Europe en route for Moon with new simulator, says astronaut Pesquet
Europe has embarked on the mission to put humans back on the Moon with a new lunar simulator launched in Germany, French astronaut Thomas Pesquet told AFP.
Pesquet was at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne on Wednesday to test out LUNA, a facility built to resemble the surface of the Moon.
The 46-year-old astronaut, a national icon in France for his missions to the Internationa Anduril lands $25 million contract to upgrade aging space surveillance network
BlackSky to equip its future satellites with military-compatible laser terminals
Fireworks forecast if comet survives risky sun flypast
A comet is expected to risk having its tail clipped on Friday by flying perilously close to the sun, promising fireworks next month should it survive the fraught flypast.
Astronomers believe the Tsuchinshan-ATLAS comet has been hurtling headfirst through the void of space towards the center of the solar system for millions of years.
Named for the Chinese observatory and South African program which detected and confirmed its existence in 2023, the ball of rock and ice may have formed at a distance up to 400,000 times that between Earth and the sun, models suggest.
Up till now, you had to be in the southern hemisphere to hope to see it with the naked eye.
But on Friday evening it is projected to cross as close to the sun as it will get, before returning towards Earth.
Crew-9 Successfully Launched, Now En Route to ISS
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched on time Saturday at 1:17 pm (1717 GMT) from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov. The mission, Crew-9, is now in a nominal orbit and on course to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday at around 2130 GMT.
This mission marks the first crewed launch from SpaceX's Xona scales up LEO navigation constellation plans in Canada
Falcon 9 sends new crew to ISS on first crewed launch from SLC-40
SpaceX launches rescue mission to return stranded astronauts
A SpaceX rocket soared into the sky Saturday with two passengers on board, leaving two seats empty to return American astronauts who have been stranded for months on the International Space Station, NASA said.
The Falcon 9 rocket took off at 1:17 pm (1717 GMT) from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It used a new launch pad, the pad's first use for a crewed mission.
"Congrats to @NASA and @SpaceX on a successful launch," NASA chief Bill Nelson said in a post on X. "We live in an exciting period of exploration and innovation in the stars."
On board were NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov.
When they return from the space station in February, they will bring back two space veterans—Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams—whose stay on the ISS was prolonged for months by problems with their Boeing-designed Starliner spacecraft.
SpaceX launches mission to return stranded astronauts
A SpaceX rocket soared into the sky Saturday with two passengers on board, leaving two seats empty to return American astronauts who have been stranded for months on the International Space Station, NASA said.
The Falcon 9 rocket took off at 1:17 pm (1717 GMT) from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It used a new launch pad, the pad's first use for a crewed mission.
"Congrats to @NASA and @SpaceX Asteroid Ceres is a former ocean world that slowly formed into a giant, murky icy orb
Since the first sighting of the first-discovered and largest asteroid in our solar system was made in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi, astronomers and planetary scientists have pondered the make-up of this asteroid/dwarf planet. Its heavily battered and dimpled surface is covered in impact craters. Scientists have long argued that visible craters on the surface meant that Ceres could not be very icy. 
