Page 11 - Space

SpaceX launches giant Starship rocket but passes up catching booster

SpaceX on Tuesday launched another Starship rocket but passed up catching the booster with giant mechanical arms. Unlike last month's success, the booster was directed to a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. The catch was called off just four minutes into the test flight from Texas for unspecified reasons, and the booster hit the water three minutes later. Not all of the criteria for a booster catch was met and so the flight director did not command the booster to return to the launch site, said SpaceX spokesman Dan Huot. He did not specify what went wrong. At the same time, the empty spacecraft launched from Texas atop Starship soared across the Gulf of Mexico on a near loop around the world similar to October's test flight. Skimming space, the shiny retro-looking craft targeted the Indian Ocean for a controlled but destructive end to the hourlong demo. It was the latest test for the world's biggest and most powerful rocket that SpaceX and NASA hope to use to get astronauts back on

Unravelling mysteries of the sun: Where's Nasa's Parker Solar Probe now?

The Parker Solar Probe mission aims to investigate the mysteries of the sun's corona, its outer atmosphere. Here's all you need to know

Nasa's Viking landers accidentally killed life on Mars, says astrobiologist

Astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch believes Nasa's Viking missions have inadvertently 'eliminated' Martian life. He also mentioned that Martian life may have adapted to the planet's dry environment

Samantha Harvey wins Booker Prize for 'Orbital', a first for space novels

This year's Booker shortlist featured five women among the six finalists, the highest representation of women in the prize's 55-year history

Hunt for alien planets: Nasa's next-gen Roman Space Telescope coming soon

The Roman Coronagraph, developed to detect planets 100 million times fainter than their stars, has been successfully integrated onto the space telescope

Nasa astronauts decline to reveal which one of them got sick after mission

Three NASA astronauts whose prolonged space station mission ended with a trip to the hospital last month have declined to say which one of them was sick. Astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps Friday publicly discussed their spaceflight for the first time since returning from the International Space Station on Oct 25. They spent nearly eight months in orbit, longer than expected because of all the trouble with Boeing's Starliner crew capsule and rough weather, including Hurricane Milton. Soon after their SpaceX capsule splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida coast, the three were taken to a hospital in nearby Pensacola along with Russian cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, who launched with them back in March. One of the Americans ended up spending the night there for an undisclosed medical issue. NASA declined to say who was hospitalised or why, citing medical privacy. When asked at Friday's news conference which one had been sick, the astronauts ...

Big industrial houses need to enter space sector, says Isro chief Somanath

ISRO chairman S Somanath on Tuesday urged industry houses to invest in the space sector in a big way to build rockets and allied systems for India to emerge as a space power by 2047. Addressing the Indian Space Conclave here, Somanath voiced concern over the "elusive" investments in the upstream sector of the space industry comprising launch vehicles, hardware and software for ground-based stations, telemetry, tracking and command stations. He said the share of the Indian space economy in the global market was very low and there was a need to encourage and inspire the next generation of leaders to come into the sector and create a vibrant activity. India's space economy is pegged at USD 8.4 billion and is projected to grow to USD 45 billion in the next ten years. Somanath said investments were not forthcoming from big industry houses within the country for the upstream side of the business despite pursuing the matter with them. "India is not devoid of big (industry) houses having

Japan launches world's first wooden satellite, LignoSat, into space

Japanese researchers have launched LignoSat, the world's first wooden satellite, aiming to test the viability of timber as a sustainable material in space

World's 1st wooden satellite, built by Japanese researchers, heads to space

Named after the Latin word for "wood", the palm-sized LignoSat is tasked to demonstrate the cosmic potential of the renewable material as humans explore living in space

Cleaning up pristine beaches means spotting plastic waste from space

The rising volume of the waste is an increasingly urgent issue for world leaders: Diplomats will descend on South Korea in a few weeks for the final round of United Nations talks

India eyeing 2028 deadline for Chandrayaan-4 sample-return mission to Moon

The South Pole region is the first choice for the landing of Chandrayaan-4 as it has an abundance of water ice. Scientists suspect that the ice can be mined for life support and rocket fuel

NASA astronaut remains at hospital after returning from extended space stay

A NASA astronaut was taken to the hospital for an undisclosed medical issue after returning from a nearly eight-month space station stay extended by Boeing's capsule trouble and Hurricane Milton, the space agency said on Friday. A SpaceX capsule carrying three Americans and one Russian parachuted before dawn into the Gulf of Mexico just off the Florida coast after undocking from the International Space Station mid-week. Soon after splashdown, NASA said one of its astronauts had a medical issue" and the crew was flown to a hospital in Pensacola, Florida, as a precaution. The astronaut, who was not identified, was in stable condition and remained at the hospital as a "precautionary measure, the space agency said in a statement. The others returned to Houston. It can take days or even weeks for astronauts to readjust to gravity after living in weightlessness for several months. The astronauts should have been back two months ago. But their homecoming was stalled by problems with Boe

Important to know what is happening in space: Isro chairman Somanath

Somanath further said, In the domain of communication, a lot of changes are happening in this domain,

4,300 tonnes of space junk and rising: Satellite breakup adds to woes

The Intelsat 33e satellite provided broadband communication from a point some 35,000km above the Indian Ocean, in a geostationary orbit around the equator

Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas dazzles in skies across world, here's how to see it

The social media has been flooded with the breathtaking pictures of the Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas, leaving astronomers and skywatchers in awe

India's space strategy: Harness data to capture market beyond SpaceX

Since February, India has opened its space sector to private players and created $119 million venture fund

Reliance Jio seeks govt intervention for fair spectrum allocation

How spectrum for satellite services in India will be given out has been a contentious issue since last year

Aurora in Ladakh validate India's space monitoring efforts: Astrophysicists

Ladakh's recent sightings of aurora, marked by reddish or greenish light in the night sky and usually observed in the far northern regions, is a validation of our efforts in space weather monitoring, a team of astrophysicists that predicted the activity about 48-72 hours prior said. The appearance of intense red-coloured light rays in the sky on the intervening night of October 10-11 was the latest in a series of recent auroral sightings -- previous ones occurred on those of May 11 this year, and November 5 November and May 10 of 2023. All-sky cameras of the Bengaluru-based Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) at Hanle and Merak in Ladakh captured the aurorae throughout the night. Dibyendu Nandi, head of the Center of Excellence in Space Sciences India (CESSI) at the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER) Kolkata, told PTI, "The aurora sightings are a validation that we are on the right track. It boosts our confidence to predict extreme weather events in space

Space startups see funding rise as investors bet on capex ventures: Report

Funding in the third quarter was up 18 per cent from a year earlier at $1.9 billion, with an average deal size of $18 million, according to the report

'Nothing short of astronomical:' Scary hurricane Milton captured from space

Astronomers onboard the International Space Station (ISS) caught a breathtaking video of the monstrous hurricane Milton as it approached Florida