Tag: space

Astronauts bid emotional farewell to space station crew

  (Reuters) – The International Space Station’s latest expedition officially began on Friday (June 2) after Flight Engineers Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos and Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency left the space station for earth. The two flight crew members, embarking on Expedition 52 having arrived on Expedition 51, bade an emotional goodbye as National Aeronautics and Space Administration astronaut and Expedition 51 Commander Peggy Whitson hugged them before the closing of the hatch that […]

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Astronaut’s helmet-cam captures space views

Reuters — The National Aeronautics Space Administration has released an action camera video shot by astronauts on a spacewalk outside the International Space Station. NASA astronauts Peggy Whitson and Shane Kimbrough conducted a seven-hour space walk on March 30 recording their work outside the ISS on their helmet-cams. The video shows the astronauts reconnecting wires and installing covers and shields on one of the three Pressurized Mating Adapters on the ISS used for dockings, the […]

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NASA delays deep-space Orion test to 2019 due to costs

by Kerry Sheridan Agence France-Presse MIAMI, United States (AFP) – The first test flight of NASA’s Orion capsule, designed to one day carry people to Mars, has been delayed until 2019 at the earliest due to high costs, the United States space agency said Friday. The unmanned test flight had been scheduled for November 2018 but was pushed back after the White House asked for a feasibility study of the cost, safety and technical constraints. The […]

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Close call: When asteroids whisk past Earth

by Valerie DEKIMPE Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — A peanut-shaped asteroid 1.3 kilometers (3,280 feet) across streaked past Earth on Wednesday, giving astronomers a rare chance to check out a big space rock up close. But not too close. Dubbed 2014-JO25, the asteroid came nearest at 12:20 GMT and is now hurtling away from the center of our solar system, said Ian Carnelli, an astronomer from the European Space Agency (ESA). “It does […]

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Big space rock to streak past Earth on Wednesday

PARIS, France (AFP) — An asteroid stretching 650 meters (2,000 feet) across is on track to whoosh past Earth on Wednesday at a safe — but uncomfortably close — distance, according to astronomers. “Although there is no possibility for the asteroid to collide with our planet, this will be a very close approach for an asteroid this size,” National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement. Dubbed 2014-JO25, the asteroid will come […]

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Space blanket floats away during historic spacewalk

by Kerry SHERIDAN Agence France Presse MIAMI, United States (AFP) — A space blanket floated away from American astronaut Peggy Whitson on Thursday as she made a historic spacewalk outside the International Space Station, setting a new record for the most spacewalks by a woman. The crew was not in danger due to the mishap, which occurred when Whitson was trying to fold up a bulky cloth cover, known as an axial shield, and put […]

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SpaceX poised to launch first recycled rocket

by Kerry SHERIDAN Agence France-Presse MIAMI, United States (AFP) — SpaceX is poised to launch its first recycled rocket on Thursday, using a booster that sent food and supplies to the astronauts living at the International Space Station in April. The goal of the launch, scheduled for 6:27 pm (2227 GMT) from Cape Canaveral, Florida, is to send a communications satellite for Luxembourg-based company SES into a distant orbit. Standing tall at the NASA launchpad, […]

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Japan launches latest North Korea spy satellite

TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan launched a new spy satellite on Friday, the country’s space agency said, as the region grows increasingly uneasy over North Korea’s quickening missile program. The Radar 5 unit was carried into space on Japan’s mainstay H-2A rocket from a launch site in the country’s southwest. It is meant to replace an existing satellite that is coming to the end of its mission. Japan started putting spy satellites into orbit in […]

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Moon tourists in for a rough ride, experts say

by Laurence COUSTAL / Mariëtte Le Roux Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Non-stop vomiting, a puffy face and the constant need to pee: Volunteers for a week-long loop around the Moon may be in for a rough ride even if all goes to plan. In the week that SpaceX announced it would launch two tourists to skirt Earth’s satellite in 2018, experts agreed the health effects would chiefly be minor and short-lived. These […]

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NASA mulls putting astronauts on deep space test flight

MIAMI, United States (AFP) — The US space agency said Friday it is considering putting astronauts on an upcoming test flight of the deep space capsule Orion as it aims to orbit the Moon. Orion is being built with an eye to one day ferrying astronauts to Earth’s neighboring planet, Mars, perhaps by the 2030s. Until now, the Orion test flight known as Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1) was scheduled for 2018 and was expected to […]

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SpaceX blasts off cargo from historic NASA launchpad

by Kerry SHERIDAN Agence France-Presse MIAMI, United States (AFP) — SpaceX on Sunday blasted off its Falcon 9 rocket carrying the unmanned Dragon cargo ship, packed with food and supplies for the six astronauts living at the International Space Station. The white rocket soared into the cloudy, gray skies over Cape Canaveral, Florida at 9:38 am (1438 GMT). The mission was the first to take off from NASA’s historic launchpad 39A, the origin of the […]

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India sets record—-104 satellites into orbit

SRIHARIKOTA, India (AFP) — India successfully put a record 104 satellites from a single rocket into orbit on Wednesday in the latest triumph for its famously frugal space agency. Scientists gathered for the launch in the southern spaceport of Sriharikota burst into applause as the head of India’s Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced all the satellites had been ejected. “My hearty congratulations to the ISRO team for this success,” ISRO director Kiran Kumar told scientists […]

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