SpaceX launches Cygnus cargo spacecraft to the ISS | Upside-down SLIM lander wakes up on the lunar surface | Watch crane lift space shuttle Endeavour into place
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SpaceX launched Northrop Grumman's robotic Cygnus spacecraft today (Jan. 30), sending the freighter and its 4 tons of cargo toward the International Space Station. The Cygnus lifted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida today at 12:07 p.m. EST (1707 GMT). The launch kicked off the 20th operational cargo mission for Cygnus. SpaceX was not involved in the previous 19; they all lifted off atop Antares or Atlas V rockets.
(JAXA, RITSUMEIKAN UNIVERSITY, THE UNIVERSITY OF AIZU)
Ten days after making the first moon landing for Japan, the SLIM moon lander is suddenly awake again after arriving upside-down. JAXA officials said during landing that they were holding out hope that the lander would call home again, once the sun reached the stricken lander on the surface. That confidence was repaid.
The crane lift marks the culmination of "Go for Stack," a six-month-long effort to get Endeavour, its two solid rocket boosters and its external fuel tank into their final vertical configuration, as they looked on launch day. But that doesn't mean you'll be able to see the Endeavour display just yet.
Unlike a total eclipse of the sun, concentrating its excitement into a few fleeting minutes, a partial eclipse can be watched leisurely from wherever one happens to be.
The next full moon will be on Saturday, Feb. 24 at 7:30 a.m. EST (1204 GMT), but the moon will still appear full the night before and after its peak to the casual stargazer. February's full moon is also known as the Snow Moon, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac.
NASA and Boeing have been gearing up to launch Crew Flight Test (CFT), Starliner's first-ever astronaut mission, in mid-April. Recent work on the capsule and its various systems has kept that target date firmly in the crosshairs, NASA announced last week.
(NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, J. Lee (STScI), T. Williams (Oxford), PHANGS Team)
Recently released James Webb Space Telescope images of 19 distant galaxies shine an entirely new, dynamic and vibrant light on these gorgeous realms. The treasure trove of cosmic portraits taken by the telescope reveals highly detailed, and quite breathtaking, face-on views of the spirals as seen from the instrument's vantage point in space.
Humanity's first space-based gravitational wave detector has received the go-ahead. The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission, which consists of three spacecraft that together form a single gravitational wave detector, is a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). It's set to launch in the mid-2030s.
Evidence of ancient lake sediments at the base of Mars' Jezero Crater offer new hope for finding traces of life in samples collected by NASA's Perseverance rover.
