May 29th, 2025
Author: 
China’s Tianwen-2 asteroid sample return mission is now underway, launched early Thursday. A Long March-3B booster sent the probe skyward from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China’s Sichuan Province at 1:31 a.m. (Beijing Time). The Tianwen-2 probe was sent into a transfer orbit from Earth to the asteroid 2016HO3. It will journey […]
Posted in 
Note: FAA Statement provided to Inside Outer Space: “The FAA is aware an anomaly occurred during the SpaceX Starship Flight 9 mission that launched on Tuesday, May 27, from Starbase, Texas, and is actively working with SpaceX on the event. There are no reports of public injury or damage to public property at this time.” […]
Private companies — Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines, Blue Origin, and Firefly Aerospace — are heralding a new era of lunar exploration by developing landers in collaboration with NASA. 2025 marks a significant year with multiple lunar lander missions – but a hit and miss track record. These Moon missions aim to analyze lunar […]
The most ambitious project to date searching for signs of technology as an indicator of extraterrestrial intelligence is partnering with ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, and the University of Manchester, to deploy a new all-sky monitor at the Westerbork Observatory in the Netherlands. Westerbork Observatory is one of the last remaining radio quiet […]
“Let’s call it a web of intrigue.” NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater has entered bizarre terrain. This Mars Guy video notes that nearly two decades after they were first discovered, the rover has begun to explore web-like features known as boxwork structures. “Answers to how they formed and why they’re bigger than […]
The Shenzhou-20 crew on board China’s orbiting space station completed their mission’s first series of extravehicular activities last Thursday. Chen Dong and Chen Zhongrui worked for about eight hours outside China’s orbiting complex. Wang Jie assisted the pair throughout the mission from inside the Tiangong space station, with the space walk tasks aided by a […]
SpaceX is prepared to launch the ninth flight test of Super Heavy/Starship as soon as Tuesday, May 27. The launch window will open at 6:30 p.m. Central (Texas) Time. “As is the case with all developmental testing, the schedule is dynamic and likely to change,” said SpaceX. Meanwhile, SpaceX has provided a technical summary of […]
There are Earth-based creatures that may give us clues on getting “chat-time” with extraterrestrial intelligence. That prospect may come in the form of a shout out from identifying first evidence of possible language-like communication in dolphins. Recently, the Coller Dolittle Challenge awarded the winner of its first $100,000 annual prize to accelerate progress towards interspecies […]
From the folks that brought you the successful robotic Moon lander, the Blue Ghost, Firefly Aerospace has new news about the group’s second lunar outing in 2026. Add into the payload mix the United Arab Emirates Rashid 2 Rover – a Blue Ghost foray to the far side of the Moon. Moon mobility UAE’s Rashid […]
A multimedia artist and her Miami-based team are preparing “PARABOLES,” billed as the first-ever microgravity performance. Natasha Tsakos is working with the MIT Space Exploration Initiative (MIT SEI) and parabolic-provider Zero-G, to bring together professionals from Cirque du Soleil, National Geographic, and NASA. Artistic arcs The performance is to be staged during twenty-five 22-second-long gravity-defying […]
