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We can all let out a collective sigh of relief. With its primary mirror array fully unfolded, the major components of the beleaguered James Webb Space Telescope are now deployed, and it continues to calmly make its way to its destination. The deployment, completed on 8 January 2022, marks a pretty important milestone for … Read more
The universe is full of mysteries. In observations gathered by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), astronomers stumbled on yet another mystery, and a dusty one at that. In new research, a team of scientists examines potential causes of strange signals emitted by an object dubbed TIC 400799224. Based on what astronomers have seen so … Read more
The James Webb Space Telescope fully deployed its tennis-court sized sunshield Tuesday, a critical milestone for the success of its mission to study every phase of cosmic history, NASA said. “All five layers of the sunshield are fully tensioned,” said an announcer at the observatory’s control center in Baltimore, where team members cheered, a … Read more
The first two seats of the sixth full-fledged NASA crew mission launched by SpaceX have been filled. NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg will both fly aboard the Crew-6 mission, which is due to blast off to the International Space Station in 2023, according to a NASA statement published Dec. 16. Bowen will serve … Read more
The astronauts launching with the first private crewed mission to the International Space Station (ISS) next year have cleared all their medical evaluations. NASA and its international partners approved the four-person crew for Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1), which is scheduled to launch on Feb. 28, 2022. The Ax-1 crew includes Michael López-Alegría, Larry Connor, Mark … Read more
NASA just got a $10 billion space telescope for Christmas. An Ariane 5 rocket launched today (Dec. 25) from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, at 7:20 a.m. EST (1220 GMT; 9:20 a.m. local time in Kourou), carrying the highly anticipated, long-delayed James Webb Space Telescope — and the hopes and dreams of countless astronomers, … Read more
Over the course of just 10 days in February, three missions arrived at Mars. Together, they are creating a clearer picture of our closest planetary neighbour Space 15 December 2021 By Leah Crane The Tianwen-1 mission Xinhua/Alamy OVER the course of just 10 days in February 2021, three missions arrived at Mars. The first was … Read more
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos are finalizing an agreement to launch the first cosmonaut on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, agency officials confirmed on Monday (Dec. 20). Joel Montalbano, NASA’s International Space Station (ISS) program manager, told reporters during a prelaunch briefing for the upcoming Dragon cargo resupply mission … Read more
Rocket woes have again delayed NASA’s return to the moon. The agency is now targeting a launch in March or April 2022 for its Artemis 1 flight, an uncrewed mission around the moon and the first flight of its massive Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. NASA was previously targeting Feb. 12, 2022, for the flight, … Read more
In July, the University of Science and Technology of China announced it had surpassed Google’s claimed quantum supremacy achievement. China’s ambitious quantum computing efforts are all under the oversight of one man, Jian-Wei Pan Technology 15 December 2021 By Matthew Sparkes Xinhua/Alamy GOVERNMENTS and companies around the world are racing to build a useful quantum … Read more