Hakuto-R may have miscalculated altitude, says company after losing contact with spacecraft
Japan’s ispace said its attempt to make the first private moon landing had failed after losing contact with its Hakuto-R Mission 1 (M1) lander when it unexpectedly accelerated and probably crashed on the lunar surface.
The startup said it was possible that as the lander approached the moon, its altitude measurement system had miscalculated the distance to the surface.
Continue reading...Ispace loses communication with Hakuto-R lunar lander, ending a mission that began more than four months ago
A Japanese startup attempting the first private landing on the moon has lost communication with its spacecraft and said that it assumes the lunar mission had failed.
Ispace said that it could not establish communication with the uncrewed Hakuto-R lunar lander after its expected landing time, a frustrating end to a mission that began with a launch from the US more than four months ago.
Continue reading...Administrator Bill Nelson says Beijing could seek ‘own’ resource-rich areas and next two years could be key to US-China contest
The US is locked in a space race with China and the country needs to “watch out” that its rival does not gain a foothold and try to dominate lunar resources, Nasa’s top official has warned.
The assessment came from the Nasa administrator, Bill Nelson, a former astronaut and Florida senator, who went on to warn that China could eventually claim to “own” the moon’s resource-rich areas.
Continue reading...US space agency rejoices after re-entry of spacecraft that should clear way for possible lunar landing of astronauts by 2025
Fifty years to the day after astronauts last walked on the moon, Nasa’s uncrewed Orion capsule splashed down in the Pacific on Sunday at the end of a mission that should clear the way for a possible lunar landing of astronauts by 2025.
The US space agency rejoiced in a near-perfect re-entry of the capsule which splashed down to the west of Mexico’s Baja California near Guadalupe Island. Though it carried no astronauts, the spacecraft did contain three test dummies wired with vibration sensors and radiation monitors to divine how humans would have fared.
Continue reading...Nasa considers capsule’s flight a dress rehearsal for the next moon flyby in 2024, with astronauts
Nasa’s Orion capsule has entered an orbit stretching tens of thousands of miles around the moon, as it neared the halfway mark of its test flight.
The capsule and its three test dummies entered lunar orbit more than a week after launching on the $4bn demo that’s meant to pave the way for astronauts. It will remain in this broad but stable orbit for nearly a week, completing just half a lap before heading home.
Continue reading...Head of Orion lunar programme says Artemis 1 mission is ‘first step to long-term deep-space exploration’
Astronauts are on course to be living and working on the moon before the end of the decade, according to a Nasa official.
Howard Hu, the head of the US agency’s Orion lunar spacecraft programme, said humans could be active on the moon for “durations” before 2030, with habitats to live in and rovers to support their work.
Continue reading...Barring technical issues and Florida’s weather, Artemis 1 will launch after midnight Wednesday on a 15-day, 1.3m-mile journey
Fifty years ago this month, mission managers at the US space agency Nasa gave the final go-ahead for what would turn out to be humanity’s most recent odyssey to the moon. Few realized at the time it would be more than half a century before Nasa would be ready to return, not least Apollo 17 commander Eugene Cernan, whose belief as he stepped back into the lunar module in December 1972 was that it would be “not too long into the future” that astronauts were there again.
Four minutes after midnight Wednesday, late technical issues and Florida’s weather gods notwithstanding, Artemis 1, the most powerful rocket ship in history, will attempt to close that decades-long gap.
Continue reading...Head of US space agency suggests maiden test flight will probably be delayed until the middle of October
Nasa called off its latest attempt to launch the groundbreaking Artemis 1 moon rocket on Saturday after failing to stem a fuel leak discovered during tanking. It was the second time in five days that technical issues had kept the spacecraft on the launchpad.
Mission managers at Kennedy Space Center waited until late in the countdown to scrub the liftoff after the failure of several workarounds to try to plug the leak of liquid hydrogen as it was being pumped into the core stage of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.
Continue reading...Fuel leak comes after Nasa fixed an engine issue that postponed the original launch attempt five days earlier
Nasa’s pioneering moon rocket sprang a hazardous fuel leak Saturday, throwing into doubt chances of a successful launch on a test flight that must go well before astronauts climb aboard.
The Artemis 1 was poised to make a second attempt to fly on Saturday afternoon after the US space agency declared it had identified and fixed an engine issue that caused the postponement of the original launch attempt five days earlier.
Continue reading...An engine problem foiled Monday’s efforts but mission managers said a change in fueling procedures would help
Nasa will make a second attempt at launching its Space Launch System moon rocket this Saturday, the agency has said, five days after technical issues foiled an initial attempt.
The US space agency made the decision on Monday to delay its first attempt to launch a rocket capable of putting astronauts on the moon in 50 years due to engine issues.
Continue reading...Test flight that will have no human crew aboard aims to return humans to the moon and eventually land them on Mars
For the first time in 50 years, Nasa on Monday is planning to launch the first rocket that can ferry humans to and from the moon.
The giant Space Launch System (SLS) rocket is scheduled to take off from Nasa’s Cape Canaveral, Florida, complex at 8.33am ET (1.33pm UK time) atop an unmanned Orion spacecraft that is designed to carry up to six astronauts to the moon and beyond.
Continue reading...Space junk to smash into the far side of the moon at 5,800mph on Friday and it may take weeks, even months, to confirm the impact
The moon is about to get walloped by 3 tons of space junk, a punch that will carve out a crater that could fit several semi-tractor-trailers.
The leftover rocket will smash into the far side of the moon at 5,800mph (9,300km/h) on Friday, away from telescopes’ prying eyes. It may take weeks, even months, to confirm the impact through satellite images.
Continue reading...Usually twinkling in summer months, the ‘rival of Mars’ will appear clearer in still winter air
This week offers early risers a chance to see the silver moon next to the deep-red star Antares. The chart shows the view looking south from London at 0500 GMT on the morning of 24 February.
The moon will be low in the sky with an altitude of just 12 degrees; Antares will be even lower, so find the clearest southern horizon that you can. With 46.8% of its visible surface illuminated, the moon will be more or less at its last quarter phase, about to become a waning crescent.
Continue reading...From lunar missions to anti-asteroid defence systems, there are plenty of exciting scientific developments to look forward to
This year promises to be an important one for space exploration, with several major programmes reaching the launch pad over the next 12 months. The US is to return to the moon, undertaking a set of missions intended to establish a lunar colony there in a few years. China is expected to complete its Tiangong space station while Europe and Russia will attempt to land spacecraft on Mars, having failed at every previous attempt. India, South Korea and Japan are also scheduled to put a number of missions into space.
Continue reading...From New Jersey to Milton Keynes, skygazers in the northern hemisphere were able to see a partial solar eclipse, witnessing a crescent sun in an eclipsed sunrise in some parts of the world
Continue reading... Skygazers – with appropriate eye protection – will be able to see much of sun being obscured from 10.08am
Views of a partial solar eclipse will be “somewhat fleeting” across certain parts of the UK due to cloudy skies, forecasters have said.
But those in central and south-east England will have clear spells to witness the spectacle, according to the Met Office. On Thursday morning, skygazers will be able to see nearly a third of the sun being blocked out by the moon in what is known as an annular eclipse.
Continue reading...The moon will partially cover the sun in the UK later this week, but some parts of the northern hemisphere will experience a total eclipse
This Thursday, Greenland, Iceland, the Arctic, most of Europe, much of North America and Asia will experience a solar eclipse.
Most will see a partial eclipse, where the moon takes a bite out of the sun. From a few specific places in Russia, Greenland and Canada, the event will be visible as an annular eclipse, which occurs when the moon is located near the furthest part of its orbit around the Earth.
Continue reading...Astronaut and pilot of the command module Columbia during 1969’s Apollo 11 mission
On 20 July 1969, Michael Collins, who has died aged 90, became the most solitary human in the universe – even if he derided that categorisation as “phony philosophy”. He orbited the moon alone, inside Apollo 11’s command module Columbia, and out of touch with ground control for 48 minutes on each orbit. Meanwhile, and more famously, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were becoming the first men to set foot on that rock, some 240,000 miles away from Earth.
As the command module pilot, on $17,000 a year, Collins was, he later wrote half-jokingly, “the navigator, the guidance and control expert, the base-camp operator, the owner of the leaky plumbing – all the things I was least interested in doing”. He was also, thought Aldrin, probably Nasa’s best-trained command module pilot.
Continue reading...Russian space agency Roscomos and Chinese counterpart CNSA to develop research facilities on surface of moon or in its orbit
Russia and China have unveiled plans for a joint lunar space station, with the Russian space agency Roscomos saying it has signed an agreement with China’s National Space Administration (CNSA) to develop a “complex of experimental research facilities created on the surface and/or in the orbit of the moon”.
The CNSA, for its part, said the project was “open to all interested countries and international partners” in what experts said would be China’s biggest international space cooperation project to date.
Continue reading...Unmanned Chang’e-5 probe returns to Earth after first mission in four decades to collect lunar samples
An unmanned Chinese spacecraft carrying rocks and soil from the moon returned safely to Earth early on Thursday (local time) in the first mission in four decades to collect lunar samples, the Xinhua news agency said.
The capsule carrying the samples collected by the Chang’e-5 space probe landed in northern China’s Inner Mongolia region, Xinhua said, quoting the China National Space Administration (CNSA). The director of CNSA, Zhang Kejian, declared the mission a success, Xinhua added.
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