SpaceX launches 5 giant BlueBird smartphone satellites for AST SpaceMobile.

AST SpaceMobile's first five commercial satellites have reached orbit. The huge spacecraft, called BlueBirds, lifted off today (Sept. 12) at 4:52 a.m. EDT (0852 GMT) atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The Falcon 9's first…

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China plans to build moon base at the lunar south pole by 2035

China has revealed that its moon-base plans will be rolled out in two distinct phases, eventually creating a series of nodes on the lunar surface and in orbit. The initial roadmap for the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), jointly led by China and Russia, was unvei…

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SpaceX will start launching Starships to Mars in 2026.

SpaceX's Starship megarocket will start flying Mars missions just two years from now, if all goes according to plan. "These will be uncrewed to test the reliability of landing intact on Mars. If those landings go well, then the first crewed flights to Mars will be i…

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Astronauts would have been fine on Boeing's Starliner during landing.

After more than three months in space, Starliner's 10-day Crew Flight Test (CFT) has finally concluded. The Boeing spacecraft made a successful landing over the weekend, parachuting to a soft touchdown in the dark desert night of White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, …

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Boeing Starliner capsule lands back on Earth, without astronauts.

Starliner's long space odyssey is over. The Boeing capsule, named Calypso, returned to Earth early this morning (Sept. 7), touching down in the New Mexico desert at 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401 GMT; 10:01 p.m. local time on Sept. 6). The landing was long-delayed, coming more than…

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James Webb telescope catches baby stars roaring to life.

A new image of the Serpens Nebula captured by the James Webb Space Telescope shows that when clouds collapse to form stars, all of those stars spin in the same direction. What it is: The Serpens Nebula Where it is: 1,300 light-years away, in the constellation Serpens When it w…

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Why is a 'once-in-a-decade' Supermoon Blue Moon happening twice in 2 years?

Just exactly when is the next Supermoon Blue Moon? As we ready ourselves for the Supermoon Blue Moon on Monday, Aug. 19 where it officially becomes 100% full at 2:26 p.m. EDT (1826 GMT). Some of you eagle-eyed readers might be asking "Wait a minute, during last year'…

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Robotic Russian Progress 89 cargo ship docks at ISS with tons of fresh supplies

An uncrewed Russian cargo ship successfully docked at the International Space Station early Saturday (Aug. 17) to deliver tons of fresh gear, food and other vital supplies.  The automated Progress 89 spacecraft linked up with the International Space Station (ISS) at 1:53 a.m…

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Mercury has a layer of diamond 10 miles thick, NASA spacecraft finds.

The solar system's tiniest planet may be hiding a big secret. Using data from NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft, scientists have determined that a 10-mile-thick diamond mantle may lie beneath the crust of Mercury, the closest planet to the sun.  Mercury has long puzzled sc…

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Europe's new Ariane 6 rocket launching for 1st time ever today.

Europe's new heavy-lift Ariane 6 rocket is set to make its long-delayed debut today (July 9). If all goes according to plan, the Ariane 6 will launch from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on Tuesday during a four-hour window that opens at 2 p.m. EDT (1800…

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Crew of NASA's earthbound simulated Mars habitat emerge after a year.

The crew of a NASA mission to Mars emerged from their craft after a yearlong voyage that never left Earth. The four volunteer crew members spent more than 12 months inside NASA's first simulated Mars environment at Johnson Space Center in Houston, coming out of the artif…

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NASA's Juno probe reveals lava lakes across Jupiter's volcanic moon Io.

NASA's Juno mission might have originally been all about Jupiter, but its extended mission has the spacecraft observing the gas giant's moons — and it's making some pretty interesting discoveries. Its latest find? The Jovian moon Io is covered in "fire-brea…

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NASA's oldest active astronaut will return to space for a six-month mission in September.

Don Pettit, 69, will fly to the International Space Station (ISS) as a part of the Roscosmos-led Soyuz MS-26 mission, which includes Russian cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner.  Russian state media source TASS said this week that the launch date will be on Sept. 11. …

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NASA Astronauts again postpone return to earth after Boeing Spacecraft issues.

A roughly one-week trip to space to test out a private Boeing spacecraft has turned into a three-week excursion with no definite return date for two NASA astronauts, after their spacecraft experienced multiple technical issues. Boeing’s Starliner transportation vessel, which…

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China returns samples from the moon's far side in historic 01st.

China has made spaceflight history yet again. The nation's robotic Chang'e 6 mission returned material from the moon's mysterious far side to Earth on Tuesday (June 25) — something that had never been done before.  The milestone moment occurred Tuesday at 2:07 a.m…

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Mountain-size 'planet killer' asteroid will make a close approach to Earth this week.

A massive "planet killer" asteroid will make a very close approach to Earth later this week, safely zipping past our planet at around 58,000 mph (93,000 km/h). The "potentially hazardous," mountain-size object is one of the largest space rocks to pass cl…

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NASA cancels ISS spacewalk due to spacesuit coolant leak.

NASA cancelled a spacewalk at the International Space Station today (June 24) following a spacesuit coolant leak in the hatch. NASA astronauts Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Mike Barratt were told by Mission Control at 8:52 a.m. EDT (1252 GMT) to stop the planned 6.5-hour spacewal…

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A massive black hole may be 'waking up' in a nearby galaxy.

In December of 2019, the sky-scanning Zwicky Transient Facility — a telescope perched on California's Palomar Mountain — alerted astronomers to a sudden flare coming from an otherwise unremarkable galaxy some 300 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo…

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Ed Stone, who led NASA's iconic Voyager project dies.

Ed Stone, who served as the project scientist for NASA's groundbreaking Voyager mission from 1972 to 2022, died on Sunday (June 9) at the age of 88. Voyager launched twin probes on a "grand tour" of the solar system's giant planets in 1977. The two spacecra…

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Solar flare blasts out strongest radiation storm since 2017.

Beastly sunspot AR3697 has made headlines again just before it makes another exit. The sunspot region, formerly known as AR3664, produced the historic geomagnetic storm that led to May's global auroras. On Saturday (June 8), the sunspot fired off a M9.7-class solar flare…

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