Following an 11-hr. flight readiness review, NASA on Aug. 22 cleared the first Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft for a launch on the kickoff mission of the Artemis program, a U.S.-led initiative to establish a permanent human presence in deep space.

Startup Relativity Space successfully completed a full-duration, 20-sec. test run of its Terran 1 rocket with its nine first-stage Aeon liquid oxygen/liquid natural gas engines at Cape Canaveral on Aug. 22, clearing a major hurdle toward a planned debut launch attempt in the coming weeks or months.

Frank Rubio, the first NASA astronaut scheduled to travel to and from the International Space Station under a new launch seat exchange agreement between NASA and Russian space agency Roscosmos, has praised efforts by the two agencies to continue their cooperation in space.

NASA is asking the aerospace industry to describe a commercial strategy for the planned deorbiting of the International Space Station, which is currently planned for the end of 2030.

SpaceX's CRS-5 Dragon capsule splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean northeast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Aug. 20.

As NASA gears up for the kickoff mission of its Artemis lunar exploration initiative, the agency on Aug. 19 identified 13 regions on the Moon’s south pole that are under consideration to become the Tranquility Base of a new generation.

SpaceX’s 25th NASA-contracted Dragon resupply capsule departed the International Space Station on Aug. 19 and was headed for a parachute-assisted splashdown in the ocean waters off the Florida coast.

Sierra Space has completed a test readiness review of its carbothermal reactor, a system designed to extract oxygen from the Moon’s soil, and plans to proceed to a physical test of the technology.