Portal:Spaceflight/Spaceflight news/2014 archive

The most recent items from the archive are transcluded into the news section to avoid the need to update multiple pages. When adding new items, place them at the top of the list, and move the onlyinclude tags so that no more than seven items are transcluded.


 * 24 December: NASA reveals a plan to extend the MESSENGER mission at Mercury an extra month by using its propulsion system pressurant for reaction control.
 * 9 December: Orbital Sciences announces that Cygnus CRS Orb-4 will be launched on an Atlas V rocket in late 2015.
 * 5 December: NASA successfully conducts Exploration Flight Test 1, the first orbital flight of the Orion spacecraft.
 * 12 November: Philae lands on Comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko. However, its landing orientation precludes solar panel exposure, limiting its operational time on the comet to three days.
 * 5 November: Orbital Sciences calls a halt to future Antares launches after it is determined the Cygnus CRS Orb-3 accident was connected to issues with the Aerojet Rocketdyne AJ-26 engine.
 * 31 October: The return capsule for China's Chang'e 5-T1 test mission around the Moon is recovered successfully after landing in Inner Mongolia.
 * 28 October: The Antares 130 rocket carrying the Cygnus CRS Orb-3 spacecraft explodes and crashes at Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, Wallops Island, Virginia.
 * 19 October: Comet C/2013 A1 "Siding Spring" flies by Mars.
 * 15 October: Astronomers have discovered three candidate targets for possible visits from New Horizons following its encounter with Pluto in 2015.
 * 24 September: India's Mars Orbiter Mission probe enters orbit around Mars.
 * 22 September: MAVEN enters orbit around Mars.
 * 16 September: NASA announces $6.8 billion in contracts have been awarded to Boeing and SpaceX in the CCtCap phase of the Commercial Crew Development program.
 * 15 September: The European Space Agency has pinpointed the landing site on Comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko for Rosetta's Philae lander.
 * 1 September: The unmanned Russian biological mission, Foton-M4 returns to Earth after a malfunction-plagued mission with its biological payload dead.
 * 26 August: The National Museum of the United States Air Force has begun restoring a Titan IV rocket for display.
 * 23 August: Two satellites for the Galileo satellite navigation system are left in the wrong orbit following a launch by a Soyuz-2.1b rocket from Guiana Space Centre.
 * 21 August: American astronaut Steven R. Nagel, a veteran of four Space Shuttle missions and commander of two of them, dies, aged 67.
 * 10 August: The International Cometary Explorer flies by the Moon.
 * 6 August: Rosetta enters orbit around Comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko.
 * 29 July: The final ESA Automated Transfer Vehicle, Georges Lemaître, has been launched to the International Space Station by an Ariane 5 rocket from Guiana Space Centre, French Guiana.
 * 29 July: Attempts to bring the International Cometary Explorer probe back to Earth have failed due to the depletion of pressurant in its propulsion system.
 * 28 July: The Opportunity rover on Mars has set the record for longest distance travelled on the surface of an extraterrestrial body.
 * 26 July: The Russian Federal Space Agency has regained contact with the Foton-M4 biological research satellite a week after losing contact shortly after launch.
 * 25 July: The Spitzer Space Telescope is granted a two-year mission extension, reversing an earlier order to deactivate the probe.
 * 11 July: The United States Air Force certifies SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program.
 * 9 July: Russia succeeds in launching the first Angara rocket on a suborbital test flight from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russia.
 * 7 July: Researchers succeed in firing the engines on the International Cometary Explorer probe in preparation for maneuvers that should return it to Earth in August.
 * 15 June: Space Adventures reveals plans to send a Soyuz spacecraft to the Moon as soon as 2017, with two space tourists having already paid a US$150 million deposit.
 * 13 June: Scientists have found a solution for why the far side of the Moon lacks lunar maria, assuming the giant impact hypothesis is correct.
 * 9 June: NASA scientists reveal evidence that Pluto and Charon may share an atmosphere.
 * 29 May: SpaceX unveils the final design of the Dragon V2 manned spacecraft.
 * 28 May: Successful Launch of Expedition 40/41 Soyuz Rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the ISS.
 * 28 May: The launch of Cygnus CRS Orb-2 has been delayed due to failure of an engine on its Antares 120 rocket during an engine test.
 * 19 May: Wubbo Ockels, the first astronaut to represent The Netherlands, dies, aged 68.
 * 15 May: A Proton-M rocket fails to orbit an Ekspress comsat. It is believed to have crashed into the Altai Mountains or the Pacific Ocean.
 * 13 May: ISS Expedition 39 Lands safely in Kazakhstan after six months in orbit aboard the station.
 * 1 May: A crowdfunding project is in progress to attempt to resurrect the International Cometary Explorer and bring it back to Earth when it flies by in August 2014.
 * 25 April: SpaceX sues the United States Air Force in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims over a block-buy contract with the United Launch Alliance.
 * 18 April: The LADEE mission ends, with the probe impacting the Moon as expected.
 * 16 April: MESSENGER finds evidence that Mercury may have undergone explosive volcanic activity and pyroclastic magma flows as recently as 1 billion years ago; previous models for its formation once believed this never to have been possible.
 * 4 April: NASA announces that gravimetric measurements from Cassini have determined there is a subsurface ocean on Enceladus.
 * 4 April: NASA suspends several contacts with the Russian Federal Space Agency in retaliation for Russia's invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea.
 * 30 March: Launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station are grounded for two weeks due to a short circuit in a range RADAR system.
 * 25 March: Soyuz TMA-12M is launched, but its approach to the International Space Station is delayed two days when a missed engine burn aborts its express approach profile.
 * 14 March: China's Jade Rabbit rover is reactivated for its fourth lunar day, but is no longer able to move.
 * 3 March: American astronaut William R. Pogue, veteran of Skylab 4, dies, aged 84.
 * 19 February: Russian/Soviet cosmonaut Valeri Kubasov, veteran of three spaceflights including the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project, dies, aged 79.
 * 19 February: American astronaut Dale Gardner, veteran of two spaceflights, dies following a stroke, aged 65.
 * 9 January: Orbital Sciences conducts the first operational launch of the Cygnus spacecraft for the Commercial Resupply Services to the International Space Station.
 * 5 January: ISRO successfully launches GSAT-14 with the GSLV Mark II rocket, featuring their first indigenously-produced cryogenic upper stage.