Moon Mission

With many bold advances and launches due in 2023, we are entering a new phase akin to the "Golden era" of space launches in the 1960s and '70s

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa said Friday that K-Pop star T.O.P. will be among the eight people who will join him on a flyby around the moon on a SpaceX spaceship next year. The Japanese tycoon launched plans for the lunar voyage in 2018, buying all the seats on the spaceship. He began taking applications from around the world in March 2021 for what will be his second space journey after his 12-day trip to the International Space Station on the Soyuz Russian spaceship last year. The eight people Maezawa selected for his dearMoon project are T.O.P., who debuted as a lead rapper for the K-Pop group Big Bang; American DJ Steve Aoki; filmmaker Brendan Hall and YouTuber Tim Dodd, also of the United States. The other four are British photographer Karim Illiya, Indian actor Dev Joshi, Czech artist Yemi AD and Irish photographer Rhiannon Adam. American Olympic snowboarder Kaitlyn Farrington and Japanese dancer Miyu were chosen as backups. T.O.P.'s real name is Choi Seung-hyun. The ...

The earlier record was set during the Apollo 13 mission at 248,655 miles (400,171 kms) from Earth

China will be sending a three-person crew to its space station, which is nearing completion, and also announced on Monday plans for a manned mission to the Moon amid intensifying competition with the US. The Shenzhou-15 crewed spaceship will be launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest China on Tuesday, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) announced. The spaceship will take three astronauts -- Fei Junlong, Deng Qingming, and Zhang Lu -- to carry out the spaceflight mission. Fei will be the commander of the mission, Ji Qiming, assistant to the director of the CMSA, told the media. The crew will stay in orbit for about six months, a period in which the construction of the low-orbit space station is expected to be completed. The launch will be carried out with a Long March-2F carrier rocket, which will be filled with propellant soon, Ji said. After entering the orbit, the Shenzhou-15 spaceship will make a fast, automated rendezvous and dock with the front port o

China plans to build its first base on the moon by 2028, ahead of landing astronauts there in subsequent years as the country steps up its challenge to NASA's dominance in space exploration

NASA's moon rocket needs only minor repairs after enduring a hurricane at the pad and is on track for its first test flight next week, a top official said on Friday. Right now, there's nothing preventing us" from attempting a launch on Wednesday, said NASA's Jim Free, an associate administrator. The wind never exceeded the rocket's design limits as Hurricane Nicole swept through Kennedy Space Centre on Thursday, according to Free. But he acknowledged if the launch team had known in advance that a hurricane was going to hit, they likely would have kept the rocket indoors. The rocket was moved out to the pad late last week for its USD 4.1 billion demo mission. Gusts reached 100 mph (160 kph) atop the launch tower, but were not nearly as strong farther down at the rocket. Computer models indicate there should be no strength or fatigue issues from the storm, even deep inside the rocket, Free noted. NASA had been aiming for an early Monday launch, but put it on hold for two days becau

NASA was monitoring Nicole and has decided to re-target a launch for the Artemis I mission for November 16

The US space agency has now set the next launch attempt of the Artemis I Moon mission for November 14, after facing two failed attempts due to liquid hydrogen gas leak in one of the engines.

The US space agency has pushed back the Artemis I Moon mission launch to November in the wake of Hurricane Ian

The US space agency has called off its Artemis I launch scheduled for September 27, owing to Tropical Storm Ian threat, and was preparing for rollback while continuing to watch the weather forecast

NASA had to scrub two launch attempts as the rocket experienced technical glitches, including a fuel leak

As NASA scrubbed the Artemis 1 uncrewed mission to the Moon once again, Elon Musk on Sunday came up with a suggestion for the ailing mission that will finally land astronauts on the lunar surface

The US space agency has decided not to attempt the launch of the Artemis I Moon mission in early September as the teams were reviewing options after two failed attempts

Parked near the moon, how do they eat, breathe, cope with isolation, radiation?

Artemis 1 was supposed to orbit the moon, deploy some satellites, and settle into the orbit. It was meant to test SLS rocket and the Orion crew capsule

NASA began fuelling its new moon rocket early Monday for liftoff on a test flight to put a crew capsule into lunar orbit for the first time in 50 years. Thunderstorms delayed the fuelling operation by an hour. The threat of lightning diminished enough to allow the launch team to proceed with loading the rocket's tanks. But it was uncertain how much the stalled work might shorten the two-hour launch window. No one was inside the Orion capsule atop the 322-foot (98-meter) rocket at Kennedy Space Center. Instead, three test dummies were strapped in for the lunar-orbiting mission, expected to last six weeks. It's the most powerful rocket ever built by NASA, out-muscling the Saturn V that carried astronauts to the moon a half-century ago. Thousands of people jammed the coast to see the Space Launch System, or SLS, rocket soar. Rain pelted the launch site as the launch team finally began loading more than 1 million gallons of super-cold fuel into the rocket. Forecasters remained optimist

Artemis 1 is going to be the first flight of the new Space Launch System. This is a "heavy lift" vehicle, as NASA refers to it

US President Joe Biden wished Elon Musk "lots of luck" for his trip to the Moon, as the Tesla CEO expressed "super bad feeling" about the economy and decided to cut its workforce by 10 per cent

A senior defence analyst for space and counter space of the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Keith Ryder warned on Tuesday that Moscow and Beijing plan to explore and exploit the natural resource

The Department of Space has planned as many as 19 missions this year even as the Chandrayaan-3, the next phase of India's mission to the moon, is scheduled for August 2022