Copernical Team
China's six astronauts in two missions make historic gathering in space
The six Chinese astronauts from the Shenzhou XIV and Shenzhou XV missions marked a historic moment on Wednesday as they met inside the country's Tiangong space station.
It was the first time that six Chinese were in a space station at the same time and the first in-orbit gathering of two Chinese crews.
After about two hours of preparatory work following the docking of the Shenzhou XV Artemis I Flight Day 15 - Team Polls "Go" For Distant Retrograde Orbit Departure
The Artemis I mission management team met to review the overall status of the flight test and polled "go" for Orion to depart from its distant retrograde orbit, where it has been since Nov. 25. Orion will conduct a burn to depart the orbit at 3:53 p.m. CST Thurs., Dec. 1 and begin its trek back toward Earth.
"We are continuing to collect flight test data and buy down risk for crewed flight Pulsar Fusion funded by the UK Govt to construct a nuclear based space engine
Pulsar Fusion, a UK rocket company that has seen its advanced space engines tested in the UK and Switzerland earlier this year, has been awarded funding from the UK Space Agency to develop 'Integrated nuclear fission-based power systems for electric propulsion'
The project will be supported by Southampton and Cambridge Universities and Nuclear AMRC.
Pulsar Fusion, based in Bletchley, Buck China ready to implement moon landing project
China has made breakthroughs in the development of the new-generation crewed spaceship, new-generation manned carrier rocket, moon lander, and moon landing spacesuit, stepping closer to its moon landing goal, according to the China Manned Space Agency on Monday.
China has completed key technology research and validation of the manned lunar exploration project, forming a moon landing implem Calling all space detectives to hack an exoplanet
Pillars of Creation (NIRCam and MIRI composite image)
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Pillars of Creation (NIRCam and MIRI composite image) At NASA, France's Macron and US vow strong space cooperation
Paris and Washington pledged Wednesday to reenforce their cooperation in space, particularly on exploration and climate, during a visit by France's Emmanuel Macron to NASA headquarters alongside US Vice President Kamala Harris.
The French president, on a state visit to the United States, highlighted the American lunar program Artemis, whose first uncrewed test mission launched in mid-November with participation of the European Space Agency (ESA).
"We are very keen" to participate, he told Harris, adding with a smile: "It's very important for us, as long as you can propose a French leader to fly to the Moon quite rapidly," he said, in a nod to French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who joined Macron for the NASA visit.
SpaceX again postpones Japanese moon lander launch
SpaceX on Wednesday postponed the launch of the world's first private lander to the Moon, a mission undertaken by Japanese firm ispace.
A Falcon 9 rocket was scheduled to blast off at 3:37 am (0837 GMT) on Thursday from Cape Canaveral in the US state of Florida, but SpaceX said further checks on the vehicle had led to a delay.
"After further inspections of the launch vehicle and data review, we're standing down from tomorrow's launch of @ispace_inc's HAKUTO-R Mission 1; a new target launch date will be shared once confirmed," the firm tweeted.
Until now, only the United States, Russia and China have managed to put a robot on the lunar surface.
The mission by ispace is the first of a program called Hakuto-R.
The lander would touch down around April 2023 on the visible side of the Moon, in the Atlas crater, according to a company statement.
The delay came after the launch had already been postponed by a day due to the need for additional pre-flight checks, SpaceX and ispace said on Wednesday.
Measuring just over 2 by 2.5 meters, the lander carries on board a 10-kilogram rover named Rashid, built by the United Arab Emirates.
Graphene heading to space and to the moon
Graphene Flagship Partners University of Cambridge (U.K.) and Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB, Belgium) paired up with the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center (MBRSC, United Arab Emirates), and the European Space Agency (ESA) to test graphene on the moon. This joint effort sees the involvement of many international partners, such as Airbus Defense and Space, Khalifa University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Technische Universität Dortmund, University of Oslo, and Tohoku University.
The Rashid rover is planned to be launched on December 1, 2022 from Cape Canaveral in Florida and will land on a geologically rich and, as yet, only remotely explored area on the moon's nearside—the side that always faces the Earth. During one lunar day, equivalent to approximately 14 days on Earth, Rashid will move on the lunar surface investigating interesting geological features.
The Rashid rover wheels will be used for repeated exposure of different materials to the lunar surface. As part of this Material Adhesion and abrasion Detection experiment, graphene-based composites on the rover wheels will be used to understand if they can protect spacecraft against the harsh conditions on the moon, and especially against regolith (also known as "lunar dust").
NASA cancels greenhouse gas monitoring satellite due to cost
NASA is canceling a planned satellite that was going to intensely monitor greenhouse gases over the Americas because it got too costly and complicated.
But the space agency said it will still be watching human-caused carbon pollution but in different ways.
NASA on Tuesday announced that its GeoCarb mission, which was supposed to be a low-cost satellite to monitor carbon dioxide, methane and how plant life changes over North and South America, was being killed because of cost overruns.
When it was announced six years ago, it was supposed to cost $166 million, but the latest NASA figures show costs would balloon to more than $600 million and it was years late, according to NASA Earth Sciences Director Karen St. Germain.
Unlike other satellites that monitor greenhouse gases from low Earth orbit and get different parts of the globe in a big picture, GeoCarb was supposed to be at a much higher altitude of 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) from one fixed place in orbit and focus intently on North and South America. That different and further perspective proved too difficult and costly to get done on budget and on time, St.
