Beijing (XNA) Jul 25, 2022
China plans to launch a large space telescope next year to fly alongside the Tiangong space station, according to the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology. The academy said a Long March 5B heavy-lift carrier rocket will deploy the Xuntian space telescope in a low-Earth orbit similar to the track of the Tiangong station as they both circle Earth. The telescope will carry out deep-spac

Perth, Australia (SPX) Jul 25, 2022
Planetary scientist Katarina Miljkovic is available to discuss the nature of planets in Melbourne this week. It's part of a national tour of public and school talks promoting opportunities for women in physics. The planets in our solar system are vastly different although they all formed from the same cloud of gas and dust around a star - our sun. Why is this? Associate Professor Kat

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jul 25, 2022
Scientists from NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission recently learned that surface regeneration happens a lot quicker on asteroids than on Earth. By analyzing rock fractures on asteroid Bennu from high-resolution images taken by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, the team discovered that the Sun's heat fractures rocks on Bennu in just 10,000 to 100,000 years. This information will help scientists estimate how long

Washington DC (UPI) Jul 24, 2021
SpaceX sent another 53 Starlink satellites into orbit Sunday with its 33rd launch of the year, just days after the company broke its annual record set in 2021. That satellites were sent into low-Earth orbit from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 9:38 a.m. EDT, the company said in a statement. The Falcon 9 rocket's first stage booster landed on the A Shortfa

Washington DC (SPX) Jul 20, 2022
DARPA's Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC), a missile program conducted in partnership with the U.S. Air Force, completed another successful free flight in early July. This is the second demonstration vehicle built by Raytheon Technologies to meet test objectives. The first Raytheon flight was in September 2021. It was followed by success with a different contractor's vehicle configu

London, UK (SPX) Jul 25, 2022
The Marine Management Organisation (MMO) is consulting on the determination of a marine licence application from Virgin Orbit, proposing to launch a satellite from Spaceport Cornwall in Newquay. Virgin Orbit proposes to conduct a maximum of one launch in 2022 and two launches per year over the next 8 years (January 2023 - December 2030). As the material to be deposited will be loaded

Beijing (AFP) July 25, 2022
Astronauts entered the new lab module of China's space station for the first time Monday, in a major step towards completing the orbital outpost by the end of the year. The station is one of the crown jewels of Beijing's ambitious space programme, which has landed robotic rovers on Mars and the Moon, and made China only the third nation to put humans in orbit. Once completed, Tiangong --

Beijing (AFP) July 24, 2022
China launched on Sunday the second of three modules needed to complete its new space station, state media reported, the latest step in Beijing's ambitious space programme. The uncrewed craft, named Wentian, was propelled by a Long March 5B rocket at 2:22 pm (0622 GMT) from the Wenchang launch centre on China's tropical island of Hainan. Beijing launched the central module of its space s