China will launch a "core module" for its first space station some time around 2018, a senior official told the state-run news agency Xinhua on Thursday. Advancing China's space program is a priority for Beijing, with President Xi Jinping calling for the country to establish ...
Reusable SpaceX rocket booster makes breakthrough landing at sea
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida on a NASA cargo run to the International Space Station on Friday, and its reusable main booster landed on an ocean platform minutes later in a dramatic spaceflight first. The successful autonomous touchdown of the booster ...
Reusable Blue Origin rocket makes third successful vertical landing
Jeff Bezos' space transportation company, Blue Origin, successfully launched and landed for the third time a suborbital rocket capable of carrying six passengers, taking another step on its path in developing reusable boosters, the company said on Saturday. The New Shepard rocket and capsule blasted ...
While countries in Europe have been slashing budgets, one area has not just escaped the ax but chalked up a stellar jump: space exploration. The European Space Agency, which Monday was to launch its €1.3 billion ($1.45 billion) ExoMars mission to outrace the U.S. in ...
Company aiming to clear space junk wins funding
A company that aims to clean junk from space has secured up to $30 million (¥3.39 billion) in public-private funding and plans to launch the world's first debris-mapping satellite later this year. Singapore-based Astroscale, which last year opened a development center in Tokyo, on Tuesday ...
An amateur astronomer in the city of Toyama has found his 13th supernova. Masakatsu Aoki, 59, who runs a kimono store by day, takes to his telescope by night to hunt for supernovas. A supernova is the collapse of a supermassive star, an event that ...
Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic venture unveiled a new passenger spacecraft on Friday, nearly 16 months after a fatal accident destroyed its sister ship during a test flight over California's Mojave Desert. The rollout of the gleaming craft, dubbed Virgin Space Ship Unity, marks Branson's return ...
North Korea's recently launched satellite is once again tumbling in orbit after stabilizing briefly, according to a U.S. official and other sources. The satellite update came as a key congressional watchdog agency said the U.S. military had not demonstrated its ability to protect the United ...
An H-IIA rocket carrying an X-ray astronomy satellite lifts off successfully from the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture.
Japan's first female astronaut, Chiaki Mukai, to head U.N. space subcommittee
Chiaki Mukai, the nation's first female astronaut, will chair a subcommittee of the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space starting next February, Japan's permanent mission in Vienna said. Mukai, 63, will be the first Japanese and the first female astronaut to head ...
Scientists bid comet lander Philae farewell after radio silence
European scientists have given up hope of restoring contact with space probe Philae, which successfully landed on a comet in a pinpoint operation only to lose power because its solar batteries were in the shade. The German Aerospace Center (DLR) said Friday it suspects ...
Weather forces JAXA to scrub launch of H-IIA rocket carrying X-ray astronomy satellite
The launch of a rocket carrying a new X-ray astronomy satellite has been postponed from the initially planned time Friday due to bad weather, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. said Thursday. A new liftoff date has not been set, said Mitsubishi Heavy, the builder and operator ...
