NASA’s mission to the metal-rich asteroid 16 Psyche has fired up its ion engines and is now cruising across the solar system under the power of solar-electric propulsion. The launch of the spacecraft, which is also called Psyche, on October 13, 2023 gave it enough of an initial boost to take...

China launched four satellites on Tuesday (May 21) to test out new technologies. A Kuaizhou-11 solid rocket lifted off into clear skies above Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert at 12:15 a.m. EDT (0415 GMT, 12:15 p.m. Beijing time) on Tuesday. The China Aerospace Science and Industry...

According to a press release by EUMETSAT, the intergovernmental organisation and the African Union Commission have signed a memorandum establishing frameworks for African environmental and meteorological services to access EUMETSAT’s data from its next-generation satellite systems. This agreement...

SpaceX launched another batch of its Starlink internet satellites from Florida on Wednesday night (May 22), the second mission in less than 24 hours for the company. A Falcon 9 rocket topped with 23 Starlink spacecraft lifted off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 10:35 p.m...

The United Nations Security Council has voted against a resolution introduced by Russia and China that would ban member states from placing weapons of any kind in outer space. This isn’t the first time these two countries have suggested such an idea. In late April, the United States and Japan...

The first astronaut mission aboard Boeing’s Starliner is indefinitely grounded. Starliner will not lift off on Saturday (May 25) as planned, which was the latest launch date following several delays in recent weeks. NASA officials communicated the delay late on Tuesday (May 21), providing no...

On May 22, 2012, SpaceX launched the first commercial flight to the International Space Station. The Dragon was the first American spacecraft to visit the space station since NASA ended the space shuttle program almost a year earlier. When the space shuttles were retired, NASA decided to contract...

SpaceX launced a pioneering set of spy satellites for the U.S. government early on Wednesday morning (May 22). A Falcon 9 rocket hoisted the NROL-146 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to space after liftoff from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base at 4 a.m. EDT (0800...

The U.S. Space Force has ordered a first-of-its-kind satellite docking mission in order to give an on-orbit spacecraft an additional two years of propulsion and maneuverability. Space Systems Command (SSC), an organization within the U.S. Space Force tasked with acquiring and deploying new military...