Wuhan (XNA) Jul 13, 2023
China plans to land its taikonauts on the moon before 2030 to carry out scientific exploration, according to a preliminary plan released by the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) on Wednesday. The plan is to launch two carrier rockets to send a lunar lander and a manned spacecraft to a lunar orbit, respectively. The craft and lunar lander will rendezvous and dock with each other, and then ta

Wuhan (XNA) Jul 13, 2023
The China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation Limited (CASIC) has announced the official start to the construction of an ultra-low orbit satellite constellation. The CASIC made the announcement at the opening of the 9th China (International) Commercial Aerospace Forum, which kicked off on Wednesday in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province. The CASIC said the first satellite of

Mountain View CA (SPX) Jul 13, 2023
Muon Space has been awarded an option to their contract with Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLMC)'s Weather Systems Branch and the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to collect ionospheric data on their MuSat-2 satellite mission. The performance period for this contract is two years extending through September 2024. This is an optional expansion in scope to the original contract award

Washington (AFP) July 12, 2023
Elon Musk on Wednesday launched his own artificial intelligence company, xAI, as he seeks to compete with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT - a program he accuses of being politically biased and irresponsible. The xAI website said the Tesla tycoon would run the company separately from his other companies but that the technology developed would benefit those businesses, including Twitter.

Santa Maria Madalena, Brazil (AFP) July 12, 2023
Awestruck by the oranges and blues of the Jewel Box star cluster, part of the Southern Cross constellation, Pedro Froes manages to get out a few words: "It's incredible." Froes is viewing the stars from a telescope in Desengano State Park, a rural patch of Brazil largely spared from light pollution, located some 260 kilometers (160 miles) north of Rio de Janeiro. Desengano is Latin Ameri

Washington (AFP) July 12, 2023
Jets of red gas bursting into the cosmos, and a glowing cave of dust: NASA marked a year of discovery by the James Webb Space Telescope Wednesday with a spectacular new image of Sun-like stars being born. The picture is of the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the nearest stellar nursery to Earth, whose proximity at 390 light-years allows for a crisp close-up by the most powerful orbital observato

Temperatures are sizzling across Europe this week amid an intense and prolonged period of heat. And it’s only just begun. Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Poland are all facing a major heatwave with temperatures expected to climb to 48°C on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia – potentially the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Europe.

Munich, Germany (SPX) Jul 12, 2023
The European Southern Observatory's Extremely Large Telescope (ESO's ELT) is a revolutionary ground-based telescope that will have a 39-metre main mirror and will be the largest telescope in the world for visible and infrared light: the world's biggest eye on the sky. Construction of this technically complex project is advancing at a good pace, with the ELT now surpassing the 50% complete milest

Beijing (XNA) Jul 12, 2023
China on Sunday sent a new test satellite into space from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China. The satellite was launched by a Long March-2C carrier rocket at 7:00 p.m. (Beijing Time) and entered the planned orbit. It will carry out test missions for satellite internet technologies. The launch was the 478th flight mission of the Long March carrier rocket seri

Bengaluru, India (AFP) July 12, 2023
India on Friday launches its latest attempt at an unmanned moon landing, the next frontier of a burgeoning, cut-price aerospace programme rapidly closing in on the milestones set by global superpowers. If successful, the mission would make the world's most populous nation only the fourth country after Russia, the United States and China to achieve a controlled landing on the lunar surface.