Beijing (AFP) Oct 18, 2021
China on Monday denied a report it had recently launched a hypersonic missile, saying it tested a spacecraft to trial reusable technologies. The Financial Times reported Saturday that Beijing had launched a nuclear-capable missile in August that circled the Earth at low orbit before narrowly missing its target. FT sources said the hypersonic missile was carried by a Long March rocket and

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Oct 18, 2021
On 1 October 2021, an S50 solid-propellant rocket motor, which will form the first two stages of the new VLM-1 launch vehicle, successfully completed a static firing test in the operational area of Usina Coronel Abner (UCA), in Sao Jose dos Campos, Sao Paulo state, Brazil. The test was conducted by an engineering team from the Aeronautics and Space Institute, which is headquartered in Sao Jose d

Huntsville AL (SPX) Oct 06, 2021
Lockheed Martin has announced that the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) approved its Next Generation Interceptor (NGI) program's System Requirements Review (SRR) - six months after the initial development and demonstration contract award. The MDA's NGI program is designed to protect the United States from complex, rogue threat, ballistic missile attacks. The interceptor is an end-to-end d

Beijing (XNA) Oct 19, 2021
China's landmark six-month journey in space has left many curious about the differences between male and female astronauts. Wang Yaping, a 41-year-old female astronaut from Shandong province in East China, became the first Chinese woman to enter China's space station after the trio settled inside the Tianhe core module last week. "Astronauts need to meet high physical and emotional s

Beijing (XNA) Oct 19, 2021
The Chinese space test that drew great attention was made to verify reusable spacecraft technologies, not to test a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile, as some foreign media claimed, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday. Responding to questions about the test, ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a daily briefing at the ministry in Beijing that he was told it was a regular test flight by

Beijing (XNA) Oct 19, 2021
China's Shenzhou XIII crewed spaceship successfully docked with the port of the space station core module Tianhe on Saturday, a move overseas experts have called another "key step" forward in China's space exploration. Three Chinese astronauts aboard the Shenzhou XIII will stay in orbit for six months, making China's longest yet crewed mission for space station construction. Denis Si

London, UK (SPX) Oct 19, 2021
Arianespace has successfully performed Soyuz Flight ST36. This latest launch for OneWeb's placed 36 more satellites into orbit. ST36 represents an important step in OneWeb and Arianespace's partnership: the operator now has more than half, 358 satellites, of its constellation on orbit. Performed on Thursday, October 14 at precisely 6:40 pm. local time at Russia's Vostochny Cosmodrome (9:40

Moscow (Sputnik) Oct 19, 2021
The Financial Times earlier reported that the test of the alleged hypersonic glider vehicle by China this summer "caught the US government by surprise" as it purportedly demonstrated the great progress achieved by Beijing in this area. China did not carry out a test of hypersonic weapons, but instead carried out a trial of a spacecraft, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian has st

Chicago IL (SPX) Oct 18, 2021
Deep in the solar system, between Jupiter and Neptune, lurk thousands of small chunks of ice and rock. Occasionally, one of them will bump into Jupiter's orbit, get caught and flung into the inner solar system-towards the sun, and us. This is thought to be the source of many of the comets that eventually pass Earth. A new study lays out the dynamics of this little-understood system. Among

ESA Impact October Council edition

Great images and videos of climate change on view, BepiColombo flies by Mercury, Cheops gets a surprise, and more