Tag Archives: Spacecraft

SpaceX is continuing to gear up for the next flight of its Starship megarocket, which may be just around the corner. The company conducted a “static fire” test with its latest Starship upper stage recently, firing up its six Raptor engines while the vehicle remained anchored to the launch mount at SpaceX’s Starbase site in South Texas. The milestone, which …

A Japanese spacecraft that once carried over 13,000 Hatsune Miku fan messages and drawings into space has officially ended its mission after 15 years. Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced on September 18 that it has terminated operations of the Venus Climate Orbiter, also known as Akatsuki. The probe had been out of contact since April 2024 after an incident …

Astroscale is a 2025 Gizmodo Science Fair winner for developing a satellite designed to rendezvous with space junk, with the goal of capturing it and guiding it toward a fiery grave in Earth’s atmosphere. The question Can the space industry develop new technologies that help tackle the growing problem of debris and create a more sustainable orbital environment? The results …

Gizmodo Science Fair: A Spacecraft That Hunts Down Space Junk  Gizmodo Do the oldest satellites in space need saving?  National Geographic A Fusion-Reactor-Inspired Thruster Could Deorbit Space Junk  IEEE Spectrum New space junk removal idea: Using ion engine exhaust to knock debris out of the sky  Space “This Actually Vaporizes Everything”: Japan’s Revolutionary Plasma Gun Eliminates 14,000 Pieces Of Deadly Space Junk Threatening Your …

Space News: 50 years ago, NASA sent 2 spacecraft to search for life on Mars – the Viking missions’ findings are still discussed today  Lake County News,California Source link

IN A NUTSHELL 🚀 NASA’s DART mission demonstrated that a kinetic impactor can alter an asteroid’s trajectory, advancing planetary defense strategies. 🛰️ The LICIACube satellite captured critical images of the impact, providing data on the ejected material’s mass and behavior. 🌌 The collision with Dimorphos resulted in a 35.3 million-pound debris plume, illustrating the potential for significant deflection. 💡 The …

IN A NUTSHELL 🛰️ The Hayabusa2 mission targets asteroid 1998 KY26, now revealed to be only 11 meters wide. 🌍 Astronomers used the Very Large Telescope to refine measurements, discovering the asteroid’s rapid rotation. 📊 The study of KY26 could inform future asteroid mining and enhance planetary defense strategies. 🔭 Observations of KY26 highlight the advancements in space technology and …

The Hayabusa2 mission is facing a new challenge after observations showed the asteroid it is going to rendezvous with and touchdown on in 2031 is much smaller than previously thought; it’s also spinning much faster. “We found that the reality of the object is completely different from what it was previously described as,” Toni Santana-Ros said in a statement. Santana-Ros …

The debut mission of Northrop Grumman’s new jumbo cargo spacecraft is going well. The Virginia-based company’s first “Cygnus XL” freighter arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) early this morning (Sept. 18), after a one-day delay. The key moment came at 7:24 a.m. EDT (1124 GMT), when NASA astronaut Jonny Kim used the orbiting lab’s Canadarm2 robotic arm to grapple …

SpaceX has moved its newest Starship spacecraft to the launch pad for testing ahead of the megarocket’s upcoming 11th test flight. The company documented the milestone today (Sept. 17) via X, in a post that shared three photos of the shiny silver Starship upper stage. In one of those images, the 171-foot-tall (52-meter-tall) spacecraft — known as Starship, or just …