“A risky and dangerous situation,” recalls ESA astronaut Reinhold Ewald of the in-orbit fire he experienced aboard the Mir space station back in 1997. “The fire was so enormous and the smoke and vapour coming off this fire site was such that we couldn’t see at arm’s length – and I could not at that time have imagined that we go on with the mission.”

Washington DC (Sputnik) Jun 16, 2021
Chinese technical prowess demonstrated by landing a rover on Mars, plus an upcoming Russia-China announcement on cooperation in space, suggests that the United States could face competition in its bid to land two American astronauts on the Moon in 2024, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said on Tuesday. Nelson said China's successful May 14 landing of a rover on Mars, the second nation apart

Washington (AFP) June 16, 2021
Astronauts Thomas Pesquet of France and Shane Kimbrough of the United States spacewalked outside the International Space Station on Wednesday as they began the painstaking process of installing new solar panels to boost the orbital outpost's deteriorating power systems. It was the first of several excursions to augment the ISS's existing eight solar arrays, with the first pair operating cont

Washington DC (UPI) Jun 16, 2021
Brazil has become the 12th nation and the first from South America to sign onto NASA's agreement to create a safe, transparent and sustainable environment for the exploration of space. Marcos Pontes, Brazil's minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, signed the Artemis Accords Tuesday in the capital of Brasilia during a ceremony attended by President Jair Bolsonaro, NASA said in a

Beijing (XNA) Jun 16, 2021
Astronauts on the Shenzhou XII mission have undergone intensive training and exercises for their planned extravehicular activities, commonly known as spacewalks, according to Liu Boming, a member of the crew. "Compared with the extravehicular operation in the Shenzhou VII mission, extravehicular activities in this coming mission will be much longer and more sophisticated, and I believe tha

Beijing (XNA) Jun 16, 2021
Major General Nie Haisheng will become the second Chinese astronaut involved in three spaceflights, after his peer Jing Haipeng, as the country is set to launch its seventh manned space mission on Thursday morning. Nie is commander of the three-member crew of the Shenzhou XII mission, which will be lifted into orbit by a Long March 2F carrier rocket at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center i

Beijing (XNA) Jun 16, 2021
China's Shenzhou-12 manned spacecraft with three taikonauts aboard blasted off from northwest China's Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center Thursday morning, marking another major milestone in the country's space exploration endeavor. It has been almost five years since China sent its taikonauts into space last time. During the current mission, the Chinese astronauts, the first visitors to the s

Washington DC (UPI) Jun 16, 2021
Boeing will attempt a second uncrewed test flight of the company's Starliner space capsule on July 30 after a disappointing first test flight in December 2019, the company and NASA said Wednesday. United Launch Alliance plans to send the capsule into space aboard an Atlas V rocket at 2:53 p.m. EDT from Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The mission, known as Orbita

Jiuquan, China (AFP) June 17, 2021
The first astronauts for China's new space station blasted off Thursday for the country's longest crewed mission to date, a landmark step in establishing Beijing as a major space power. The trio launched on a Long March-2F rocket for the Tiangong station, where they will spend three months, in a much-anticipated blast-off broadcast live on state TV. Lift-off happened at 9:22 am (0122 GMT