was flying when Ed Dwight reported to the Air Force's Aerospace Research Pilot School and was dubbed by the press as the United States' "first Black astronaut." Only he was never chosen for NASA's corps. Instead, Dwight, now 90, entered space for the first time on the NS-25 crew.
: SpaceX achieved its first full flight of its Starship launch vehicle on Thursday (June 6), surviving reentry from space to splashing down in the ocean. Flying on its fourth test flight, Starship and its Super Heavy booster each had issues, including losing heatshield tiles and failed engines, but both made it back to land intact in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, respectively. In the future, Starship will land at its launch pad to fly again.
: An Artemis Moon Tree that was grown from a seed flown on NASA's 2022 Artemis I mission, was planted at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday (June 4). The sweetgum sapling was dedicated by the four astronauts who will be next to fly around to the moon, the Artemis II crew, who were joined by members of Congress and NASA and Canadian officials. The Artemis Moon Tree is now among the 4,800 trees on the U.S. Capitol grounds.
: Chang'e-6 has landed at Apollo crater within the South Pole-Aitken basin on the far side of the moon. The China National Space Administration probe has the goal of sampling and returning the first lunar rocks and regolith from the moon's hemisphere that always faces away from Earth. The lander also carries instruments from the European Space Agency, France and Italy. Should all go to plan, the samples will be on Earth by month's end.
: The newly-renamed Griffin Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago debuted on Sunday (May 19) its renovated Henry Crown Space Center, including the second SpaceX Dragon capsule to go on permanent public display. Visitors can now view the twice-flown Dragon, as well as "Aurora 7" Mercury spacecraft and the Apollo 8 command module in new glass cases with immersive video and lighting effects.
: It took more than five years for the first of NASA's Space Launch System rockets to be ready to lift off its mobile launcher. With 3,601 pieces to fit together, those building the new Lego NASA Artemis Space Launch System should require considerably less time but it depends on how distracted they get from all of the "easter eggs" included in the set. From reused rocket parts to a nod to Classic Space, the kit is rich with details.
Upcoming space events:
Exhibit opening [06/08] Home Beyond Earth The Museum of Flight, Seattle
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