Beijing (XNA) Jan 07, 2022
China's Tiangong space station conducted a test using its robotic arm to reposition the Tianzhou 2 cargo spaceship on Thursday morning, according to the China Manned Space Agency. In a statement, the agency said that the arm secured the robotic cargo craft early on Thursday morning and began to move it to a new position at 6:12 am. Tianzhou 2 had been connected to the station's Tianhe core

Seoul (AFP) Jan 6, 2022
North Korea has successfully tested a hypersonic missile, state media reported Thursday, in the first major weapons test by the nuclear-armed nation this year. This was the second reported test of what Pyongyang claimed were hypersonic gliding missiles, as it pursues the sophisticated technology despite international sanctions and condemnation. Hypersonic missiles move far faster and are

Tokyo (AFP) Jan 7, 2022
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa said Friday his trip into space had given him a new appreciation for Earth, and he now hopes to plunge into the ocean's forbidding Mariana Trench. Maezawa and his assistant Yozo Hirano spent 12 days on the International Space Station last month, where they documented life in space for one million YouTube subscribers. Speaking Friday for the first time

Hanover NH (SPX) Jan 06, 2022
Evidence arguing for a "whiff of oxygen" before the Earth's Great Oxygenation Event 2.3 billion years ago are chemical signatures that were probably introduced at a much later time, according to research published in Science Advances. The result rewinds previous research findings that atmospheric oxygen existed prior to the so-called Great Oxygenation Event-known to researchers as "GOE"- a

Washington DC (UPI) Jan 6, 2021
The upper stage of a failed Russian Angara A5 rocket plummeted uncontrolled to Earth, crashing into open sea near French Polynesia. The U.S. 18th Space Control Squadron confirmed the 4 p.m. Wednesday re-entry The Persei upper stage was part of a heavy-lift rocket. The debris weighed an estimated 3.5 tons. Astronomer Jonathon McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophy

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jan 07, 2022
As NASA's James Webb Space Telescope makes its way out to its intended orbit, ground teams monitor its vitals using a comprehensive set of sensors located throughout the entire spacecraft. Mechanical, thermal, and electrical sensors provide a wide array of critical information on the current state and performance of Webb while it is in space. A system of surveillance cameras to watch deplo

Washington DC (UPI) Jan 6, 2021
SpaceX kicked off a surge in launch activity Thursday with the successful launch of 49 of the company's Starlink communications satellites from Florida, heading south along the state's coastline. Five SpaceX missions may launch in the next month on the southern polar trajectory, flying closer to the Florida coast toward Miami than most launches, according to the U.S. Space Force.

San Francisco CA (SPX) Jan 07, 2022
Loft Orbital Solutions, Inc. (Loft Orbital), a leading space infrastructure-as-a-service provider, and LeoStella, Inc., a specialized satellite constellation design and manufacturing company, have extended their production agreement to secure multiple additional LEO-100 buses from LeoStella. These satellite buses are the latest in a series Loft Orbital has secured from LeoStella. The satel

Boca Raton FL (SPX) Jan 07, 2022
The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover is collecting samples in search of signs of ancient microbial life, which would advance NASA's quest to explore the past habitability of Mars. The samples are set to return to Earth no earlier than 2031, as part of the Mars Sample Return campaign being planned by NASA and the European Space Agency. Before the rover went to space, NASA and its engineers worked har

Madison WI (SPX) Jan 07, 2022
by Eric Verbeten for WISC News Is there life on Venus? For more than a century, scientists have pondered this question. Now, there is renewed interest in Venus as a place that could support living organisms. "We are trying to make the case for exploring Venus and to inspire and inform future missions to collect in situ data with satellites," says Sanjay Limaye, a University of Wisconsin-Madison