Virgin Galactic launches its 1st space tourist flight | Russia to launch Luna-25, its 1st moonshot since 1976 | Space Quiz! Virgin Galactic has begun space tourism flights. What is its current spaceship's name?
Created for znamenski.spacecom@blogger.com | Web Version
The age of Virgin Galactic space tourism flights has begun.
The company launched three space tourists, including the 1st mother-daughter team from Antigua and an 80-year-old Olympic canoeist, on its suborbital Galactic 02 flight in New Mexico today. The launch was the first dedicated to tourism after a May research flight for the Italian Air Force.
Virgin Galactic isn't the only one with a big mission today.
Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, is counting down to launch Luna-25 - it's first moon mission in 47 years - on a Soyuz rocket tonight. Liftoff is set for 7:10 p.m. ET (2310 GMT) and yes, you can watch it live in a Russian-language webcast here starting at 6 pm ET.
How will AI impact your industry now – and in the future? AI Impact is a new, virtual event that separates hype from reality; delivering insights into how industries and business functions will be enhanced and tested in the age of AI. Join globally renowned experts, including Zack Kass (OpenAI), for two days of invaluable discussion. Register Now
With a little luck, we may soon be in for a fine meteor shower.
Circumstances this year will be nearly ideal for watching the annual Perseid meteor shower at its predicted maximum late on the night of Aug. 12-13. Many families on August vacations at dark, country sites discover these meteors on their own, and late-summer campers often pull their sleeping bags out of their tents to enjoy this "Old Faithful" shower.
NASA's Ingenuity helicopter took to the Martian skies for the 54th time on Aug. 3, performing a simple up-and-down hop that lasted just 24 seconds.
Its parent, the Perseverance rover, was nearby at the time, and recorded the sortie using its powerful Mastcam-Z camera system. The resulting video captures the flight in amazing detail, showing Ingenuity rise, hover and spin for a spell before coming back to rest on the red dirt of Mars' Jezero Crater.
Astronomers have begun measuring of the most distant star ever detected, thanks to the powerful eyes of the James Webb Space Telescope.
That star, known as Earendel, was discovered last year by the Hubble Space Telescope. It has taken 12.9 billion years for Earendel's light to reach Earth, meaning the star was shining less than a billion years after the Big Bang spurred our universe into existence. However, Earendel doesn't lie a mere 12.9 billion light-years away from us.
A Falcon 9 rocket topped with 22 Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Friday at 12:27 a.m. EDT (0427 GMT). It's the third Starlink launch in five days for SpaceX.
NASA's Psyche spacecraft has a mission to visit a metal-rich asteroid, but that's not all it will do.
It also has a second goal: Demonstrating what some engineers hope is the next generation of sending data between spacecraft and ground control - with LASERS.
We're big fans of Lego's Star Wars diorama range, and the Emperor's Throne Room is up there with the best of them, recreating the iconic scene where Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader battle it out on the Death Star. This set is a little on the pricey side, but it looks absolutely stunning – the perfect display piece for any Original Trilogy fan.
