February 21st, 2025
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China’s Tianwen-2 spacecraft, designed to sample an asteroid, is now at the launch site and slated for launch in the first half of this year. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) has announced the craft is at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China’s Sichuan Province. Tianwen-2’s targets: Collect samples from near-Earth asteroid 2016 […]
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The Polish Space Agency’s (POLSA) Department of Space Security Team has confirmed that on February 19 there was an uncontrolled atmospheric entry of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket body that occurred over the territory of Poland. The rocket stage, weighing approximately four tons, came from the Space X Starlink Group 11-4 mission, launched on February […]
Intuitive Machines announced its IM-2 mission Nova-C class lunar lander, Athena, has completed all integration milestones. The lunar lander is safely encapsulated within SpaceX’s payload fairing in preparation for launch. A multi-day launch window opens no earlier than February 26 from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Trio of lunar landers […]
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft conducted the first and only exploration flyby of the Pluto system, culminating at the closest approach of that distant world in July of 2015. Sailing onward, the vehicle carried out a January 1, 2019 flyby of Arrokoth, a Kuiper Belt Object, or KBO, located in a region of space beyond […]
The Firefly Moon landing team reports that a second lunar orbit maneuver has been attained. Their Blue Ghost commercial lander performed a 3 minute, 18 second burn. Blue Ghost Mission-1 will deliver 10 science and technology instruments to the lunar surface as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. “This maneuver moved the […]
NASA’s Small Spacecraft Systems Virtual Institute (S3VI) has released the 2024 State-of-the-Art Small Spacecraft Technology report. This informative and detailed 2024 edition reflects updates in several areas, including formation flying and rendezvous and proximity operations, additive manufacturing, free space optical communications and hosted orbital services. Invaluable insights The document provides invaluable insights in numerous […]
Once again the Philippine Space Agency was on guard for possible rocket debris stemming from China’s recent launch of a Long March 8A rocket from Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in Wenchang, Hainan. The maiden flight of the Long March 8A booster took place on February 11, reportedly hurling into orbit a set of satellites for […]
Mars refuses to share! That’s the word from Mars Guy in a new video episode. NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover at Jezero crater drove back to the location of what could be one of the most significant discoveries of the mission. The plan this time was to collect a sample for return to Earth via a […]
Japan’s Resilience lunar lander completed a flyby of the Moon today, zipping within roughly 5,220miles (8,400 kilometers) of the Moon’s surface. The commercial lunar lander is a product of ispace, a Moon exploration company. “Resilience is now on a trajectory out to deep space before completing orbital maneuvers that will bring it back towards the […]
Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander is on cruise control as it prepares to enter orbit around the Moon. A recent engine burn to send the probe off to the Moon was performed with such accuracy, Firefly mission controllers are skipping the next one. “With Earth in the rearview mirror, we’re on cruise control until we reach […]
