Tag: Space Exploration

Crew-8 astronauts splash down on SpaceX Dragon Endeavour after weather delays

NeRD

Four space station crewmates are safely back on Earth after an extended mission and a long wait for the weather to cooperate. SpaceX Crew-8 astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps all with NASA and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Pensacola, Florida on Friday (Oct. 25) at 3:29 a.m. EDT (0729 GMT). Their landing after 235 days — including a more than two-week wait on board the International Space Station (ISS) for acceptable conditions — set a record for…

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Chinese company Deep Blue Aerospace plans to start launching space tourists in 2027

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The Chinese company Deep Blue Aerospace is getting into the space tourism business. Deep Blue, which is based in the eastern province of Jiangsu, announced on Wednesday (Oct. 23) that it plans to start launching paying customers to suborbital space in 2027. Tickets will cost 1.5 million RMB apiece — about $210,000 U.S. at current exchange rates. For that price, customers will get “much more than a brief weightlessness experience,” Deep Blue wrote in a statement on Wednesday. (Translation to English by Google.) “They will experience the vastness and mystery…

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SpaceX rolls out Super Heavy rocket for Starship Flight 6 test launch (photos)

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SpaceX is deep into planning for its newest Starship launch. Super Heavy, the first stage of the rocket that hefts Starship into space, was moved to a Starbase pad for testing ahead of the planned sixth flight of the next generation space system, SpaceX officials stated on Tuesday (Oct. 22). (Starbase is the location in south Texas where Starship launches are performed.) “Flight 6 Super Heavy booster moved to the Starbase pad for testing,” SpaceX representatives wrote on X, formerly Twitter, noting they had only just returned the last Super…

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SpaceX’s Starlink internet flies on a Boeing 777 jet for the 1st time

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SpaceX’s Starlink internet service continues to make inroads around the globe. Starlink provided Wi-Fi on a Boeing 777 jet for the first time today (Oct. 22), during a Qatar Airways flight from the Qatari capital of Doha to London. The 777 is the “largest and longest-range passenger aircraft equipped with Starlink to date,” SpaceX representatives said in an emailed statement today. #QatarAirways launches the world’s first Boeing 777 Starlink-equipped flight. @StarlinkWe are proud to be the airline that leads the way, setting new standards in the airline industry. ✈️#QatarAirwaysStarlink pic.twitter.com/347ZnclANbOctober…

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SpaceX to launch 23 Starlink broadband satellites from Florida on Oct. 23

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SpaceX plans to launch 23 more of its Starlink internet satellites from Florida’s Space Coast on Wednesday evening (Oct. 23). A Falcon 9 rocket topped with 23 Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station tonight, during a 3.5-hour window that opens at 5:47 p.m. EDT (2147 GMT). SpaceX had been targeting Tuesday (Oct. 22) but called that try off due to weather concerns. SpaceX will livestream the launch on X, beginning about five minutes before liftoff. If all goes according to plan, the Falcon…

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Remote-control robots could help humanity explore the moon and Mars

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Teleoperated rovers could soon be working on the moon, with human controllers on Earth manipulating the rovers’ tools virtually, allowing for greater dexterity when taking samples, digging or assembling. Researchers from the robotics laboratory at the University of Bristol in England have tested their new teleoperations system at the European Space Agency‘s (ESA) European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications at Harwell in Oxfordshire. By controlling a virtual simulation of a rover, they were able to manipulate a robotic arm to dig a sample of pretend lunar regolith (called simulant).…

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Blowing up: Inflatable space habitats could be key to exploring the solar system

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It’s high time to crank up the volume in space! That’s the shout from several private firms that want to see an inflation factor for the future. What is now being evaluated and tested is the use of “softgoods” to fashion inflatable/expandable airlocks and off-Earth habitats, not only for low Earth orbit, but also to provide comfy housing for future moon and Mars explorers. First, however, there’s a memory lane trip about this idea worth taking, one that also underscores how far things have evolved. NASA’s Echo balloon project in…

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SpaceX launches 20 Eutelsat OneWeb broadband satellites to orbit

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SpaceX sent a set of internet satellites to orbit for another company early Sunday morning (Oct. 20). SpaceX launched the last batch of Eutelsat OneWeb’s V1 satellites from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base atop a Falcon 9 rocket on Sunday at 1:13 a.m. EDT (0513 GMT; 10:13 p.m. on Oct. 19 local California time). The Falcon 9‘s first stage returned to Earth as planned, touching down at Vandenberg’s Landing Zone 4 about eight minutes after lifting off. It was the seventh launch and landing for this particular booster, according to…

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US Space Force awards SpaceX $730 million to launch at least 9 national-security missions

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SpaceX just added another batch of launches to its already-busy manifest. The U.S. Space Force announced on Friday (Oct. 18) that it has awarded SpaceX $733.6 million, in the form of two “National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 1 Launch Service Task Orders.” Together, the two task orders cover seven launches for the Space Development Agency (SDA) and one “mission set” for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), according to Space Force officials. “In this era of Great Power Competition, it is imperative to not leave capability on the ground,”…

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SpaceX launches 20 Starlink internet satellites from Florida (video)

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SpaceX sent yet another batch of its Starlink internet satellites to orbit tonight (Oct. 18). A Falcon 9 rocket topped with 20 Starlink craft, including 13 with direct-to-cell capability, lifted off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station tonight at 7:31 p.m. EDT (2331 GMT). The Falcon 9’s first stage came back to Earth about 8.5 minutes after liftoff as planned, landing on the SpaceX drone ship “Just Read the Instructions” in the Atlantic Ocean. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 20 of the company’s Starlink internet satellites from Florida’s…

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