Space Newsspace history and artifacts articlesMessagesspace history discussion forumsSightingsworldwide astronaut appearancesResourcesselected space history documents
: SpaceX's Crew-13 mission to the International Space Station set a Dragon rendezvous record by docking to the orbiting outpost in under eight hours after its launch. The quick arrival was mostly thanks to orbital mechanics, but a little bit of luck may have chipped in, too. "Lucky," a crocheted golden dragon that served as both the astronauts' zero-gravity indicator and an homage to Apollo 13, helped in keeping any triskaidekaphobia to a minimum.
: He led the room when astronauts first departed for the moon, helped bring a crippled spacecraft back to Earth and devised new procedures for ops on a space station. NASA Apollo and Skylab flight director Milt Windler died on Thursday (Oct. 1) at 94. Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his part in saving Apollo 13, Maroon Flight also worked Mercury and Gemini recoveries and later helped develop the Canadarm.
: For the four months spanning November 2025 and February of this year, a refrigerator-size satellite thought it was a commercial space station. Vast's Haven Demo mission served as a testbed for the technologies and systems needed for its inaugural Haven-1 module. Now that the demo is over, the company is selling segments cut from leftover structural panels that have been embedded in acrylic as limited edition displays.
: As the United States Mint winds down its semiquincentennial program, director Paul Hollis used social media to point out another reason that the dual-dated 1776-2026 nickel, dime, quarters and half dollar share an additional distinction. Earlier this year, one of each spent 30 days on the International Space Station. The eight pieces are now among just the pocketful of U.S. coins flown in space, following a NASA restriction in 1972.
