Virgin Galactic may launch 6th commercial spaceflight this week
Virgin Galactic may launch 6th commercial flight this week | Blue Origin joins stages of New Glenn for the 1st time | Stunning night sky time-lapse shows all the stars' colors
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Virgin Galactic's sixth commercial spaceflight may be just around the corner. The launch window for the crewed suborbital mission, known as Galactic 06, opens on Jan. 26. And, to help remind us of this fact and build up interest in the flight, Virgin Galactic just released the mission's patch.
Blue Origin's powerful new rocket is starting to come together. The company, which was founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, announced on Monday (Jan. 21) that it has mated the two stages of its New Glenn heavy lifter for the first time.
This wide-angle scene is composed of eight hours of consecutive long exposures captured from the Dark Sky Reserve in Alqueva, Portugal. It reveals the motion of stars centered around the north star, Polaris, depicting them as colorful trails shining in different hues of blue, white, yellow and even orange.
Astronauts aboard China's space station have entered a newly arrived cargo spacecraft to begin sorting and checking out the goods. Footage released on Tuesday shows the Shenzhou 17 astronauts opening the hatch to Tianzhou 7 and beginning the work of sorting through its cargo.
The orange, yellow and blue image from the powerful space telescope features the interstellar atomic hydrogen of the 1,630-light-year-wide nebula N79, located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. This region is actively forming stars and remains virtually unexplored by astronomers.
SpaceX launched 22 Starlink internet satellites on Tuesday (Jan. 23), after a series of delays. The company had to stand down from daily attempts since Thursday (Jan. 18) due to poor weather conditions. A launch attempt on Friday ended with only 57 seconds left in the countdown. SpaceX did not provide an explanation for the aborted liftoff.
Officials with Axiom Space, the company making spacesuits for the Artemis program, said Monday (Jan. 22) that the garments may reach a critical design review soon. In fact, that review could happen as soon as June. However, the news comes just two weeks after NASA was forced to delay its astronaut touchdown plans by an additional year. As of now, landing is expected to occur no earlier than 2026.
Twenty years ago this month, twin spacecraft made dramatic planetary landings and set about creating an unrivaled legacy of science and exploration. NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers were supposed to operate on the surface of Mars for just three months. But both solar-powered robots far outlived their warranties, setting travel and longevity records, making weird discoveries and forever changing Mars science and exploration.
The world of smart telescopes has grown even larger this year with Vaonis releasing their next generation smart telescope. At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, NV earlier this month, smart telescope manufacturer Vaonis unveiled the significantly upgraded second generation of the Vaonis Vespera, the Vaonis Vespera II.
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