espace
Cape Canaveral (AFP) - After years of delays, Boeing's Starliner spaceship is finally set to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday night, marking a crucial step for both the US aerospace giant and NASA's commercial outsourcing strategy. The flight -- a final, crewed test before the capsule begins regular runs to the orbiting outpost -- comes at a critical time for Boeing, a century-old conglomerate engulfed in a growing safety crisis affecting its passenger jet division. The stakes are also high for NASA: Having a second reliable option for human space flight i...
AFP
Cape Canaveral (AFP) - Launch day is finally here: Boeing's Starliner capsule blasts off Monday to the International Space Station on its first crewed mission -- several years after SpaceX first achieved the same milestone. The flight, a final test before Starliner takes up regular service for NASA, is critical for the US aerospace giant, whose reputation has suffered of late due to safety issues with some of its passenger jets. Starliner, which was first ordered a decade ago by the US space agency, has had a bumpy ride to the finish line, with surprise setbacks and multiple delays -- a saga B...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - A lucky Japanese astronaut will become the first non-American to set foot on the Moon during one of NASA's upcoming Artemis missions, US President Joe Biden announced Wednesday. The offer to Japan -- an opportunity many nations have long dreamed of -- came as part of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's state visit, and as Washington seeks to strengthen ties with its key Asian ally. "Two Japanese astronauts will join future American missions, and one will become the first non-American ever to land on the Moon," Biden said in a press conference with Kishida. Kishida hailed the anno...
AFP
Niagara Falls (United States) (AFP) - Eclipse mania gripped North America on Monday as a breathtaking celestial spectacle captivated tens of millions of people, offering a rare blend of scientific interest, commercial opportunity and daytime partying. The Moon's shadow plunged the Pacific coast of Mexico into total darkness at 11:07 am local time (1807 GMT) then swept across the United States at supersonic speed, returning to the ocean over Canada's Atlantic coast just under an hour-and-a-half after landfall. Festivals, viewing parties and even mass weddings took place along the eclipse's "pat...
AFP
Johnson Space Center (United States) (AFP) - After two years of rigorous training, ten Americans officially became astronauts on Tuesday, and are now eligible for planned NASA missions to the International Space Station, the Moon, and -- if all goes well -- to Mars. Two Emiratis who trained alongside them also graduated Tuesday during a ceremony at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Members of the class, nicknamed "The Flies," were selected from more than 12,000 applicants in 2021 and their training included simulated spacewalking, robotics, space station systems, and more. "You are here b...
AFP
San Diego (AFP) - Their mission around the Moon is not expected until September 2025 at the earliest, but the four astronauts on NASA's Artemis II mission are already preparing for their splashdown return. Over the past week, the three Americans and one Canadian chosen for the historic Moon mission have been training at sea with the US Navy off the coast of California. "This is crazy. This is the stuff of movies, and we're living it every day," said veteran NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, the mission's commander, Wednesday at the San Diego Naval Base. The night before, the quartet had been on a s...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - The US spacecraft that touched down on the Moon last week and is currently running on solar power will soon be "put to sleep" once lunar night kicks in, mission officials said Wednesday. But while the mission that saw the first ever Moon landing by a private company is coming to an end, Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus told reporters that there are hopes to "wake it up" in about three weeks, when the Sun is out again. The historic mission has been hailed as a success by Intuitive Machines and NASA, even as it ran into multiple problems along the way, including a landing ...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - An American lunar lander that tipped over during its historic touchdown last week likely only has hours left until its battery runs out, the private company operating it said Tuesday. The uncrewed Odysseus, built by Houston-based Intuitive Machines, made the first return by a US craft to the Moon in five decades -- and the first such successful mission by the private sector. But one of the lander's legs caught on the surface as it came down near the Moon's south pole, making it pitch over and come to rest on its side. The mission, partially financed by NASA, was originally p...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - Earth-bound surgeons remotely controlled a small robot aboard the International Space Station over the weekend, conducting the first-ever such surgery in orbit -- albeit on rubber bands. The experiment, deemed a "huge success" by the participants, represents a new step in the development of space surgery, which could become necessary to treat medical emergencies during multi-year manned voyages, such as to Mars. The technology could also be used to develop remote-control surgery techniques on Earth, to serve isolated areas. The robot, developed by Virtual Incision (VIC) and ...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - NASA has re-established contact with its tiny helicopter on Mars, the US space agency said Saturday, after an unexpected outage prompted fears that the hard-working craft had finally met its end. Ingenuity, a drone about 1.6 feet (0.5 meters) tall, arrived on Mars in 2021 aboard the rover Perseverance and became the first motorized craft to fly autonomously on another planet. Data from the helicopter are transmitted via Perseverance back to Earth, but communications were suddenly lost during a test flight on Thursday, Ingenuity's 72nd lift-off on Mars. "Good news today," NAS...
AFP
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