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To date, three countries have landed on the moon. Today, that number may become four. Israel launched its first lunar mission, a spacecraft called Beresheet, on Feb. 21, riding piggyback on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. It spent six weeks orbiting Earth in leisurely, ever-widening circles before slipping into orbit around the moon on April 4. It remained there for a week, preparing for the defining moment of the mission: attempting to touch down softly on the moon's surface. That moment comes today (April 11), around 3 or 4 p.m. EDT (1700 or 1800 GMT) — the exact time has...

Beijing (CNN) — In an historic first, China has successfully landed a rover on the far side of the moon, Chinese state media announced Thursday, a huge milestone for the nation as it attempts to position itself as a leading space power. China's National Space Administration (CNSA) landed the Chang'e 4 lunar probe at 10:26 am Beijing time on Thursday, in the South Pole-Aitken Basin which is an impact crater, China Central Television (CCTV) reported. It made its final descent from a landing orbit 15 kilometers above the moon's surface. State media reported the rover transmitted back the world's first...

NASA Live: Watch InSight Mars Landing Online NASA's InSight lander is scheduled to touch down on Mars at approximately 3 p.m. EST, Monday, Nov. 26. NASA TV live coverage of the InSight Mars landing will begin at 2 p.m. Eastern (7 p.m. UTC). Follow @NASA and @NASAInSight for #MarsLanding news. See a list or an interactive timeline of landing milestones. News briefings and launch commentary will be streamed on NASA TV, YouTube.com/NASAJPL/live and Ustream.tv/NASAJPL. Monday, Nov. 26, 2 p.m. Eastern: NASA TV live coverage of InSight mission landing on Mars. Live landing commentary runs from 2-3:30 p.m. The Entry, Descent...

No one was injured in the emergency landing, which one California Highway Patrol official called "nothing short of a miracle." A student-pilot had been preparing to land at nearby Gillespie Field when the engine failed, according to CHP. The instructor took control of the aircraft and managed to land the plane safely, avoiding homes, power lines and traffic as he touched down on the busy highway, originally blocking two lanes of freeway before guiding the plane to the Mollison Avenue off-ramp for I-8 West, which was still blocked as of 4 p.m. The site of the landing was less than...

Op-ed | Moon Direct: How to build a moonbase in four yearsby Robert Zubrin — March 30, 2018SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, which made its debut Feb. 6, is the foundation of author Robert Zubrin’s “Moon Direct” plan for affordably returning humans to the moon within four years. Credit: SpaceX This op-ed originally appeared in the March 26, 2018 issue of SpaceNews magazine.The recent amazing success of the Falcon Heavy launch offers America an unprecedented opportunity to break the stagnation that has afflicted its human spaceflight program for decades. In short, the moon is now within reach.Here’s how the mission plan...

A Swiss International Air Lines flight made an unexpected landing in Iqaluit Wednesday due to a technical problem. The Boeing 777, carrying 216 passengers and 17 crew members, was en route to Los Angeles from Zurich.

Forecasters predict mostly clear skies and light winds at the surface and aloft for Monday’s launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on a resupply mission to the International Space Station, favorable conditions for the booster’s liftoff and landing at Cape Canaveral. The official launch weather forecast released Friday by the U.S. Air Force’s 45th Weather Squadron calls for a 90 percent of acceptable conditions for liftoff at 12:45:29 a.m. EDT (0445:29 GMT) Monday. A weather axis draped over Central Florida will lift north over the weekend, setting up generally good weather Monday. “This will result in moderate temperatures and...

Artist's concept of a Falcon 9 booster stage descending to a landing site at Cape Canaveral. Credit: SpaceX Assuming SpaceX's plans come to fruition, a Falcon 9 flight from Cape Canaveral on Sunday will end with a vertical rocket-assisted landing at an abandoned Cold War-era launch facility a few miles away. SpaceX confirmed the rocket's first stage, a slender cylindrical kerosene-fed rocket body standing 156 feet tall, will aim for a controlled touchdown at a landing pad the company rented from the U.S. Air Force less than six miles south of the Falco 9's Complex 40 launch pad. Liftoff...

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. —Never mind rocket launches -- the first rocket landing in Space Coast history is a couple of weeks away, if things work out. SpaceX is expected to announce this week that the company is bringing in a revolutionary ocean-going landing pad for its next launch. Looking down the side of the SpaceX rocket, there are landing legs sticking out, and a set of fins – that look a little like tennis racquets – pop out. They’ll guide the rocket as it flies backwards – down, not up – to a perfectly placed landing at the test site....

“For a while I flew by the ship, I approached at 300 feet so he could see my landing gear and see what was going on,” Mahoney said. “At this point it was time to figure out, how do I get the jet back on the deck safely with only three landing gear?” The plan was to use a stool on the deck to stabilize the nose of the jet while Mahoney made a vertical landing using only the lights on the ship and assistance via radio from “Paddles.” “The ship had this amazing invention, called a stool, that was...

DENVER – The campaign plane carrying Ann Romney, the wife of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, made an emergency landing in Denver around 2:25 Friday afternoon, the campaign reported via Twitter. Andrea Saul, the campaign’s press secretary, tweeted: “.@AnnDRomney plane makes emergency landing in CO. All okay. Thank goodness.” Another tweet from the campaign’s Ryan Williams described the plane as “filled with smoke.”

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Qantas grounded its Airbus A380 fleet after one of the superjumbo jets blew out an engine Thursday, shooting flames and raining large metal chunks before making a safe emergency landing in Singapore with 459 people aboard.

Steeper landings set to cut aircraft noise Published: 7 Sep 10 11:43 CET Aviation authorities and carrier Air Berlin are testing a new system of steeper landings and curved flight patterns to avoid residential areas in a bid to reduce ground noise by up to 40 percent, allowing more flights to land at night. The new approach, which experts say is just as safe as the technique now used, could make a big difference at congested airports such as Frankfurt, according to experts from the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), which announced the tests this week. The DLR carried out 13...

Good mission.. 2nd time the charm????

This is the Space Shuttle Discovery Landing Live Thread

(IsraelNN.com) A plane headed from LaGuardia Airport to Louisville made an emergency landing at Philadelphia International Airport Thursday morning because a 17 year old man on a plane was praying with tefillin, or phylacteries. According to Fox News, the man was questioned by airline personnel, who “didn't get answers to satisfy them” and diverted the plane to Philadelphia.

Find out why bees never crash land, and how their technique could help engineers to design new aircraft.Whether landing on a picnic table, underneath a flower petal, or on a wall of a hive, bees always manage to touch down without crashing or tumbling. Now, for the first time, scientists have figured out how these insects maneuver themselves onto all sorts of surfaces, from right side up to upside-down. The bees' technique, which depends mostly on eyesight, may help engineers design a new generation of automated aircraft that would be undetectable to radar or sonar systems and would make...

It's blurrier than old MySpace snapshots, but it's there as expected. The Apollo Lunar Modules and the US flag left behind at the Apollo 17 landing site has been caught in a close-up image by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The lander as well as the flag, or rather the remaining flag pole, seen in the image above are exactly where they should be based on this shot by the Ascent Module "right after Apollo 17 lifted off the Moon": Going a step further, the location can be compared to more recent images of the landing site and everything still...

THE Canada geese were flying in a V formation, cruising about 80km/h above New York City. The aircraft piloted by Captain Chesley Sullenberger was travelling at 340km/h. In the four minutes that followed their collision 915m above the Bronx, the actions of Captain Sullenberger saved the lives of all 155 people aboard the US Airways Airbus A320.*** This week, Captain Sullenberger landed in London to receive the Master's Medal from the Guild of Air Pilots & Air Navigators on behalf of his crew and to tell the full story of his flight into the Hudson on January 15. His arrival...