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...

SpaceX’s Starship megarocket will start flying Mars missions just two years from now, if all goes according to plan. “These will be uncrewed to test the reliability of landing intact on Mars. If those landings go well, then the first crewed flights to Mars will be in 4 years,”...

Boeing’s Starliner capsule just returned to Earth without astronauts, marking the beginning of a new set of investigations by NASA. Starliner left the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday evening (Sept. 6), then aced a landing in New Mexico just after midnight on Saturday (Sept. 7). The...

Starliner’s long space odyssey is over. The Boeing capsule, named Calypso, returned to Earth early this morning (Sept. 7), touching down in the New Mexico desert at 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401 GMT; 11:01 p.m. local time on Sept. 6). “Great landing of Calyspo!” NASA astronaut Suni Williams...

Blue Origin’s huge New Glenn rocket won’t debut next month after all. New Glenn, the company’s partially reusable new heavy lifter, had been scheduled to launch NASA’s twin ESCAPADE Mars probes from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida during an eight-day window that...