European-Japanese probe swoops in to almost 200km above Sun’s nearest planet, photographing its pock-marked features
The European-Japanese BepiColombo spacecraft has sent back its first images of Mercury, as it swung by the solar system’s innermost planet while on a mission to deliver two probes into orbit in 2025.
The mission made the first of six flybys of Mercury at 11.34pm GMT on Friday, using the planet’s gravity to slow the spacecraft down.
Continue reading...Open letter by current and ex-staffers alleges ‘consistently inappropriate’ behaviour by Blue Origin leaders
A group of current and former employees at Blue Origin, the space flight company owned by the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, has accused the business of operating a work environment that is “rife with sexism” and prefers “breakneck speed” to safety.
An open letter written by Alexandra Abrams, the former head of employee communications at Blue Origin and 20 other current and former workers, says the company’s culture “reflects the worst of the world we live in now” and must change.
Continue reading...SpaceX founder, who in April won a contract from Nasa, took a jab at Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin for suing when it lost out on deal
Elon Musk intensified the feud over lawsuits and rocket sizes with space rival Jeff Bezos this week, kicking off the latest round in the billionaire battle over humanity’s return to the moon.
The SpaceX founder, who in April won a contract from Nasa to build the next-generation spacecraft to take astronauts to the moon’s surface for the first time since 1972, took a jab at Bezos for suing the US government when his company lost out on the deal.
Continue reading...The wealth of the Tesla boss and would-be space coloniser has overtaken that of his Amazon rival. How does he plan to celebrate? By being as puerile as possible
Name: Elon Musk v Jeff Bezos.
Age: About two.
Continue reading...Four-person crew asked for the public’s help in reaching fundraising target of $200m for the children’s charity St Jude
Elon Musk surprised his first all-private crew of space tourists with a welcome home gift after their trailblazing trip to orbit ended on Saturday night: a $50m donation to the children’s charity St Jude.
Related: ‘The point is ambition’: are we ready to follow Netflix into space?
Continue reading...The four-person crew thanked mission control as they splashed down in the Atlantic
Four space tourists ended their trailblazing trip to orbit on Saturday with a splashdown in the Atlantic off the Florida coast.
Their SpaceX capsule parachuted into the ocean just before sunset, not far from where their chartered flight began three days earlier.
Continue reading...Launch marks biggest advancement so far in space tourism as Elon Musk’s company conducts first chartered passenger flight
SpaceX has launched the world’s first crew of “amateur astronauts” on a private flight to circle Earth for three days.
Wednesday night’s successful launch marked the most ambitious leap yet in space tourism. It’s the first chartered passenger flight for Elon Musk’s space company and the first time a rocket streaked toward orbit with a crew that contained no professional astronauts.
Continue reading...Four-person Inspiration4 mission will orbit Earth for up to four days and marks latest step in space tourism
The world’s first crew of “amateur astronauts” is preparing to blast off on a mission that will carry them into orbit around Earth before bringing them back home at the weekend.
The four civilians, who have spent the past few months on an astronaut training crash course, are due to launch on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 8.02pm local time on Wednesday (1.02am UK time on Thursday).
Continue reading...The space cemetery, named for the fictional captain in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, is where the International Space Station is likely to end up
At the furthest point from any landmass on earth, and 4km under the sea, lies the space cemetery.
When their outer space journeys come to an end, old satellites, rocket parts and space stations are sent to this desolate spot in the Pacific Ocean to rest on the dark seabed forever.
Continue reading...At least 12,000 women are still abducted and forced into marriage every year in Kyrgyzstan. But pressure is growing to finally end the medieval custom
Aisuluu was returning home after spending the afternoon with her aunt in the village of At-Bashy, not far from the Torugart crossing into China. “It was 5 o’clock in the afternoon on Saturday. I had a paper bag full of samsa [a dough dumpling stuffed with lamb, parsley and onion]. My aunt always prepared them on weekends,” she said.
“A car with four men inside comes in the opposite direction to mine. And all of a sudden it … turns around and, within a few seconds, comes up beside me. One of the guys in the back gets out, yanks me and pushes me inside the car. I drop all the samsa on the pavement. I scream, I squirm, I cry, but there is nothing I can do.”
Continue reading...Taiwanese company TiSPACE is planning three launches from South Australia in 2021, amid hopes the event will provide a boost to Australia’s space industry
Australia’s first commercial rocket launch will take place in South Australia this year, after receiving approval from the federal government.
Australian space company Southern Launch will send a Taiwanese rocket into space after being granted a launch permit, it was announced on Monday.
Continue reading...Scientists are pinning hopes on elaborate detectors to track the elusive material that holds galaxies together
Deep underground, scientists are closing in on one of the most elusive targets of modern science: dark matter. In subterranean laboratories in the US and Italy, they have set up huge vats of liquid xenon and lined them with highly sensitive detectors in the hope of spotting subatomic collisions that will reveal the presence of this elusive material.
However, researchers acknowledge that the current generation of detectors are reaching the limit of their effectiveness and warn that if they fail to detect dark matter with these types of machines, they could be forced to completely reappraise their understanding of the cosmos.
Continue reading...The company said it will have three consumer offerings: a single seat, a multi-seat package and a full-flight buy out
Virgin Galactic has said it will open ticket sales on Thursday for space flights starting at $450,000 a seat, weeks after the company’s billionaire founder, Richard Branson, took a high profile flight to to the edge of space.
Branson soared 55 miles (88 km) above the New Mexico desert aboard a Virgin Galactic rocket plane on 11 July and safely returned in the vehicle’s first fully crewed test flight to space, a symbolic milestone for a venture he started 17 years ago.
Continue reading...Transmission beams can be reconfigured from the ground, whereas most commercial satellites are hard-wired before launch
The world’s first commercial fully reprogrammable satellite has been launched, ushering in a new era of more flexible communications.
Unlike conventional models that are designed and “hard-wired” on Earth and cannot be repurposed once in orbit, the UK-engineered Eutelsat Quantum allows users to tailor it almost in real-time.
Continue reading...After several ‘hiccups’ on the journey to the ISS, the Nauka lab module accidentally fired its rockets after docking
Russia’s troubled Nauka laboratory module has caused a fright when its rockets accidentally fired after docking the with the International Space Station, briefly throwing the station out of position.
A few hours after docking, Nauka’s propulsive devices unexpectedly fired, forcing personnel aboard the ISS to fire thrusters on the Russian segment of the station to counter the effect.
Continue reading...Telescope picks up unexpected ‘luminous echoes’ – smaller, later and of different colour to bright flares
Astronomers have detected light behind a black hole deep in space for the first time.
Bright flares of X-rays were spotted bursting from a supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy 800m light years away, which is relatively normal.
Continue reading...Fresh off his trip to space, Jeff Bezos on Monday offered to cover up to $2bn in Nasa costs if the US space agency awards his company Blue Origin a contract to make a spacecraft designed to land astronauts back on the moon.
Nasa in April awarded SpaceX, owned by rival billionaire Elon Musk, a $2.9bn contract to build a spacecraft to bring astronauts to the lunar surface as early as 2024, rejecting bids from Blue Origin and defense contractor Dynetics. Blue Origin had partnered with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper in the bid.
Continue reading...The Amazon founder Jeff Bezos hailed “the best day ever” after completing his pioneering foray into space on Tuesday with three crewmates, among them his brother Mark.
Related: Why is Bezos flying to space? Because billionaires think Earth is a sinking ship | Hamilton Nolan
Continue reading...After his rocket plane reached 53 miles above Earth on Sunday, the founder of Virgin Galactic is now officially an astronaut. But not everyone’s convinced
Name: Richard Branson.
Age: 70.
Continue reading...Spaceplane went into sub-orbital flight days ahead of a rival launch by Jeff Bezos
The British entrepreneur Richard Branson has successfully flown to the edge of space and back in his Virgin Galactic passenger rocket plane, days ahead of a rival launch by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, as the billionaires compete to kick off a new era of space tourism.
Seventeen years after Branson founded Virgin Galactic to develop commercial spacecraft and cater to future space tourists, the spaceplane went into sub-orbital flight on Sunday morning, reaching 55 miles (88km) above the Earth’s surface. The launch was slightly delayed until 10.40ET due to weather conditions at the Virgin Galactic’s operational base at Spaceport America in the New Mexico desert.
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