Copernical Team
Tianwen 1 probe set to enter Mars orbit before New Year
China's Tianwen 1 Mars probe is set to enter the orbit of the red planet around Feb 10, two days before Chinese New Year, according to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, the nation's leading space contractor. The State-owned conglomerate said in a statement on Wednesday afternoon that the spacecraft will conduct a "braking" operation to decelerate and make sure it will be capture
Tech billionaire Elon Musk says he's off Twitter 'for a while'
Tech billionaire Elon Musk said Tuesday he was taking a break from Twitter "for a while", after his posts on the platform helped fuel a stock market frenzy that sent the share prices of several companies soaring. Musk overtook Amazon boss Jeff Bezos to become the world's wealthiest person last month, with a fortune estimated at $185 billion following a nine-fold surge in Tesla's share price
Amazon's Bezos, latest tycoon to pursue his 'passion'
Bill Gates set out to heal the world. His Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen bought sports teams. Ted Turner raced yachts. And Donald Trump went into politics. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the world's richest man, plans to build rockets and save the planet. Bezos, 57, is the latest in a line of corporate titans who have stepped away from their day jobs to devote themselves to other activities
Mission control at work in Houston
A peak into NASA's Mission Control in Houston: what looks like a coffee break is actually ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen (centre) hard at work, guiding NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins and Victor Glover via radio during last week's spacewalk. Spacewalkers are in constant contact with just one person during a spacewalk. This 'ground IV' is a fellow astronaut who is experienced with every proced
Lunar traffic to pick up as NASA readies for robotic commercial moon deliveries
NASA is working on various science instruments and technology experiments from the agency that will operate on the Moon once American companies on Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) contracts deliver them to the lunar surface. Through CLPS flights, NASA is buying a complete commercial robotic lunar delivery service and does not provide launch services, own the lander or lead landing operat
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New podcast episode
ESA Explores Time and Space: the International Space Station era
'Got to work on that landing': SpaceX rocket in fiery crash, again
A prototype of a SpaceX rocket the company hopes will one day journey to Mars crashed in a fiery explosion as it tried to land upright after a test flight Tuesday.
It was the second such explosion after the last prototype of Starship met a similar fate in December.
"We had again another great flight," said a SpaceX announcer on live footage that was broadcast online.
"We've just got to work on that landing a little bit," he added.
The company's founder Elon Musk was uncharacteristically quiet on social media, having announced the night before he was "Off Twitter for a while.
NASA's Perseverance pays off back home
Even as the Perseverance rover approaches Mars, technology on board is paying off on Earth.
A laser-light sensor that can identify bacteria in a wound may sound far-fetched, but it's already becoming a reality, thanks in part to NASA's Mars Exploration Program. The technology is going to Mars for the first time on Perseverance, which will touch down on the Red Planet this month, but it's already detecting trace contaminants in pharmaceutical manufacturing, wastewater treatment, and other important operations on Earth.
Einstein@Home reveals true identity of mysterious gamma-ray source
MESSENGER saw a meteoroid strike Mercury
Telescopes have captured meteoroids hitting the Moon and several spacecraft imaged Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 smacking into Jupiter in 1994.