Day: August 1, 2024

There are continual, creaky reminders that the International Space Station is showing its age. Hissy-fit pressure leaks in the Russian segment, loss of attitude control on two separate occasions in 2021. To remain safe and sound for human occupants, the massive structure requires continuous maintenance, a flow of replacement parts, and upgrades to many of …

After ISS: The Private Space Station Era Is Dawning. Read More »

Boeing Starliner’s two astronauts knew to expect the unexpected when they took off on the spacecraft’s first crewed mission on June 5. I learned this back in March, when NASA hosted reporters at the agency’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston for two days. We used four Starliner simulators, spoke at length with senior agency …

Boeing Starliner’s NASA Astronauts Are Not Stranded In Space. Read More »

Observing a distant and messy collision between galaxy clusters, astronomers have discovered that dark matter, the most mysterious “stuff” in the universe, passed through the wreckage like a cosmic phantom. The dark matter was detected racing away from the conventional “normal” matter that comprises stars, planets, moons and everything we see around us in the …

Dark Matter Ghosts Its Way Through Powerful (and messy) Collision Of Galaxy Clusters. Read More »