Japanese defense budget hits new high with focus on space and cyberspace
The government Friday approved a record draft defense budget for fiscal 2020 totaling ¥5.31 trillion ($48.5 billion) as it seeks to strengthen the nation's defense capabilities in outer space and cyberspace. The draft budget, including outlays linked to hosting U.S. military bases, is up 1.1 ...
Boeing faces huge test with Friday's launch of Starliner to ISS
NASA's effort to resume flying American astronauts on American spacecraft — something that hasn't happened since the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011 — faces a major test this weekend. Over the past decade, a lot of attention has been paid to billionaire space entrepreneurs ...
An H-IIA rocket carrying a government optical intelligence-gathering satellite is scheduled for launch in January, according to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. The device will join Japan's seven other reconnaissance satellites believed to be utilized for such purposes as monitoring developments at North Korean missile sites. The ...
Satellites are changing the night sky
The stars we can see from Earth could soon be outnumbered by a swarm of satellites.
Team of Japanese and South Korean researchers to observe asteroid using Hokkaido telescope
A team of Japanese and South Korean researchers will start observing the Ryugu asteroid using a special telescope in Hokkaido from next fall, in hopes of gaining an understanding of how asteroids are formed, a team member said Monday. Japan's Hayabusa2 probe recently completed a ...
Japan's Hayabusa2 leaves asteroid to deliver samples to Earth in 2020
Japan's space agency said Wednesday its Hayabusa2 space probe had departed from an asteroid where it had landed to collect samples, and will now travel some 800 million kilometers to deliver them to Earth in November or December of next year. The probe's homeward journey, ...
Mitsubishi Heavy looking to develop more powerful H3 rocket for lunar missions
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. is looking to develop an upgraded version of Japan's mainstay next-generation H3 rocket capable of delivering heavy payloads deeper into space, company officials said. The firm's move comes after the country agreed this fall to take part in missions to the ...
The journey of NASA's dauntless Voyager 2 spacecraft through our solar system's farthest reaches has given scientists new insight into a poorly understood distant frontier: the unexpectedly distinct boundary marking where the sun's energetic influence ends and interstellar space begins. The U.S. space agency previously ...
China launches Gaofen-7 high-resolution satellite able to provide stereo imagery
China on Sunday launched a new high-resolution remote sensing satellite capable of providing stereoscopic imagery, state-run media said, marking another important step as Beijing seeks to reduce reliance on foreign technology in topographic mapping. A rocket lifted off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center ...
Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic space tourism venture achieves NYSE debut liftoff
Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. became the first space-tourism business to go public as it began trading Monday on the New York Stock Exchange. The listing, carried out through a merger with a shell investment company that was already trading, secures vital new funding ...
Japanese team discovers that water on Mars was once 'as salty as ramen soup'
A Japanese research team has found that water believed to have existed on Mars 3.5 billion years ago contained salt and minerals, providing conditions suited to life. The team has said it succeeded in restoring the conditions for water that is believed to have existed ...
Beijing says U.S. failed to grant visas to Chinese space officials for international event
The United States is "weaponizing" visas, having failed to grant them in time or at all for Chinese space officials for an international event in Washington, China's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday, in the latest escalation of tensions between the two countries. China and the ...
