A stack of SpaceX Starlink satellites, which included the first six featuring Direct to Cell capabilities. The batch launched on the Starlink 7-9 mission, which lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Jan. 2, 2024. Image: SpaceX
SpaceX is preparing to launch its latest Falcon 9 rocket on a Starlink mission as Tropical Storm Helene threatens the timeline for the next mission to the International Space Station.
On June 6th, 2024, the fourth orbital test flight of the Starship successfully lifted off at 07:50 a.m. CT (08:50 a.m. EDT; 06:50 PDT) from SpaceX’s Starbase in Texas. This test was the first time the Starship (SN29) and Super Heavy (BN11) prototypes reentered Earth’s atmosphere and landed successfully. While the SN29 conducted a powered vertical landing before splashing down in the Indian Ocean, the BN11 executed a similar powered landing before splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico. In a recent tweet, Elon Musk shared a photo of the BN11 booster being pulled out of the sea.
SpaceX has stacked and tested its Starship megarocket ahead of the vehicle's fifth flight, which isn't expected to launch until late November.
Researchers have developed a set of hexagon-shaped robotic components that can be snapped together into larger and larger structures. Each one of the component hexagons is made of rigid plates that serve as its exoskeleton. Driven by electricity, the plates can change their shape, shifting from long and narrow to wide and flat at high speed. The combined structures are capable of jumping four times their own body height, then can shape-shift to roll extremely fast, or use multimodal actuation to crawl through confined spaces.
In the not-so-distant past, the Earth was battered by much more extreme solar storms. Evidence of these storms has come, in particular, from analysing levels of radioactive carbon – known as radiocarbon, or carbon-14 – in tree rings.
A preview of Marvel Comics' three "Star Wars: Battle of Jakku" miniseries.
Space Perspective completed the first uncrewed test flight of its Spaceship Neptune Excelsior balloon ride to the edge of Earth's atmosphere, and expects crewed flights to begin next year.
Images captured by spacecraft tracker appear to show China's mysterious space plane sporting a delta-wing design.
Data from NASA's Artemis 1 moon mission has provided valuable space radiation measurements, which validate spacecraft performance and will help guide deep-space human spaceflight.
Over the nearly 70 years of spaceflight, about 10 000 intact satellites and rocket bodies have reentered the atmosphere with many more to follow. Yet for such a ubiquitous event, we still lack a clear view on what actually happens to a satellite during its fiery last moments.
NASA astronaut Suni Williams did not expect to be taking command of the International Space Station when her eight-day Starliner Crew Flight Test launched in June. Now, the key to the station is hers.
Astronomers have discovered a "missing link:" a tiny black hole lurking with a red giant star in a strange and difficult-to-explain binary system.
Noctilucent clouds were once thought to be a fairly modern phenomenon. A team of researcher have recently calculated that Earth and the entire Solar System may well have passed through two dense interstellar clouds causing global noctilucent clouds that may have driven an ice age. The event is thought to have happened 7 million years ago and would have compressed the heliosphere, exposing Earth to the interstellar medium.
SpaceX has retrieved from the sea the first-stage booster that flew on its latest Starship test flight, which launched this past June.
Earth’s last half-billion years were action-packed. During that time, the climate underwent many changes. There have been changes in ocean levels and ice sheets, changes in the atmosphere’s composition, changes in ocean chemistry, and ongoing biological evolution punctuated with extinction events.
China launched separate sets of Earth-observation and "Internet of Things" satellites into orbit on Friday (Sept. 20) on two different missions.
Scientists have found nuclear weapons could actually help deflect an incoming cosmic impact — not by blowing an asteroid up, but by showering it with X-ray radiation.
NASA's Perseverance Mars rover will soon arrive at its first stop during its arduous trek to the western edge of Jezero Crater.
The astronauts and Crew Dragon capsule that will fly SpaceX's Crew-9 mission to the ISS have made it to Florida's Space Coast for their planned Sept. 26 liftoff.
Representatives from NASA participate in a media event at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday, Sept. 21, upon the arrival of NASA astronaut Nick Hague, commander, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, mission specialist, in advance of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. Image: NASA/Kim Shiflett
Update Sept. 23, 2:54 p.m.: NASA’s Kennedy Space Center shifted its status to HURCON 4, due to Potential Tropical Cyclone 9.
Astrophotographer Miguel Claro captured an incredibly detailed timelapse of solar activity, revealing a roiling sun sprouting several massive loops of plasma.
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