Beijing (XNA) Dec 27, 2023
Responding to media inquiries about United States Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns' recent claim that Beijing has no plan to cooperate with the US in lunar exploration, a spokesperson for the China National Space Administration denied the allegation, stating the real obstacle is the barriers Washington has erected. Burns' comment stemmed from a US complaint that the Chinese space agency

Huntsville AL (SPX) Jan 01, 2024
Above: Space Development Corp., which designs and develops adaptable, space-based microgravity platforms for government and commercial customers, has announced the successful test of its proprietary propulsion control system for its Prometheus free-flying orbital mission by Q4 2024. All tests performed as expected. The scalable Prometheus will include three regulated voltage rails and up t

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Jan 01, 2024
A new era in space observation will begin for Germany and Europe in 2024. The German Experimental Space Surveillance and Tracking Radar (GESTRA), developed and built by the Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques (FHR) on behalf of the German Space Agency at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR), began final testing in December

Washington DC (SPX) Dec 31, 2023
The VIPER team is hard at work building the flight vehicle that will be going to the surface of the Moon this time next year! In fact, we're about halfway through the build, and you can interactively watch the process and hear from experts on the team, in various livestreams throughout the process. All the science instrument teams have delivered their payloads to the VIPER Systems Integrat

Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 31, 2023
Earth planning date: Friday, December 22, 2023: Many of us over the holidays like to celebrate with friends and family over a lengthy meal, looking back over the year that has been, and forward to the year to come. Curiosity's holiday plans could be thought of as similar, albeit instead of food, with a steady diet of science. The eleven (!) sol holiday plan is built like a finely-constructed gou

Houston TX (SPX) Dec 31, 2023
As 2023 comes to a close, the International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory wraps up a banner year supporting research and technology development (R and D) in low Earth orbit (LEO). The ISS National Lab and NASA work in unison to utilize the orbiting outpost to its fullest capacity, and the achievements from this year demonstrate the increasing demand for access to space for R and D amon

West Lafayette IN (SPX) Dec 31, 2023
The year 2023 proved to be an important one for space missions, with NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission returning a sample from an asteroid and India's Chandrayaan-3 mission exploring the lunar south pole, and 2024 is shaping up to be another exciting year for space exploration. Several new missions under NASA's Artemis plan and Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative will target the Moon.

Boston MA (SPX) Jan 01, 2024
Scientists at MIT, the University of Birmingham, and elsewhere say that astronomers' best chance of finding liquid water, and even life on other planets, is to look for the absence, rather than the presence, of a chemical feature in their atmospheres. The researchers propose that if a terrestrial planet has substantially less carbon dioxide in its atmosphere compared to other planets in th

Washington DC (UPI) Dec 28, 2023
Less than three hours after the launch of a mysterious space plane atop a Falcon Heavy rocket, SpaceX launched a second launch Thursday night, at 11:01 p.m. EST, deploying its latest batch of Starlink internet satellites into low-Earth orbit. The secretive space plane went into orbit earlier in the evening via a Falcon Heavy rocket as part of a payload that also includes scores of livin

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Dec 28, 2023
SpaceX has successfully launched the USSF-52 mission using its Falcon Heavy rocket, marking a significant achievement in the ongoing collaboration between Space Systems Command (SSC) and SpaceX. The launch occurred at 8:07 p.m. ET from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, demonstrating the capabilities and resilience of the Falcon Heavy rocket. This successful launch