November 21st, 2025
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The Aerospace Corporation and the Space Policy Institute at George Washington’s Elliott School of International Affairs held a lively debate on “Should the Wolf Amendment be Repealed?” As background, nearly 15 years after its inclusion in a 2011 annual appropriations bill in the U.S. Congress, the Wolf Amendment remains a hotly debated topic. It reflects […]
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Fresh from its successful New Glenn (NG-2) flight on November 13, an update has been posted by Blue Origin. The group has announced a series of upgrades designed to increase payload performance and launch cadence of the New Glenn. According to Blue Origin, the enhancements span propulsion, structures, avionics, reusability, and recovery operations. These enhancements […]
One of the items returned by the landing of China’s Shenzhou-20 crew were “lunar soil bricks” intended to further the country’s construction technology for the Moon. The Xinhua news agency reports that the first set of experimental bricks were returned to Earth after a year-long exposure to the space environment. The experiment began in November […]
Scientists have uncovered new evidence that water once flowed beneath the surface of Mars. If so, the Red Planet may have remained habitable for life much longer than previously thought. That’s the view of researchers from New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD). An intriguing study has been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research – […]
New reports based on restricted aviation zones, known as Notice to Air Missions (NOTAMs), appear to indicate that China intends to loft a Shenzhou-22 spacecraft atop a Long March 2F rocket in the coming days. Its destination is China’s Tiangong space station. This craft would serve as a replacement vehicle for the window-damaged Shenzhou-20 spaceship. […]
Mars Guy notes that NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has arrived among some truly enigmatic rocks – pockmarked with holes. “In places they display little knobby protuberances while nearby they have circular holes. Maybe they’re unrelated to each other,” Mars Guy explains, “or maybe some holey rocks on Earth can help explain both.” […]
Preparations for China’s Shenzhou-22 mission has moved into full swing – an action required to assure that the now-orbiting space station crew can be sustained, and in a safe manner. Zhou Yaqiang, an official with the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) explains that the mission for launching the Shenzhou-22 spacecraft “has been initiated, with preparations […]
China’s Shenzhou-20 crew arrived in Beijing on Saturday, fresh from their touch down at the Dongfeng landing site in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Friday, November 14. The space traveling threesome — Chen Dong, Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie — landed back on Earth aboard the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft after spending 204 days in […]
The Blue Origin New Glenn orbital launch vehicle successfully completed its second mission on November 13. Successfully deployed was the NASA Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) twin-spacecraft into their designated “loiter orbit.” In addition to deploying the NASA spacecraft, the Viasat HaloNet demonstration onboard New Glenn’s second stage successfully executed the first […]
The return capsule of the Shenzhou-21 spaceship, carrying the Shenzhou-20 astronauts Chen Dong, Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie, touched down at the Dongfeng landing site in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Friday. Meanwhile, the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft, still attached to China’s space station, did not meet the requirements for the astronauts’ safe return. For […]
