The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Salsa satellite safely deorbited on Sunday (Sept. 8) over a hand-picked region of the South Pacific Ocean, in a carefully guided reentry that agency officials have applauded as the world’s first. Salsa was one of a quartet of identical satellites called...

A NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts launched toward the International Space Station today (Sept. 11). NASA astronaut Don Pettit joined Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, which lifted off atop a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in...

Polaris Dawn may be a private mission, but it’s conducting research that will benefit NASA. Polaris Dawn lifted off early Tuesday morning (Sept. 10) atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, sending four people to orbit for a roughly five-day stay aboard the Crew Dragon capsule “Resilience.”...

The Africa Mobile Networks Group (AMN) has announced its successful integration of the Starlink satellite network to provide internet connectivity to over 100 of its rural base stations in Nigeria. Furthermore, the satellite backhaul from Starlink LEO satellites has resulted in a 45% increase in...

China has revealed that its moon-base plans will be rolled out in two distinct phases, eventually creating a series of nodes on the lunar surface and in orbit. The initial roadmap for the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), jointly led by China and Russia, was unveiled in June 2021. The...

After more than three months in space, Starliner’s 10-day Crew Flight Test (CFT) has finally concluded. The Boeing spacecraft made a successful landing over the weekend, parachuting to a soft touchdown in the dark desert night of White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, at 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401...

SpaceX’s private Polaris Dawn mission successfully launched into orbit at 5:23 a.m. EDT (0923 GMT) on a five-day mission to attempt the first-ever commercial spacewalk. SpaceX’s trailblazing Polaris Dawn mission will soon begin its daring trek into Earth orbit — and with it, the plunge...

Volcanoes have erupted on the lunar surface within a geologically recent timespan, and the moon could still be volcanically active today, according to tiny glass beads in lunar dirt brought back to Earth by the Chinese Chang’e 5 sample-return mission in December 2020. The discovery could turn...

Starlink, SpaceX’s Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite internet service, is now operational in Zimbabwe following the presidential authorisation in May 2024. The Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) licensed SpaceX’s Starlink GH LTD to provide satellite broadband...