November 26th, 2025
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More details are available regarding the saga of engineers and ground staff in China’s first-ever emergency launch – the plight and flight of the uncrewed Shenzhou-22 spacecraft. The crewless spaceship – including an escape tower — sat atop a Long March-2F Y22 carrier rocket, lifting off shortly after noon local time on November 25 from […]
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Billed as the first emergency launch mission in China’s human spaceflight program, an uncrewed, cargo-loaded Shenzhou-22 spaceship was launched on November 25. Shenzhou-22 later docked with the front port of China’s Tiangong space station’s Tianhe core module. Flying without a three-person crew aboard, the vessel carried a cargo of space food, medical supplies, fresh fruit […]
Word today from the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA): The launch of the Shenzhou-22 spaceship is set for November 25 Beijing time from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the northwest. Currently, the Long March 2F Y22 carrier rocket has completed propellant loading. The now in orbit Shenzhou-21 astronaut crew is working normally and in […]
China purposely delayed the return of its Shenzhou–20 crew from the country’s space station. The reason: a suspected impact of space debris that compromised the crew’s return vessel’s window. Space officials in that country labeled the November 5 wave-off of the crew’s return to Earth as the first successful implementation of an “alternative return procedure” in […]
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at George Washington’s Elliott School of International Affairs held a lively debate on “Should the Wolf Amendment be Repealed?”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 […]
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.” […]
