WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — NASA on Thursday announced it was in the market for Moon rocks, and wants to pay companies to scoop out the dirt, take a photo, and then have it ready for collection by a future mission. The contract doesn’t actually involve getting to the Moon itself — a feat only achieved by the national space agencies of three countries — but instead envisages companies designing a robot that NASA or […]
Tag: moon
NASA suspends work on Moon rocket due to virus
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — NASA said it has suspended work on building and testing the rocket and capsule for its Artemis manned mission to the Moon due to the rising number of coronavirus cases in the community. The space agency is shutting down its Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, where the Space Launch System rocket is being built, and the nearby Stennis Space Center, administrator Jim Bridenstine said late Thursday. “The change at […]
Earth captures new ‘mini moon’
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Earth has acquired a second “mini-moon” about the size of a car, according to astronomers who spotted the object circling our planet. The mass — roughly 1.9-3.5 meters (6-11 feet) in diameter — was observed by researchers Kacper Wierzchos and Teddy Pruyne at the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona on the night of February 15. “BIG NEWS. Earth has a new temporarily captured object/Possible mini-moon called 2020 CD3,” likely […]
N.Korea’s Kim sends Moon condolences for mother’s death
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sent a message of sympathy to the South’s President Moon Jae-in over the death of his mother, officials said Thursday, the pair’s first contact in months with inter-Korean ties at a standstill. Kang Han-ok, who was born and grew up in the North but was evacuated by US forces during the Korean War, died from a chronic illness on Tuesday. She was 92. […]
NASA wants international partners to go to Moon too
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — As it looks to return to the Moon, NASA is open to the idea of international participation, which could mean a non-American setting foot on Earth’s natural satellite for the first time in history, global space chiefs said Monday. “I think there’s lots of room on the Moon, and we need all our international partners to go with us to the Moon,” NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine told reporters at the […]
India loses contact with Moon lander
by Manjunath KIRAN with Bhuvan BAGGA in New Delhi Agence France Presse BANGALORE, India (AFP) — India’s space program suffered a huge setback Saturday after it lost contact with an unmanned spacecraft moments before it was due to make a historic soft landing on the Moon. Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to comfort glum scientists and a stunned nation from the lunar program’s command centre in Banglalore, saying India was “proud” and clasping the […]
India loses communication with spacecraft trying to land on Moon
by Bhuvan Bagga and Glenda Kwek BANGALORE, India (AFP) — India lost communication with its unmanned spacecraft Saturday just before it was due to land on the Moon, in a blow to the country’s lunar ambitions as the world takes renewed interest in Earth’s satellite. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi looked on in the mission control room at the southern city of Bangalore, India had hoped to become just the fourth country — after […]
‘One giant leap’: US marks Apollo mission 50 years on
by Leila Macor with Issam Ahmed in Washington CAPE CANAVERAL, United States (AFP) — Fifty years after a mighty rocket set off from Florida carrying the first humans to the Moon, a veteran of the Apollo 11 crew returned to its fabled launch pad Tuesday to commemorate “one giant leap” that became a defining moment in human history. “We crew felt the weight of the world on our shoulders, we knew that everyone […]
At 82, NASA pioneer Sue Finley still reaching for the stars
by Issam AHMED WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Sue Finley began work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as the US prepared to launch its first satellite into orbit in 1958, racing to match the Soviet Union, which had accomplished the feat months earlier. Now 82, she is one of NASA’s longest-serving women, starting out as one of its “human computers,” whose critical yet long-hidden contributions to the space program, including the Apollo missions to the […]
Hard soil, big jumps and epiphanies: what it’s like on the Moon
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Twelve American men walked on the Moon between 1969 and 1972, with most describing in great detail their experiences on the dusty, low-gravity world lit by the blinding light of the Sun. Here are their impressions, collected from a series of oral history interviews by NASA during the 1990s and 2000s, unless otherwise stated. Right after landing “That’s where you experience the most quiet moment a human being can experience […]
NASA tests launch-abort system for moon-mission capsule
WASHINGTON, United States — NASA carried out a successful test Tuesday of a launch-abort system for the Orion capsule designed to take US astronauts to the Moon. The three-minute exercise at Cape Canaveral in Florida aimed to test in almost real-life conditions the evacuation of astronauts from the capsule in the event of an explosion or rocket booster failure. The test “put us one huge step closer to the first Artemis flight carrying people […]
Moon hails Trump-Kim meeting as result of ‘astounding imagination’
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Tuesday hailed the third meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un in the Demilitarized Zone as the result of an “astounding imagination” and thinking outside the box. All three held an impromptu encounter at the truce village of Panmunjom on Sunday when Trump became the first sitting US president to set foot in North Korea and agreed with Kim to resume working-level talks, […]





