NASA will update us all on its Artemis 1 moon mission Thursday. Here's how to follow it live. | European space partnerships with Russia face uncertain future amid Ukraine tension | US launch providers eyeing Russia-Ukraine situation
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NASA will give an update about its Artemis 1 moon mission on Thursday (Feb. 24), and you can tune in. Artemis 1 will be the first-ever launch of NASA's new Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket. The mission will send an uncrewed Orion capsule around the moon, to ensure that the SLS-Orion duo is ready to carry astronauts for the agency's Artemis program of lunar exploration.
Astronauts regularly tout how living aboard the International Space Station tears down barriers. Right now, two Russian cosmonauts and one European astronaut are living in orbit together with four Americans. The seven spaceflyers are enjoying the fruit of international cooperation that dates back to the historic 1975 Cold-War era docking between the U.S. Apollo and Russian Soyuz spacecraft. But back on Earth, fears over a major conflict in Europe are rising as more and more Russian troops assemble on Ukraine's border, threatening a full-scale invasion of a sovereign country. The United Nations' Secretary General António Guterres described the developments as "the most serious global peace and security crisis in recent years."
A Russian invasion of Ukraine could have ripple effects across the space economy and community. In recent weeks, Russia has amassed at least 100,000 troops along the border of Ukraine, to the condemnation of the United States and other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The situation is sensitive and complicated in the space world, given that Russia is a key partner in the International Space Station (effects there have not yet been seen) and also supplies key rocket parts for two high-profile U.S. launch companies.
As military and political action is taken here on Earth, satellites in orbit can see what goes on from space. In recent images captured between Feb. 13 and Feb. 22, satellites operated by Maxar Technologies observed military activity across Belarus, Crimea and western Russia, all of which border Ukraine.
There's an ongoing saga about the object that will smash into the far side of the moon early next month. First thought to be the upper stage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that launched the DSCOVR Earth-observation spacecraft in February 2015, it was then tagged as a leftover from the launch of China's Chang'e 5-T1 lunar mission in 2014. During a press briefing on Feb. 21, however, China Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said that cannot be the case, as the Chang'e 5-T1 upper stage burned up completely in Earth's atmosphere shortly after liftoff. But the person who led the discovery of the coming lunar impact, which is predicted to occur on the far side on March 4, isn't buying China's claim.
The European Space Agency (ESA) is pushing for its members to back a program to allow it to independently send astronauts to space and set ambitious, long-term human exploration goals. While Europeans have been flying to space since the 1970s, only three countries — the Soviet Union (now Russia), the United States and China — have so far been able to independently launch astronauts into space.
On Feb. 23, 1990, NASA's Pioneer 11 spacecraft left the solar system! This was the second spacecraft to travel beyond the planetary part of our solar system, which ends at Neptune's orbit. See how it happened in our "On This Day in Space" video series!
A head-on collision between galaxies has created a vast, cosmic triangle in deep space glittering with star formation in a new image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. The new photo, which NASA released Tuesday (Feb. 22), shows a pair of colliding galaxies known as called Arp 143 arranged in a what scientists described as a "space triangle" that is spawning a "tsunami of starbirth" by sharing gas and dust, according to a Hubble team statement.
A ground-based telescope's detection of a known Tatooine-like planet could herald new discoveries of similar planets, researchers say. Observers spotted Kepler-16b — an exoplanet that orbits two stars, similar to a world portrayed in the original series of "Star Wars" — using a relatively modest 75-inch (193-centimeter) telescope. The telescope is situated at Observatoire de Haute-Provence, roughly 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of Marseilles, France. The University of Birmingham-led research team said that the detection shows the value of using a ground-based telescope "at greater efficiency and lower cost than by using spacecraft."
During the English Renaissance, people believed shooting stars were luminaries falling from the heavens and harbingers of calamity. But by the end of the 19th century, scientists had established the truth to be far more mundane. What today are commonly called shooting or falling stars are simply small pieces of rock or dust that quickly burn up upon entering Earth’s atmosphere. But nature has a surprise for you — shooting stars really do exist.
A new petition calls for the United States government to release to the public all unclassified videos of unidentified flying objects (UFOS), or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), as they have recently been rebranded. Initiated on Feb. 10 by Adam Goldsack of the United Kingdom, the petition is hosted on the Change.org website.
Orbit.Industries is a strategy game from developers LAB132 that allows players to build and manage their own orbital stations, and the open beta is available to play. The open beta is out now and is available to play until March 20. it's a strategic management game that means you can orbit planets on the edge of explored space in stations that are built and managed by the player.
If you're an avid fan of Golden Age pulp heroes who strap jetpacks to their backs, thwart dastardly villains and rescue damsels in distress, then mark your calendar for this April when IDW Publishing salutes the 40th anniversary of "The Rocketeer" with a new four-issue miniseries titled, "The Rocketeer: The Great Race."
