space mission

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These 4 Will Have to Wait a Bit Longer for Historic Mission
SpaceX Postpones
Historic Mission Again
THE RUNDOWN
Aug 28, 2024 8:41 AM CDT

SpaceX Postpones Historic Mission Again

Weather delays SpaceX's Polaris Dawn expedition, to feature first spacewalk ever by private citizens

(Newser) - A civilian quartet was set to blast off into space from Florida on Wednesday morning, on their way to the first spacewalk ever by private citizens, but that mission has now been postponed. The BBC reports that Elon Musk's SpaceX, just hours before liftoff, cited "unfavorable weather forecasted"...

Voyager 1 Is Sending Back Garbled Messages

Losing contact with the aging craft is a scientific loss, but also an 'emotional' one

(Newser) - If you're still sentimental about Pluto's planetary status, get ready for a galactic gut punch. NASA's steadfast Voyager 1, which has been sending crucial data from space for nearly 50 years, is experiencing a serious glitch that may permanently end its communication back to Earth. NPR reports...

How to Watch Today's Attempted Moon Landing
How to Watch
Today's Attempted
Lunar Landing
the rundown
Feb 22, 2024 1:30 AM CST

How to Watch Today's Attempted Lunar Landing

Odysseus is in orbit, will attempt to touch down at 5:30pm Eastern time

(Newser) - Odysseus, the robotic moon lander launched last week by a private Houston company, successfully entered the moon's orbit Wednesday, and is scheduled to land Thursday at 5:30pm Eastern time—which, if successful, would be the first time in more than five decades that a US spacecraft has touched...

Gravitational Wave Detector Will Be a 'Game-Changer'

2035 LISA mission will hunt for ripples in space-time

(Newser) - As part of his theory of general relativity, Albert Einstein predicated a body accelerating in space would create radiating ripples in space-time. He was, of course, correct. But he was wrong about one thing. Einstein believed gravitational waves, even those caused by the collision of massive objects, would be too...

India Tries Again to Nail Moon Landing

After failed 2019 mission, country launches Chandrayaan-3 with a rover and lander

(Newser) - An Indian spacecraft blazed its way to the far side of the moon Friday in a follow-up mission to its failed effort nearly four years ago to land a rover softly on the lunar surface, the country's space agency said. Chandrayaan-3, the word for "moon craft" in Sanskrit,...

Female Astronauts May Be the Ticket for Mars Trips

Women's bodies strain a ship's resources less, researchers find

(Newser) - When it comes time to make the long, long trip to Mars, researchers suggest that all-female astronaut crews would be a good idea. For space exploration, a study published in Scientific Reports found, women have the more efficient body type. On a mission lasting 1,080 days, per Phys.org...

Artemis Launch Nixed, Again
Artemis
Gets a New
Launch Date
UPDATED
Sep 24, 2022 7:00 AM CDT

Artemis Gets a New Launch Date

NASA's 2nd shot at launching moon rocket was ruined by fuel leak; new launch set for Tuesday

(Newser) - Update: Let's try again. After two canceled launch dates for NASA's Artemis I moon rocket, Tuesday is set for the next attempt, reports Space.com . The previous two tries, on Aug. 29 and Sept. 3, were nixed due to technical worries, including a fuel leak. That leak has...

China's Ambitious Moon Mission Off to Good Start

Probe lands, aims to bring back moon rocks

(Newser) - A Chinese robot probe launched to return lunar rocks to Earth landed on the moon Tuesday, the government announced. Assuming all goes well, the mission will be the first in 40 years to retrieve moon rocks. The Chang'e 5 probe "successfully landed on the moon in the preselected...

Indian Moon Mission That Much Closer to Touchdown

The landing module has separated from the orbiter

(Newser) - The landing module of India's unmanned moon mission separated from the orbiter on Monday ahead of its planned touchdown on the moon's south polar region this weekend, the space agency said. All the systems of orbiter and the lander are "healthy," the Indian Space Research Organization...

Moon Mission Called Off With Only Minutes to Go

A 'technical snag' snarls the Chandrayaan-2

(Newser) - India aborted the launch on Monday of a spacecraft intended to land on the far side of the moon less than an hour before liftoff, the AP reports. The Chandrayaan-2 mission was called off when a "technical snag" was observed in the 640-ton, 14-story rocket launcher, Indian Space Research...

Big Ask From NASA for Its 2024 Moon Expedition

Agency says it will need between $20B and $30B over the next 5 years

(Newser) - Back in March, Vice President Mike Pence vowed we'd get to the moon by 2024 by "any means necessary." Now, there's a number that NASA is pinning to "necessary": The agency says it will need between $20 billion and $30 billion over the next five...

China Launches Its Longest Manned Space Trip

2 astronauts will touch down for 30 days on experimental space station

(Newser) - Two Chinese astronauts began the country's longest crewed space mission yet on Monday, blasting off on a spacecraft for a 30-day stay on an experimental space station as China steadfastly moves toward becoming a space superpower, the AP reports. Ahead of the launch, one astronaut shouted, "We are...

Spacecraft Blasts Off to Seek Alien Life on Mars

Russian and Euro space agencies send ExoMars craft to measure gases

(Newser) - Anyone who glanced at the skies above Kazakhstan Monday morning may have seen the trails of a spacecraft headed out on a search for alien life on Mars. Per the Guardian , the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, a joint effort by the European Space Agency and Russia's Roscosmos agency, launched...

6 Humans Step Into One-Year Isolation Dome

It's part of NASA's preparation to send humans to Mars

(Newser) - As NASA prepares to send a crew to Mars sometime in the 2030s, they've just shut six people inside an isolation dome in Hawaii for a year—the longest such experiment in the US, reports AFP . It's part of a larger look at travel logistics in a program...

100 Finalists to Vie for One-Way Trip to Mars

If admittedly unrealistic mission takes off, Earthlings could be there by 2024

(Newser) - From 202,586 to about 1,000 and now winnowed down to 100. That's how many finalists are left competing for a one-way ticket to Mars in the highly publicized Mars One project. The finalists will now compete for one of 24 crew member spots, with the goal of...

Japan Launches Explorer to Blast Crater in Asteroid

Hayabusa 2 will shoot asteroid, collect rock samples for clues to Earth's origins

(Newser) - A Japanese space explorer took off today on a six-year journey to blow a crater in a remote asteroid and bring back rock samples in hopes of gathering clues to the origin of Earth. Hayabusa 2 is expected to reach the asteroid in mid-2018, spend about 18 months studying it,...

'Space Sex' Geckos Come Back Frozen to Death

Reproductive systems didn't necessarily fail—shuttle's heating system did

(Newser) - Oops. A Russian space mission meant to test the effect of weightlessness on the gecko's reproductive system didn't quite go as planned. It's not (necessarily) that the geckos weren't mating, it's that all five of them came back dead. And they weren't killed by...

NASA Probes to Reach Moon Over New Year's

Twin 'grails' will study moon's gravity field

(Newser) - Two NASA probes are poised to reach the moon over the New Year's holiday. After a journey of more than three months, the $496 million Grail probes—short for Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory—will soon be in place, reports AP . Grail A is set to arrive on New...

Crew Emerges From 520-Day Mars 'Flight'

Mission 'lands' without ever leaving planet

(Newser) - They’re free—and they don’t appear to have gone crazy. The crew of Russia’s simulated Mars mission has landed, by which we mean, been released from the narrow confines of the “spaceship” they’ve been trapped in for 520 days . The six men, ages 27 to...

Astronauts Break Record for Longest 'Space' Mission

...without actually leaving the planet

(Newser) - A crew of cosmonauts has broken the record for longest space mission, having spent 438 days in a 12-foot-wide capsule. But they'll also break another record when their mission is up—the record for shortest distance traveled on a space mission—because they've never actually left Moscow in...

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