Copernical Team
China ready launch new space station core module
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The Long March 5B carrier rocket tasked with launching the core capsule of China's space station was moved on Friday morning to the launch tower at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province.
The China Manned Space Agency said that the rocket with the core capsule inside will begin pre-launch examinations. Currently, equipment at the coastal launch center is in good condition and China announces Zhurong as name for first Mars rover
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China named its first Mars rover "Zhurong", a fire god in ancient Chinese legend, on Saturday.
Announced at the opening ceremony of 2021 China Space Conference in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, the naming is intended to represent the rover's symbolic task to ignite the hope of China's inter-planetary exploration, encourage humanity's relentless adventure into the immense universe, and urge man Alpha: Second Space Station mission for ESA's Thomas Pesquet begins
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Today at 11:08 (CEST) the Crew Dragon spacecraft with ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet, NASA astronauts Megan McArthur and Shane Kimbrough, and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide docked with the International Space Station's Node-2 Harmony module, marking the start of ESA's six-month mission Alpha.
The crew spent around 23 hours orbiting Earth and catching up w SpaceX capsule Endeavour docks at ISS
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The SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour docked with the International Space Station (ISS) early Saturday, a livestream showed. Soft capture - the first phase of docking - occurred at 5:08 am Eastern time (0908 GMT), 264 miles (424 kilometers) over the south Indian Ocean. Hard capture, the second stage, occurred about 10 minutes later, when 12 hooks were securely attached between Endeavour and the ISS's forward port. Mission Alpha launch replay
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Video:
02:33:30
The full replay of the ESA Web TV coverage of the liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft with ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet, NASA astronauts Megan McArthur and Shane Kimbrough, and Japanese astronaut Aki Hoshide. The Crew-2 will spend around 24 hours travelling to the International Space Station. The rocket lifted off at 11:49 on 23 April 2021 from Launchpad 39A in Cape Canaveral at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA.
Thomas is the first ESA astronaut to fly in space in a vehicle other than the Russian Soyuz or the US Space Shuttle,
Alpha: Second Space Station mission for ESA’s Thomas Pesquet begins
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Today at 11:08 (CEST) the Crew Dragon spacecraft with ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet, NASA astronauts Megan McArthur and Shane Kimbrough, and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide docked with the International Space Station’s Node-2 Harmony module, marking the start of ESA’s six-month mission Alpha.
Asteroid that hit Botswana in 2018 likely came from Vesta
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An international team of researchers searched for pieces of a small asteroid tracked in space and then observed to impact Botswana on June 2, 2018. Guided by SETI Institute meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens, they found 23 meteorites deep inside the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and now have published their findings online in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science.
"Combining the observations of the small asteroid in space with information gleaned from the meteorites shows it likely came from Vesta, second largest asteroid in our solar system and target of NASA's DAWN mission," said Jenniskens.
Mars-directed coronal mass ejection erupts from the sun
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NASA's STEREO-A and ESA/NASA's SOHO spacecraft detected a coronal mass ejection, or CME, leaving the sun on April 17 at 12:36 p.m. EDT. This CME did not impact Earth but did move toward Mars, passing the planet in the late evening and early morning hours of April 21 and 22.
The CME reached Mars two days after NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter became the first aircraft in history to make a powered, controlled flight on another planet. NASA tracks such solar eruptions because solar eruptions can trigger particle and radiation events that pose a risk to astronauts and sensitive spacecraft electronics.
SpaceX launches 3rd crew with recycled rocket and capsule
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Two pilots, rocket scientist, oceanographer flying SpaceX
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SpaceX's third crew has an attack helicopter pilot, a former Air France pilot, a Japanese rocket scientist and an oceanographer.