China has revealed a model of its lunar landing craft at the National Museum of China in Beijing, with which it hopes to carry its astronauts (‘taikonuats’) onto the Moon by 2030 or earlier. The model appears to have a “transfer stage”...
SpaceNews reports (quoting the South China Morning Post) that the Zhurong 1 Mars rover as part of the Tianwen 1 mission for China has failed to make contact in December as planned after its period of hibernation during the Northern Hemisphere Martian winter since 18...
Much changed on Earth and in space during 2022. In July the James Webb Telescope, the largest optical telescope in space, delighted the world with stunning infrared images, revealing the most detailed view ever of the Universe. After a series of stalled attempts,...
SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9v1.2FT Block 5 rocket from the Kennedy Space Centre (KSC), Florida, USA at 2227 GMT on 8 December. The vehicle was carrying forty OneWeb communications satellites (465 plus 39 others) to go into the OneWeb low Earth orbit (LEO)...
After a 25½ day journey to the Moon and back, NASA’s Artemis I mission Orion spacecraft successfully splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, west of Baja California, at 1740 GMT on 11 December. In doing so, it tested out the guidance and thermal protection systems...
Having previously lost the original Human Landing System (HLS) contract to SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has announced a new “National Team” to build a second lunar lander. in the new “National Team” Boeing replaces Northrop Grumman....
