The Falcon Heavy for the USSF 52 mission to launch the U.S. military’s X-37B spaceplane inside the hangar at launch complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. Image: SpaceX.
Following two Falcon 9 launches from both California and Florida, SpaceX closed out the first weekend of December with a Falcon Heavy static fire test. The ignition of the 27 Merlin engines came a week ahead of the planned launch of a national security mission that has been on the books for half a decade.
A legacy of European-built and operated space modules, which began in Earth orbit and is now heading for the moon, got its start with Spacelab 40 years ago.
After a 4-year delay, the new heavy-lift rocket for Europe is almost ready for space. Ariane 6 should launch for the European Space Agency no earlier than June 15.
Set to launch to the ISS in Jan. 2024, the commercial mission Axiom-3 will continue to push the frontiers of science by conducting an array of experiments in microgravity.
SpaceX launched another 23 Starlink internet satellites from Florida on Saturday night (Dec. 2).
In 2005, astronomer Mike Brown and his colleagues Chad Trujillo and David Rabinowitz announced the discovery of a previously unknown planetoid in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune’s orbit. The team named this object Eris after the Greek personification of strife and discord, which was assigned by the IAU a year later. Along with Haumea and Makemake, which they similarly observed in 2004 and 2005 (respectively), this object led to the “Great Planet Debate,” which continues to this day. Meanwhile, astronomers have continued to study the Trans-Neptunian region to learn more about these objects.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket streaks across the sky above Florida’s Space Coast amid the Starlink 6-31 mission. Image: Adam Bernstein
SpaceX continued a busy weekend with the launch of another batch of Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station late Saturday night. Liftoff of the Falcon 9 from Space Launch Complex 40 occurred at 11:00 p.m. EST (0400 UTC).
On Episode 89 of This Week In Space, Tariq and Rod discuss the challenges of regulating spaceflight.
Unvisited by spacecraft for more than 35 years, Uranus inhabits one of the least explored regions of our solar system.
Lockheed Martin and Firefly Aerospace are combining to launch a demonstrator that aims to slash the time it takes spacecraft payloads to become operational.
There will be 20 total payloads being brought to the moon, five of which are NASA's.
A team of researchers led by University of Chicago astronomer Rafael Luque analyzed data acquired by both NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and ESA’s CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (Cheops) and found a unique planetary system. Orbiting a star cataloged as HD110067, this system contains six sub-Neptune planets. Incredibly, all six planets are orbiting in direct resonance with each other. The results of the work were published on November 29 in Nature.
In 1986, a gigantic iceberg separated from the Fichner-Ronne ice shelf in West Antarctica. It was so big that it became grounded, stuck to the seafloor, and remained in position for 40 years. Finally, it has now been pushed off the seafloor and has begun drifting in the Weddell Sea to a region in the South Atlantic called Iceberg Alley. Designated A23a, this monster berg measures 4000 sq km (1,500 square miles) and is about 400 meters (1,300 feet) thick – the world’s largest.
Six years of hard work and dedication paid off in spectacular fashion today, as the Educational Irish Research Satellite, EIRSAT-1, successfully blasted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. Hitching a ride on a Space-X Falcon-9 launcher, the tiny satellite – measuring just 10.7cm x 10.7cm x 22.7cm – has now made history as Ireland’s first satellite!
A pair of prototype satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper internet constellation are encapsulated in a pair of payload fairings for launch aboard a ULA Atlas 5 rocket. Image: ULA
Tech giant Amazon is adding a fifth rocket to launch its satellite internet constellation. In a surprise move on Friday afternoon, the company announced it purchased three flights aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets to send batched of its Project Kuiper satellites to low Earth orbit.
Video: 00:04:04
On 1 December 2023, at 19:19 CET (18:18 GMT), Ireland's first satellite EIRSAT-1 launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, USA.
A Falcon 9 rocket stands ready to launch the Korea 425 mission from SLC-4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base. Image: SpaceX
Kicking off the month of December for SpaceX was a Falcon 9 ride share mission with a payload of 25 spacecraft on board. The launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base was headlined by the Korea 425 mission.
A Soyuz 2.1a rocket blasts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome carrying a Progress cargo ship loaded with 5,500 pounds of equipment, supplies and propellant bound for the International Space Station. Image: NASA TV.
A Russian Progress cargo ship loaded with more than 5,500 pounds of supplies and equipment bound for the International Space Station blasted off from Kazakhstan early Friday, kicking off a two-day orbital chase.
Week in images: 27 November - 01 December 2023
Image: The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission shows us an amazing view of the tropical island of Tutuila, the largest in the American Samoa archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean.
These moonless evenings open up the deep sky. For many of us the viewing is especially crisp through the low-humidity December air. The Big Dipper lies low, Cassiopeia stands high, and the Andromeda Galaxy crosses the zenith.
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