NASA planning September launch of Mars smallsat mission on first New Glenn
Russia vetoes U.N. resolution on nuclear weapons in space
First Ariane 6 booster gets lift to launch zone
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First Ariane 6 booster gets lift to launch zone Young Professionals’ YPSat headed to Ariane 6
ESA’s YPSat has been shipped to Arianespace. Following a series of successful tests confirming its readiness for deployment, the payload is now headed to Europe’s Launch Site in French Guiana. The goal of YPSat is to capture all the key phases of Ariane 6's inaugural flight.
NASA astronauts arrive for Boeing's first human spaceflight
The two NASA astronauts assigned to Boeing's first human spaceflight arrived at their launch site Thursday, just over a week before their scheduled liftoff.
The Mars Sample Return mission has a shaky future, and NASA is calling on private companies for backup
A critical NASA mission in the search for life beyond Earth, Mars Sample Return, is in trouble. Its budget has ballooned from US$5 billion to over $11 billion, and the sample return date may slip from the end of this decade to 2040.
The mission would be the first to try to return rock samples from Mars to Earth so scientists can analyze them for signs of past life.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said during a press conference on April 15, 2024, that the mission as currently conceived is too expensive and too slow. NASA gave private companies a month to submit proposals for bringing the samples back in a quicker and more affordable way.
As an astronomer who studies cosmology and has written a book about early missions to Mars, I've been watching the sample return saga play out.
China launches 3-member crew to its space station as it seeks to put astronauts on the moon by 2030
China launched a three-member crew to its orbiting space station on Thursday as part of its ambitious program that aims to put astronauts on the moon by 2030.
The Shenzhou-18 spacecraft lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on the edge of the Gobi Desert in northwestern China atop a Long March 2-F rocket at 8:59 p.m. (1259 GMT).
The spacecraft's three-member crew will relieve the Shenzhou-17 team, which has been staffing China's Tiangong space station since last October.
Hera mission plans Mars flyby en route to asteroid study
ESA's Hera mission, aimed at planetary defense, will utilize a Mars flyby in March next year to gain velocity as it heads towards the Didymos binary asteroid system. During this maneuver, Hera will approach Mars within 6,000 km-closer than Mars' moons' orbits-and adjust its trajectory to closely observe Mars' moon Deimos and the Martian surface itself.
The flyby details were discussed at t 
