Items tagged with spacecraft
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft made a successful return to Earth over the weekend, but not without some additional issues being found. While NASA reported astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams would have been safe on the spacecraft, it also reported a thruster had failed during Starliner’s decent.
Issues with...
Read more...
An international team of scientists reported the first successful detection of Earth’s ambipolar electric field, first hypothesized more than 60 years ago. According to NASA, the ambipolar electric field is a weak, planet-wide electric field as fundamental as Earth’s gravity and magnetic fields.
Spacecraft flying...
Read more...
“Houston. I have a question about Starliner,” is what Butch Wilmore radioed ground control this past Saturday after hearing a “strange noise coming through the speaker.” The report from Wilmore comes just days ahead of the spacecraft’s scheduled departure from the International Space Station (ISS) without any crew...
Read more...
New findings by India’s Chandrayaan lunar probe seem to validate an idea called the Lunar Magma Ocean theory concerning how the Moon formed. Scientists have hypothesized that when the Moon formed some 4.5 billion years ago, it started to cool and a lighter mineral called anorthosite rose to the top, forming the Moon’s...
Read more...
NASA has postponed Boeing Starliner Crew-9’s return to Earth to give teams time to evaluate the spaceship’s reliability. The delay also allows time for the next SpaceX rotation with the upcoming Soyuz handover, which is scheduled for no earlier than mid-September.
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams arrived...
Read more...
NASA’s Juno spacecraft has captured a stunning image of Jupiter’s chaotic clouds and cyclonic storms. The image of the gas giant’s northern hemisphere was taken during the spacecraft’s 61st close flyby.
Juno first arrived at Jupiter, known for its violent storms, in 2016, following a 1.7 billion-mile journey from...
Read more...
NASA has made the difficult decision to cancel its VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) project amidst numerous launch delays and rising costs. The space agency added the increased costs would have also threatened to bring about the end of other Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS).
VIPER...
Read more...
The European Space Agency (ESA) is preparing for the mainden launch of its Ariane 6 rocket on July 9, 2024, from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. Europe’s new 203-foot-tall (62-meter) rocket will be capable of a wide range of missions, and able to carry launch payloads of up to 11.5 tons into geostationary...
Read more...
NASA has awarded Elon Musk’s SpaceX company with a sizable $843 million contract to develop the deorbit spacecraft that will guide the International Space Station (ISS) in a controlled manner to its demise at the end of its operational life. The deorbit spacecraft is expected to burn up upon reentry into Earth’s...
Read more...
NASA Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will not be returning to Earth this week, as NASA reported the team needs more time to review propulsion system data. As of now, the earliest return for the two astronauts is next Tuesday, July 2, 2024.
After years of delays, the Boeing Starliner successfully launched...
Read more...
NASA’s Voyager-1 space probe is once again conducting normal science operations for the first time since experiencing a technical issue that caused it to stop communicating late last year. The Voyager-1 team successfully corrected the issue partially in April, allowing the spacecraft to be able to send back health and...
Read more...
NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore recently gave a tour of Boeing’s Starliner while docked at the International Space Station (ISS). Starliner successfully launched for the first time with crew onboard last week, en route to the ISS following two prior delays.
Wilmore and Williams arrived at ISS on...
Read more...
China reported that its Chang’e 6 spacecraft landed on the far side of the Moon over the weekend. The spacecraft was reported to touch down in the South Pole-Aitken Basin, where it aims to collect precious rock and soil from the region.
If successful, the Chang’e 6 spacecraft will be the first ever to collect rock...
Read more...
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s a piece of space junk! A piece of space debris believed to be from a recent SpaceX mission was found in rural North Carolina. An employee of The Glamping Collective, a company that operates cabins and other facilities on a mountaintop about 20 miles west of Asheville, North Carolina...
Read more...
NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured an up close and personal view of Jupiter’s moon Europa during a recent flyby. The detailed images of Europa’s surface highlight fractures, ridges, and bands that crisscross the icy moon’s surface.
On September 29, 2022, Juno made its closest flyby yet of Jupiter’s moon Europa, coming...
Read more...
NASA hit the abort button on its launch of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft just two hours before it was scheduled for liftoff. NASA, Boeing, and United Launch Alliance are targeting a next possible launch date no earlier than Friday, May 10, 2024.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were already aboard...
Read more...
NASA received a deep space laser message from its Psyche spacecraft from over 140 million miles (226 million kilometers) away. The laser message was transmitted by the space agency’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) experiment onboard the Psyche spacecraft.
Psyche is on its way to a unique metal-rich...
Read more...
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express snapped an image of Mars that will send a chill up the spine of those with arachnophobia. But don’t get too freaked out. The swarm of creepy crawlers is not what one might expect at first glance.
While the image may give the illusion of thousands of spiders scurrying...
Read more...
NASA has solved a mystery with its Voyager 1 probe that had engineers baffled for a time. Now, for the first time in five months, NASA can check the health and status of the most distant human-made object in existence.
The issue arose last November, when three of Voyager 1’s onboard computers, called the flight...
Read more...
NASA scientists have taken data gathered by the Juno spacecraft of Jupiter’s moon Io and created interesting animations, highlighting two of the Jovian moon’s most striking features. The incredible animations create three-dimensional renderings of one of Io’s mountains, and a lake of cooling lava.
Juno’s principal...
Read more...
Engineers who worked on NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter gathered one last time in a control room, marking the final time they would work together on Ingenuity operations. While the mission ended on January 25, 2024, the Mars helicopter will continue to serve as a testbed for collecting data that may benefit future...
Read more...
As NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover arrives at Gediz Vallis channel, scientists are intrigued with the possibility of finding clues about the history of water on the Red Planet. Gediz Vallis channel may have been home to an ancient and winding river, with potential evidence that would confirm how the channel was...
Read more...
