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A European Mars rover built in partnership with Russia will not launch to the Red Planet this year as the European Space Agency suspends cooperation with its Russian counterpart in the wake of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. European Space Agency (ESA) officials announced the decision Thursday (March 15) following a two-day meeting of representatives … Read more
Former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly plans to halt his Twitter fight with a senior Russian space official, which was sparked by the country’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. In a CNN report published on Tuesday (March 15), Kelly said that NASA had requested that he and other former agency astronauts stop such feuds, as they could … Read more
NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei has broken the record for longest US human spaceflight, a title former astronaut Scott Kelly has held since 2016. Tuesday marks 341 consecutive days in space for Vande Hei, surpassing Kelly’s record-breaking 340-day stint aboard the International Space Station (ISS). But the achievement comes amid volatile relations between the US and … Read more
New satellite images of Ukraine have revealed shocking scenes of death and destruction in the southern port city of Mariupol. The images, taken by the U.S. private satellite company Maxar on Saturday (March 12) morning, reveal a hellish landscape of smoldering apartment blocks; parks pockmarked by shell fire; and grocery stores blasted into rubble by … Read more
The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. “Polina came to our bedroom awakened by the sound of explosions. I didn’t know and still don’t know what to tell her. Her eyes today are full of fear and terror; eyes of all of us.” Alina, a … Read more
The European Space Agency (ESA) Council will meet on Wednesday and Thursday (March 16 and March 17) in Paris for its 306th session. On the agenda: “Implications of the current geopolitical situation on ESA’s activities.” That situation is the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, which could end up having a significant impact on spaceflight and … Read more
Geopolitical tensions won’t keep an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts from returning to Earth together as planned this month. NASA’s Mark Vande Hei and cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anton Shkaplerov have long been scheduled to come home from the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on March 30. And that remains the … Read more
Western sanctions against Russia could cause the International Space Station (ISS) to crash, the head of Russian space agency Roscosmos warned Saturday, calling for the punitive measures to be lifted. According to Dmitry Rogozin, the sanctions, some of which predate Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, could disrupt the operation of Russian spacecraft servicing the ISS. … Read more
New satellite views from space show the Russian military moving towards Kyiv, Ukraine on Friday (March 11), including images of a battalion firing upon the besieged capital. Muzzle flashes and smoke are visible in some of the satellite images obtained by Maxar’s WorldView-2 satellite, which has been watching the invasion of Ukraine by Russia since … Read more
The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. “Polina came to our bedroom awakened by the sound of explosions. I didn’t know and still don’t know what to tell her. Her eyes today are full of fear and terror; eyes of all of us.” Alina, a … Read more