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Liftoff of the Long March 5B rocket carrying the Tianhe core module for the Chinese Space Station. Credit: CCTV/framegrabLong March 5B core stage likely to reenter the Earth's atmosphere in the coming days.HELSINKI — China launched the first module for its space station into orbit late Wednesday, but the mission launcher also reached orbit and is slowly and unpredictably heading back to Earth.The Long March 5B, a variant of China’s largest rocket, successfully launched the 22.5-metric-ton Tianhe module from Wenchang Thursday local time. Tianhe separated from the core stage of the launcher after 492 seconds of flight, directly entering its...

On April 28th, China successfully put the core module of their Tianhe space station into orbit with the latest version of the Long March 5B heavy-lift booster. This rocket, designed for launching large objects into low Earth orbit, is unique in that the 33.16 m (108.8 ft) first stage carries the payload all the way to orbit rather than separating at a lower altitude. Unfortunately, despite an international effort to limit unnecessary space debris, the first stage of the Long March 5B booster is now tumbling through space and is expected to make an uncontrolled reentry sometime in the next...

All of the astronauts — representing the U.S., Russia, Japan and France — managed to squeeze into camera view for a congratulatory call from the leaders of their space agencies.

Cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and NASA astronaut Kate Rubins were also aboard the spaceship. Ryzhikov, a 46-year-old former Russian Air Force fighter pilot, flew the Soyuz spacecraft away from the Rassvet module. After backing away to a distance of about 130 feet (40 meters), Ryzhikov performed a flyaround maneuver around the rear side of the space station to reach a position above the complex around. The commander then guided the Soyuz spacecraft to a manual docking with the Poisk module on the upper part, or space-facing side, of the space station’s Russian segment. Docking occurred at for 1:12 p.m. EDT (1712...

The menagerie of bacterial and fungal species living among us is ever growing - and this is no exception in low-gravity environments, such as the International Space Station (ISS). Three of the four strains were isolated back in 2015 and 2016 – one was found on an overhead panel of the ISS research stations, the second was found in the Cupola, the third was found on the surface of the dining table; the fourth was found in an old HEPA filter returned to Earth in 2011. All four of the strains belong to a family of bacteria found in soil...

Houston-based space tourism company Axiom Space said Tuesday it will send a crew of three private citizens, plus its vice president and former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría, to the ISS for an eight-day stay, no earlier than January 2022. The crew includes American entrepreneur and investor Larry Connor, who will be the pilot; Canadian philanthropist and investor Mark Pathy; and Eytan Stibbe, a former Israeli Air Force pilot who's also an investor and philanthropist. To get to the ISS, they'll hitch a ride on the SpaceX Crew Dragon. The crew will live aboard the US segment of the ISS during...

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 4 [basically the same as today (Sunday), tomorrow, and next few days] Bright Jupiter and Saturn are closer together now (1.8° apart).Jupiter and Saturn are closing toward their record-breaking conjunction on December 21st, when they will appear only 0.1° apart. That’s about the width of a toothpick at arm’s length!https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/this-weeks-sky-at-a-glance-december-4-12-2/

A recent report from Russian manufacturer RSC Energia, the prime developer and contractor of the Russian crewed spaceflight program, states that a number of elements aboard the International Space Station are on the verge of catastrophic failure. The damage has become so serious, it will become too costly to repair and as such Russia should focus on completing its own orbital station instead... The comments were made by Soloviev during a meeting of the Russian Academy of Sciences Council on Space, which took place on 25 November, 2020 and were reported by Scientific Russia on their website. Among the participants...

The first image below is pretty much the situation in the night sky now, Nov 25, 2020. Little by little, Jupiter, from our perspective, is inching closer and closer to Saturn. And by mid-December the two planets will appear to be practically on top of each other, I think both within the space of a full moon! The 2nd image below is the situation in mid-December (this is NOT a one-day, or even one week, thing).In fact the two planets are fairly close to each other right now, Nov 25 (first image below).But in reality, Saturn is actually something like...

The space shuttle typically ferried crews of seven astronauts to and from the space station. Russian Soyuz spacecraft, the only orbital crewed vehicle available for the past nine years until Crew Dragon came online, can carry just three people at a time. Crew Dragon and Boeing's delayed...CST-100 Starliner capsule will carry four astronauts apiece on their operational ISS missions for NASA. (Both companies won multibillion contracts from NASA's Commercial Crew Program in 2014.) This boost over the Soyuz crew size will expand crew research time during long missions to 70 hours a week, NASA ISS program manager Joel Montalbano said...

On May 15, 2020, Canadian students used ham radio to talk with NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, currently aboard the International Space Station. Thanks to ham radio operators and the International Space Station program, the students were able to participate from their homes. Learn more about ham radio aboard the space station.

NASA is tracking down the source of a minor air leak on the International Space Station. Crewmembers of the station's current Expedition 63 are in no immediate danger and will spend the weekend in the orbiting laboratory's Russian segment, inside the Zvezda service module, NASA officials said in an update today (Aug. 20). Astronauts can work in a shirtsleeve environment inside the station, but the orbiting lab is never completely airtight; a little bit of air always leaks over time, requiring routine repressurization from nitrogen tanks that are sent up during cargo missions, NASA added in the update. This leak...

From 250 miles above the Earth, Expedition 63 is very much aware of the hard times which exist in the neighborhoods of the world rotating below. Even amid the uncertainty and difficulties of battling through these challenging times, we encourage everyone to be the best “crewmates” & take care of each other. Cherish the people you love. -Commander Chris Cassidy

The Defense Department contracted with a Nevada-based company earlier this month to develop a space outpost from which military research and operations could be run. The move by the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit marks an important step as rival nations like China and Russia maneuver to militarize space. The Sierra Nevada Corporation said in a news release it has been tasked with repurposing its Shooting Star transport vehicle into “essentially a scalable, autonomous space station for experiments and logistics demonstrations.” “We’re excited by the multi-mission nature of Shooting Star,” SNC CEO Fatih Ozmen said. “It was originally developed for NASA...

SpaceX just completed another milestone in Crew Dragon’s historic journey. Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley have successfully docked the capsule with the International Space Station just under 19 hours after launch from Cape Canaveral. The largely automated process was uneventful. The crew tested manual operation at one point, which they said behaved much like the simulator. Don’t expect a hasty return after this. Behnken and Hurley are expected to spend weeks aboard the ISS before returning to Earth. The capsule’s solar arrays are only rated for 119 days in space, so it will have to return by the fall...

In a small step for man but a giant leap for baked goods, chocolate chip cookies have become the first food to be baked in space. The round biscuits were prepared in a special oven on board the International Space Station (ISS), led by commander Luca Parmitano and astronaut Christina Koch. The process was a real mission and it took several long days for the crew to experiment with different methods....

Summer Worden said her 6-year-old son is her world. Worden said the child was conceived through in vitro fertilization and carried by a surrogate. When her son turned 1, Worden said she met Anne McClain. Worden and the astronaut were married eight months later but three years into the relationship, she said things got rocky. In 2018, McClain asked a judge to grant her shared parenting rights of the child, saying in documents, "She was there for his first steps and first words" and that they had “a very healthy and deep parental relationship." Later that year, McClain filed court...

The new international docking adapter, or IDA, was launched to the station last month aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo ship. The lab's robot arm pulled the docking mechanism out of the Dragon's trunk section earlier this week and positioned it directly atop a tunnel-like pressurized mating adaptor extending from Harmony's upper port. Working with electrical cables that were routed three years ago during two earlier spacewalks, Hague and Morgan connected the IDA to station power, allowing astronaut Christina Koch, working inside Harmony, to send commands driving internal hooks to close. After flight controllers confirmed the $22.5 million IDA was firmly...

China launched the space station in September 2016, and quickly sent up a pair of taikonauts, Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong, to conduct a variety of experiments on a 30 day mission. China launched a second, uncrewed mission in April 2017 to refuel the station to test out a new spacecraft and conduct some “robotic demonstrations.” That was the last mission to the station, which was never intended as a permanent habitat in orbit. Along with the Tiangong-1, the two stations provided the Chinese space program with valuable experience in orbit. They demonstrated not only that they could launch and...

A Russian space capsule with three astronauts aboard has docked with the International Space Station after a fast-track trip to the orbiting laboratory. The Soyuz capsule docked at 22:48 GMT Saturday, just six hours and 20 minutes after blasting off from Russia’s launch complex in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The launch took place on the 50th anniversary of the day U.S. astronauts landed on the moon. The capsule is carrying Andrew Morgan of the United States on his first spaceflight, Russian Alexander Skvortsov on his third mission to the space station and Italian Luca Parmitano.