Washington DC (SPX) Dec 08, 2021
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope team recovered the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph on Monday, Dec. 6, and is now operating with all four active instruments collecting science. The team has still not detected any further synchronization message issues since monitoring began Nov. 1. The team will continue work on developing and testing changes to instrument software that would allow them

Beijing (XNA) Dec 08, 2021
The cube-like object spotted recently by China's lunar rover on the far side of the moon aroused wild curiosity in cyberspace worldwide this week. Yutu 2, the lander and rover of the Chang'e 4 probe, captured an obscure but intriguing image about 80 meters from its location during the mission's 36th lunar day, according to Our Space, a Chinese science channel that published the machine's l

A SpaceX Falcon 9 launched a small NASA X-ray astronomy satellite Dec. 9 to study black holes and neutron stars, an “appetizer” for the launch later this month of the much larger James Webb Space Telescope.

Image: Blood disc for astronaut diagnosis

Rocket Lab launched another pair of BlackSky satellites Dec. 8, a day after the company won a contract from a Japanese firm for three launches of radar imaging satellites.

SpaceNews

Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 09, 2021
Ingenuity flew for the 17th time at Mars on Sunday, Dec. 5. After the helicopter executed the planned 614-foot (187-meter) traverse to the northeast, the radio communications link between Ingenuity and the Perseverance Mars rover was disrupted during the final descent phase of the flight. Approximately 15 minutes later, Perseverance received several packets of additional Ingenuity telemetry indicating that the flight electronics and battery were healthy.

Washington (AFP) Dec 8, 2021
A Blue Origin flight due to include the daughter of the first American to travel to space has been delayed by two days because of forecasts of bad weather, the company said Wednesday. The flight was originally scheduled for Thursday but because of winds forecast for both that day and Friday it will now aim to lift off on Saturday at 8:45 am (1445 GMT) from West Texas. Laura Shepard Churc

Baikonur, Kazakhstan (AFP) Dec 8, 2021
Malik Mutaliyev walks by an abandoned amusement park in wintry Baikonur, a secretive town in Kazakhstan's inhospitable steppe that appeared alongside the eponymous Baikonur Cosmodrome where the Soviet Union's space programme rose to glory. "Our town has lived through a lot: Perestroika, the fall of the Soviet Union, electricity shortages. We've been through it all," says the 67-year-old form

Orlando FL (SPX) Dec 09, 2021
As the new space race continues, a team of top researchers says one thing needs to be cleared up - what exactly is a planet? In a study appearing recently in the journal Icarus, the researchers hope to set the record straight with a look at how a planet's definition has changed since the time of Galileo to the controversial decision the International Astronomical Union made in 2006 to crea

Orlando FL (UPI) Dec 09, 2021
NASA intends to learn more about stars, neutron stars, black holes, nebulae and other space objects by launching a new X-ray telescope satellite, the IXPE, from Florida early Thursday. The $214 million IXPE satellite, or X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, will orbit the Earth as the first satellite dedicated to measuring the polarization of X-rays from a variety of cosmic sources, according to NA