Washington DC (UPI) Jan 17, 2024
The SpaceX launch of the private Axiom-3 mission to the International Space Station was scrubbed until Thursday, the company said on social media just before noon on Wednesday. The flight, the third private industry flight carrying four astronauts the orbiting laboratory was scheduled to blast off late Wednesday afternoon. "Now targeting Thursday, Jan. 18 for [the] launch of the

St. Louis, MO (SPX) Jan 18, 2024
Eighteen years after NASA's Stardust mission returned to Earth with the first samples from a known comet, the true nature of that icy object is coming into focus. Stardust collected material from Wild 2, a comet that likely formed beyond Neptune and currently orbits the sun between Mars and Jupiter. Painstaking analyses of the microscopic samples, recently described in the journal Geochemi

Kennedy Space Center, United States (AFP) Jan 17, 2024
An all-European crew including Turkey's first astronaut are poised to blast off to the International Space Station in a mission with Axiom Space, as countries hungry for a taste of space turn increasingly to the private sector. The launch, Axiom's third, is scheduled to see the four-member crew lift off in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule fixed to the top of a Falcon 9 rocket at 4:49 pm local ti

Beijing (XNA) Jan 18, 2024
China's Tianzhou 7 cargo spacecraft has successfully completed its journey to the Tiangong space station, docking without any issues. Launched from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province, Tianzhou 7, aboard a Long March 7 rocket, lifted off at 10:27 pm. The launch was a spectacle of precision and technological prowess, as the rocket placed Tianzhou 7 into its designated low-Earth or

London, UK (SPX) Jan 17, 2024
An experiment outlined by a UCL (University College London)-led team of scientists from the UK and India could test whether relatively large masses have a quantum nature, resolving the question of whether quantum mechanical description works at a much larger scale than that of particles and atoms. Quantum theory is typically seen as describing nature at the tiniest scales and quantum effec

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Jan 18, 2024
On January 18, 2023, the European Space Agency's (ESA) Swedish astronaut, Marcus Wandt, will embark on a pioneering journey to the International Space Station (ISS). This mission, known as Muninn, will mark the first time an ESA astronaut participates in a commercial mission organized by the U.S. launch service provider Axiom, aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule from NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jan 18, 2024
Earth planning date: Tuesday, January 16, 2024. After a long holiday weekend, Curiosity is back hard at work. The first sol of the plan begins with some spectroscopy and imaging. ChemCam LIBS is doing a 5-spot observation of the target "Rovana," which is a bedrock target. We then take a 10-frame RMI of "Texoli," which is a layered butte to the south of the rover. Mastcam also images Rovana, as w

Cambridge UK (SPX) Jan 18, 2024
Researchers have discovered the oldest black hole ever observed, dating from the dawn of the universe, and found that it is 'eating' its host galaxy to death. The international team, led by the University of Cambridge, used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to detect the black hole, which dates from 400 million years after the big bang, more than 13 billion years ago. The

ESA project astronaut Marcus Wandt from Sweden blasted into space tonight from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA, at 21:49 GMT (22:49 CET, 16:49 local time). A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the Axiom Mission 3 (Ax-3) crew of four astronauts from launch pad 39A.

Windswept piles of dust, or layers of ice? ESA’s Mars Express has revisited one of Mars’s most mysterious features to clarify its composition. Its findings suggest layers of water ice stretching several kilometres below ground – the most water ever found in this part of the planet.