NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover captured a giant dust devil devouring a smaller storm swirling close behind it on the rim of Jezero Crater. Martian dust devils are spinning columns of warm air that pick up dust and debris as they move across the surface of the Red Planet. Perseverance spied the two merging storms on Jan. 25, while exploring the western rim of Mars’ Jezero Crater at a location called “Witch Hazel Hill.” “Convective vortices — aka dust devils — can be rather fiendish,” Mark Lemmon, a Perseverance scientist at…
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SpaceX launches 27 Starlink satellites to orbit from California
SpaceX sent 27 of its Starlink internet satellites toward low Earth orbit from California this evening (April 3). A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Starlink craft lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base today at 9:02 p.m. EDT (6:02 p.m. local California time; 0102 GMT on April 4). A little over eight minutes later, the rocket’s first stage touched down on the SpaceX drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You,” which was stationed in the Pacific Ocean. It was the fifth launch and landing for this particular booster, according…
Read MoreSpinLaunch wants to send 250 broadband ‘microsatellites’ to orbit with a single launch
SpinLaunch has unveiled its plans for a new broadband satellite constellation known as Meridian Space. The Meridian Space constellation will consist of small “microsatellites” that can be sent to low-Earth orbit with as many as 250 spacecraft on a single launch vehicle, according to SpinLaunch. The company received $12M in funding from Kongsberg NanoAvionics to help develop and commercialize the satellites, with a planned launch date of 2026 for its first on-orbit demonstrator. It’s unclear if SpinLaunch will be launching the demonstrator itself with its revolutionary rocket-flinging centrifuge or if…
Read MoreAtlas V rocket will launch Amazon’s 1st big batch of Project Kuiper internet satellites on April 9
Amazon’s first big batch of Project Kuiper broadband satellites will lift off just a week from now, if all goes according to plan. A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket is scheduled to send 27 Project Kuiper satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO) on April 9, Amazon announced today (April 2). The Atlas V will lift off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station during a three-hour window that opens at 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT). You’ll be able to watch it live when the time comes. This will…
Read MoreNASA’s new SPHEREx space telescope takes its 1st cosmic images: ‘The instrument team nailed it’
You know how the James Webb Space Telescope is said to be revolutionizing astronomy because it can study wavelengths hidden to human eyes? Well, those wavelengths lie in the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum — and on April 1, NASA announced its brand new infrared space telescope, SPHEREx, has officially opened its eyes to the cosmos as well. This first light, as it’s called, shows that all of the spacecraft’s systems are working just as expected. “Based on the images we are seeing, we can now say that the…
Read More‘I’d get on in a heartbeat’: Starliner astronauts would fly on Boeing spacecraft again despite malfunctions (video)
NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore both say they’d ride on Boeing’s Starliner again, despite the issues the capsule had on its first crewed flight. Wilmore and Williams launched to the ISS on Starliner’s first astronaut mission, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), last June. Problems with the spacecraft’s thrusters prompted NASA and Boeing to extend CFT while engineers analyzed the problem on the ground, ultimately turning Williams and Wilmore’s planned eight-day mission aboard the space station into a nine-month saga. In late August, NASA decided to return Starliner…
Read MoreSpaceX launches private Fram2 astronauts on historic spaceflight over Earth’s poles
SpaceX just launched the first-ever human spaceflight to circle Earth over its poles. The private Fram2 mission lifted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex-39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida today (March 31) at 9:46 p.m. EDT (0146 GMT on April 1), sending the Crew Dragon capsule “Resilience” into a polar orbit with a quartet of spaceflight rookies aboard. Fram2 is commanded Chun Wang of Malta, who is joined by vehicle commander Jannicke Mikkelsen from Norway, pilot Rabea Rogge of Germany, and Australian medical officer and…
Read MoreWatch a private German rocket explode during 1st orbital launch attempt from European soil (video)
A dramatic drone video shows Isar Aerospace’s first orbital launch attempt, which ended with a fiery crash into the frigid sea about 30 seconds after liftoff. The Germany company’s first Spectrum rocket lifted off Sunday morning (March 30) from Andøya Spaceport in northern Norway on the first-ever orbital launch attempt from European soil. Spectrum cleared the tower but suffered an anomaly shortly thereafter. The rocket flipped over and slammed into the ocean near the pad, sending an orange-tinted cloud high into a clear Arctic sky, as the video shows. Isar…
Read MoreFAA closes investigation into SpaceX Starship Flight 7 explosion
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has closed its investigation into Flight 7 of SpaceX’s huge Starship vehicle, which ended with a dramatic explosion over the Atlantic Ocean. Flight 7 sent Starship aloft from SpaceX‘s Starbase site in South Texas on Jan. 16. Things went well at first; Starship’s first-stage booster, known as Super Heavy, came back to Starbase for a launch-tower landing about seven minutes after liftoff as planned. However, the giant rocket’s 171-foot-tall (52-meter) upper stage exploded high in the sky a few minutes later, sending debris raining…
Read MoreSpaceX rolls out rocket for historic Fram2 astronaut flight over Earth’s poles (photos)
The hardware that will fly a historic private astronaut mission has made it to the launch pad. On Saturday (March 29), SpaceX posted photos on X of the Fram2 mission’s Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule rolling out to Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The milestone keeps Fram2 on track to launch on Monday evening (March 31). Liftoff is scheduled for 9:46 p.m. EDT (0146 GMT on April 1), though there are three additional instantaneous opportunities during the 4.5-hour-long launch window. Fram2, which is…
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