Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Dec 30, 2025
Of the four mice that recently flew aboard China's space station, one female has now given birth to healthy offspring on Earth, in a mission that also saw the public help name the pioneering "flying mice" crew. The Technology and Engineering Center for Space Utilization (CSU) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said the experiment marks China's first full-cycle mammalian space study, fro

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Dec 30, 2025
China's manned space program has used a nationwide resource mobilization system to manage a recent contingency involving the Shenzhou-20 mission and to launch its follow-on Shenzhou-22 spacecraft within 20 days. After the Shenzhou-20 return vehicle suffered minor window damage from space debris, the China Manned Space Agency activated its first contingency plan of this kind, coordinating e

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Dec 30, 2025
On the fourth launch anniversary of the NASA ESA CSA James Webb Space Telescope, the European Space Agency has released a 43 minute fly through video built from many of Webbs best known images, presented as a single continuous journey across the cosmos. The compilation revisits a wide range of Webb observations, arranging them as a sequence of progressive zooms that simulate a flight through dif

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Dec 17, 2025
Researchers at Empa are refining the multilayer insulation foils that wrap many satellites and space probes, aiming to improve their mechanical robustness while maintaining thermal protection. These foils, known as multilayer insulation or superinsulation, are built from stacked layers of a strong polymer coated with thin metal, typically aluminum, and are also used on Earth in items such as sur

Tokyo (AFP) Dec 22, 2025
Japan's flagship H3 rocket failed to launch a geolocation satellite into orbit on Monday due to engine failure, the country's space agency said. The second-stage engine "terminated prematurely" after the rocket blasted off at 10:51 am (0151 GMT) from the Tanegashima space centre in southern Japan, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). It could not release into orbit

London, UK (SPX) Dec 18, 2025
Researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, working with Huzhou University in China, have shown that a standard source of entangled photons used in quantum optics carries a rich set of hidden topological structures in high dimensions. They report entanglement across 48 dimensions with more than 17 000 distinct topological signatures, providing a large alphabet for encodin