Space Exploration

At 16:06 pm Universal Coordinated Time, Europa Clipper began its long journey to Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, from Launch Complex 39A, in Florida. Launch lasted for almost an hour to escape Earth's gravity, with the spacecraft separating from Falcon Heavy's second-stage at

Oct 14, 2024 • 3 mins

Today Rocket Lab announced NASA has chosen them to conduct a study on returning samples from the surface of Mars. Rocket Lab is the most recent company selected by NASA to study Mars Sample Return. Earlier this year NASA selected ten other companies to study and craft proposals for various

Oct 7, 2024 • 3 mins

Since the dawn of space exploration, the quest for water has been intertwined with our search for life in the cosmos. Now, a world of water beckons, waiting to reveal its secrets—Europa, one of Jupiter's moons. If humanity is to truly grasp its place in the universe,

Oct 3, 2024 • 21 mins

Sixteen years and one day after taikonauts Zhai Zhigang (翟志刚) and Liu Boming (刘伯明) performed China’s first spacewalk, the China Manned Space Agency unveiled the spacesuit that will be used by taikonauts on the lunar surface later this decade! The currently unnamed spacesuit was unveiled to the public at

Sep 28, 2024 • 3 mins

NASA announced on September 17th that it had awarded Intuitive Machines with a contract to develop a lunar relay network. This contract is a firm-fixed-price, multiple award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity task order and has a maximum potential value of 4.82 billion United States dollars and will run from October 1st

Sep 19, 2024 • 2 mins

Polaris Dawn is coming up and will take humans farther than we have been since 1972, when Apollo 17, the last crewed mission to the Moon, took place. Now the Polaris Dawn crew will travel to an apogee of ~1,400 km on a 5-day journey where they too will

Aug 3, 2024 • 5 mins

NASA announced on July 17th that it was ending its work on the VIPER lunar rover. VIPER, or Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, was a Lunar Discovery and Exploration Program mission that would search for the location of water ice and other potential resources on the surface of the Moon.

Jul 18, 2024 • 2 mins

China's Chang'e 6 probe departed for the Moon's far side a little over fifty-three days ago, it would later land on the Moon at the start of June. Today, the Chang'e 6 probes re-entry capsule touched down at the landing site located

Jun 25, 2024 • 5 mins

A Long March 2C rocket lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center earlier today carrying the SVOM, or Space Variable Objects Monitor, spacecraft into a low Earth orbit. The launch is said to have occurred at 15:00 pm China Standard Time, or 07:00 am Universal Coordinated Time.

Jun 22, 2024 • 5 mins

China kicked off its Chang'e 6 lunar far-side sample return mission at 17:27 pm China Standard Time, or 09:27 am Universal Coordinated Time, May 3rd. The Long March 5 vehicle carrying the Chang'e 6 lifted off at the start of its launch window. Ascent

Jun 1, 2024 • 3 mins

A new Earth-observation mission has lifted off and into orbit. A Falcon 9 carrier rocket lifted the Earth Cloud Aerosol and Radiation Explorer satellite into orbit from Vandenberg Space Force base. This payload, known as EarthCARE, is a European-Japanese cooperative mission meant to examine the role that clouds and aerosols

May 31, 2024 • 3 mins

Seemingly, since man first looked into the night, we have always yearned to explore the cosmos. But, despite hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, from our earliest ancestors to the present era, we have only recently begun to venture “far” away from our home.  At the time of the

May 18, 2024 • 7 mins

China kicked off its Chang'e 6 lunar far-side sample return mission at 17:27 pm China Standard Time, or 09:27 am Universal Coordinated Time, from LC-101 at the Wenchang Space Launch Site, in the southern province of Hainan. This mission is part of the country's

May 3, 2024 • 7 mins