Category Archives: Space

Virgin Galactic to launch space plane with Richard Branson on board

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The billionaire, along with two pilots and three other passengers, will reach 55 miles above Earth for about an hour

British entrepreneur Richard Branson is set to fly to the edge of space in his Virgin Galactic passenger rocket plane on Sunday, days ahead of a rival launch by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, as the two billionaires race to kick off an era of space tourism.

Branson’s extraterrestrial venture Virgin Galactic will send its space plane into sub-orbital flight on Sunday morning, aimed at reaching 55 miles above Earth at its peak altitude.

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Astronauts at China’s new space station conduct first spacewalk

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Astronauts dock at the Tiangong station where they will remain for three months as Beijing presses on with extraterrestrial ambitions

Astronauts at China’s new space station conducted their first spacewalk Sunday, state media reported, as Beijing presses on with its extraterrestrial ambitions.

It was only the second time the country’s astronauts have stepped out of their craft while in space.

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Richard Branson aims to beat Jeff Bezos into space by nine days

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Virgin Galactic founder has announced he will take off on board the next test flight on 11 July

Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson is aiming to beat fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos into space by nine days.

Branson’s company announced on Thursday evening that its next test flight will take place on 11 July and that its founder will be among the six people on board. All other passengers are company employees. It will be only the fourth trip to space for Virgin Galactic.

The winged rocket ship – the first carrying a full crew – will launch from New Mexico after the US Federal Aviation Administration gave Virgin permission to take paying customers to space in late June, after a successful test flight in May.

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China releases footage from its Mars rover – video

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China’s National Space Administration has released footage recorded by the country’s Mars probe. The videos and photos taken by the camera installed on the Zhurong rover of the Tianwen-1 spacecraft show the lander deploying a parachute before touching down on the surface of Mars and the rover driving away from its landing platform. State broadcaster CCTV said Zhurong had been working on the red planet for 42 days and had moved 236 metres so far

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Scientists identify 29 planets where aliens could observe Earth

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Astronomers estimate 29 habitable planets are positioned to see Earth transit and intercept human broadcasts

For centuries, Earthlings have gazed at the heavens and wondered about life among the stars. But as humans hunted for little green men, the extraterrestrials might have been watching us back.

In new research, astronomers have drawn up a shortlist of nearby star systems where any inquisitive inhabitants on orbiting planets would be well placed to spot life on Earth.

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ISS astronauts complete six-hour spacewalk to install solar panels

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Successful International Space Station installation followed an attempt on Wednesday that ran into several problems

French and American astronauts have completed a six-hour spacewalk as they installed new solar panels to boost power supplies to the International Space Station (ISS), Nasa said.

“It is a huge team effort each time and couldn’t be happier to return with @astro_kimbrough,” Frenchman Thomas Pesquet tweeted on Sunday, referring to his American colleague Shane Kimbrough. Pesquet is with the European Space Agency, Kimbrough with Nasa.

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First astronauts blast off for China’s new space station

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Hugely prestigious event for China as Beijing prepares to mark 100th anniversary of ruling Communist party

China’s first crewed spacecraft in nearly five years blasted off from the Gobi desert on Thursday morning, carrying astronauts to the new Tiangong space station.

A Long March-2F rocket carried the three astronauts in the Shenzhou-12 spacecraft, and was expected to dock with Tianhe, the main section of the Tiangong station, about six to eight hours later.

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China prepares to send astronauts to new space station

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Crew reportedly getting ready to blast off this week to the Tiangong on China’s longest crewed space mission to date

The first crew for China’s new space station has reportedly begun final preparations to blast off this week.

The mission is China’s first crewed spaceflight in nearly five years, and a matter of prestige for the government as it prepares to mark the 100th anniversary of the ruling Communist party on 1 July with a propaganda blitz.

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Solar eclipse 2021: spectacle to be visible across UK and Ireland

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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.

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Nasa spacecraft captures first closeups of Jupiter’s largest moon in decades

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Juno passed within 645 miles of Ganymede, the closest any spacecraft has come to the moon since 2000

Nasa’s Juno spacecraft has provided the first closeups of Jupiter’s largest moon in two decades.

Juno zoomed past icy Ganymede on Monday, passing within 645 miles (1,038km). The last time a spacecraft came that close was in 2000 when Nasa’s Galileo spacecraft swept past our solar system’s biggest moon.

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The tech billionaire space race: who is Jeff Bezos up against?

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As Amazon founder prepares to jet off in his Blue Origin vessel, can he compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX?

Every billionaire needs something to spend their fortunes on. For Howard Hughes, it was the Spruce Goose; for Roman Abramovich, it’s Chelsea FC. And for the current crop of tech moguls, it’s space.

Jeff Bezos has led the charge. He founded his company, Blue Origin, in 2000, after a conversation with his friend, the science fiction author Neal Stephenson. And in July, 21 years later, the investment will pay off: Bezos will blast himself, his brother, and a third fee-paying guest 100km up in the company’s New Shepard rocket, brushing the edge of space until he comes back down to earth three minutes later.

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How and when to watch the solar eclipse on Thursday

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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.

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SpaceX rocket heads to ISS with a supply of squid, toothpaste and avocados

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Rocket due to reach the International Space Station this weekend is loaded with 7,300lb of fresh food and supplies for an orbiting lab

SpaceX has launched a supply mission bound for the International Space Station on Thursday, carrying with it thousands of tiny sea creatures along with a plaque-fighting toothpaste experiment and powerful solar panels.

The 7,300lb (3,300kg) shipment – which also includes fresh lemons, onions, avocados and cherry tomatoes for the station’s seven astronauts – should arrive Saturday.

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Nasa plans return to Venus with two missions by 2030

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Nasa sets aside $1bn for two ventures, which will be first US exploration of the planet since 1989

Nasa is returning to Venus for the first time in more than three decades to gain a better understanding of the history of what scientists believe could have been the first habitable planet in the solar system.

Plans for two separate and ambitious deep space missions to Earth’s nearest neighbour were announced on Wednesday by the head of the US space agency, Bill Nelson. Launches were targeted for a 2028-2030 time frame, he said.

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‘Scary stuff’: International Space Station robotic arm struck by space junk

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  • ‘Lucky strike’ did not endanger seven astronauts on board
  • Not known what debris struck station or when it occurred

The sudden appearance of a small hole in a robotic arm aboard the international space station (ISS) has brought renewed attention to the danger posed by space junk.

Related: Chinese cargo craft docks with future space station in orbit

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Chinese cargo craft docks with future space station in orbit

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Mission comes after China was rebuked for uncontrolled crash of rocket that launched the station itself

A Chinese cargo spacecraft carrying equipment and supplies has successfully docked with the core module of the country’s future space station, according to state media.

A Long March 7 rocket carrying the Tianzhou-2 cargo craft – loaded with essentials such as food, equipment and fuel – blasted off late on Saturday from the Wenchang launch site on the tropical southern island of Hainan, the Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday.

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Nasa’s Mars helicopter goes on ‘stressful’ wild flight after malfunction

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Problem with camera-based navigation system saw helicopter wobble through the air in biggest tech issue Ingenuity has faced

A navigation timing error sent Nasa’s Mars helicopter on a lurching ride, its first major problem since it took to the Martian skies last month.

The experimental helicopter, named Ingenuity, managed to land safely after the problem occurred, officials at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said on Thursday.

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