Cassini

After 13 years in the Saturn system, the Cassini mission ended on September 15, 2017, when the probe plunged into Saturn itself.

The mission is responsible for most of what we now know of Saturn, its rings, and its moons.

Lunar Trip?

SpaceX was scheduled to fly a manned mission around the Moon in 2018.

So far, it has flown no manned flights.

EMP

Perhaps the most potentially consequential story touching space in 2017 involves the North Korean ICBM that could reach America.

The American media tends to couch that threat in terms of losing a city, but the bigger threat involves creating an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, by detonating a thermonuclear bomb in space.  That could take down the U. S. power grid.

Bruce McCandless

Former astronaut Bruce McCandless, the first human to spacewalk untethered to his ship, died last week.

He was 80.

Gravitational Waves

The discovery pf gravitational waves in 2017 confirmed Einsteion's description of space.

It also meant astronomers can now use those waves as well as light to study the universe.

Vandenburg Launch

SpaceX launched satellites from Vandenburg in California yesterday.

UFO reports followed as the booster put on a show.

Falcon Heavy

SpaceX' Falcon Heavy rocket is now on the pad at Cape Canaveral.

It's scheduled to launch next month.