Beijing (XNA) Jun 18, 2021
Three Chinese astronauts have entered the core module of China's permanent space station to embark on their three-month mission, becoming the module's first occupants and pioneers in one of the nation's grandest space endeavors. Major General Nie Haisheng, Major General Liu Boming and Senior Colonel Tang Hongbo floated into the core module, named Tianhe, or Harmony of Heavens, at 6:48 pm o

Busy urban centres represent key areas of demand for satellite navigation services, but dense concentrations of high buildings mean that satnav signal reception may sometimes fall short. So ESA is issuing a call for ideas to make up for such service gaps through the use of imaging and 3D mapping technology – ahead of a dedicated workshop on 6 July.

There’s a problem brewing overhead. Invisible to the naked eye and relatively unheard of, it threatens our future in space – space debris.

A new ‘Space Sustainability Rating’ is currently in development that will shed light on the problem, scoring space operators on the sustainability of their missions, increasing the transparency of their contributions to protecting the space environment and encouraging and recognising responsible behaviour.

Jiuquan, China (AFP) June 17, 2021
The first astronauts arrived at China's new space station on Thursday in the country's longest crewed mission to date, a landmark step in establishing Beijing as a major space power. The trio blasted off on a Long March-2F rocket from the Jiuquan launch centre in northwest China's Gobi desert, and their craft docked at the Tiangong station around seven hours later, where they will spend the

The deadline to submit an application for ESA’s astronaut selection is midnight CEST Friday 18 June, giving applicants just two more days to apply.

“A risky and dangerous situation,” recalls ESA astronaut Reinhold Ewald of the in-orbit fire he experienced aboard the Mir space station back in 1997. “The fire was so enormous and the smoke and vapour coming off this fire site was such that we couldn’t see at arm’s length – and I could not at that time have imagined that we go on with the mission.”