China

Going to the Moon? Don’t Touch the Historical Artifacts, NASA Says

May 24, 2012

Don’t say you haven’t been warned. NASA put out an official document today specifying how close any future spacecraft and astronauts visiting the Moon can come to the artifacts left on the lunar surface by all US space missions, including the Apollo landing sites, any robotic landing sites like Surveyor and impact sites like LCROSS. [...]

Read the full article →

Big Sunspot; Little Chinese Space Station

May 13, 2012

Astrophot0grapher extraordinaire Thierry Legault has made a name for himself with his images of spacecraft transiting across the face of the Sun. He has done it again by capturing the first-ever image of the Tiangong-1 space station transiting the Sun. The monster sunspot, AR 1476 absolutely dwarfs the Chinese space station (inside the circle), but [...]

Read the full article →

Next Chinese Mission Might Include Some Women

March 12, 2012

Officials from the Chinese Space Agency announced today that they’ve completed crew selection for their next team of spacefarers – called taikonauts – and this time, the team includes some women. The next major mission for China will be the first manned docking mission to the Tiangong-1 space station. This station was launched in September [...]

Read the full article →

China Unveils High Resolution Global Moon Map

February 8, 2012

Chinese scientists have assembled the highest resolution map ever created of the entire Moon and unveiled a series of global Moon images on Monday, Feb. 6. The composite Lunar maps were created from over 700 individual images captured by China’s Chang’e-2 spacecraft and released by the country’s State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for [...]

Read the full article →

X-37B – The Gift That Keeps On Giving

December 4, 2011

Video provided courtesy of United Launch Alliance The United States Air Force’s second flight of the X-37B – is headed into extra innings. Known as the Orbital Test Vehicle 2 (OTV-2) this robotic mini space shuttle launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41) on Mar. 5, 2011. Although the U.S. [...]

Read the full article →

Shenzhou-8 lands after China’s 1st Space Docking propelling Ambitious Human Spaceflight Agenda

November 18, 2011

China’s historic first docking mission in space ended in a complete success today (Nov. 17) following the safe landing of the unmanned Shenzhou-8 in Inner Mongolia. Today’s landing will robustly propel China’s space program forward and sets the stage for an ambitious agenda of human spaceflight missions in 2012 to the Tiangong-1 Space Lab and [...]

Read the full article →

China completes 2nd Docking to Space Lab and sets Path to Manned flights in 2012

November 15, 2011

Chinese space prowess took another major leap forward today (Nov. 14) when the unmanned Shenzhou-8 capsule successfully re-docked with China’s Tiangong-1 space lab while speeding through space and orbiting some 343 km above Earth. Today’s events pave the way for China to rapidly ramp up their human space program and loft up to two manned [...]

Read the full article →

Russians Race against Time to Save Ambitious Phobos-Grunt Mars Probe from Earthly Demise

November 10, 2011

Teams of Russian engineers are in a race against time to save the ambitious and unprecedented Phobos-Grunt sample return mission from crashing back to Earth following the post launch failure of the upper stage rocket firings essential to propel the probe onward to destination Mars and scooping up dirt and dust from the tiny moon [...]

Read the full article →

Russia’s Bold Sample Return Mission to Mars and Phobos Blasts Off

November 8, 2011

Russia has successfully launched the Phobos-Grunt sample return mission to Mars aiming to return a soil sample from Phobos, the first time in history such a bold and complicated feat has been attempted. The ambitious mission lifted off just past midnight at 00:16 Moscow time atop an upgraded version of the Zenit-2 rocket from the [...]

Read the full article →

Russian Mars Moon Sample Probe Poised to Soar atop Upgraded Rocket – Video

November 8, 2011

After an absence of almost two decades, Russia is at last on the cusp of resuming an ambitious agenda of interplanetary science missions on Tuesday Nov. 8 3:16 p.m. EST (Nov. 9, 00:16 a.m. Moscow Time) by taking aim at Mars and scooping up the first ever soil and rocks gathered from the mysterious moon [...]

Read the full article →

China Technology Surges Forward with Spectacular First Docking in Space

November 2, 2011

Video Caption: Live Video of Shenzhou-8 and Tiangong-1 docking in Earth orbit. Photos below. Credit: CCTV commentary/CMSE China’s technological capabilities took a major surge forward with the successful docking in space today for the first time ever of two Chinese built and launched spaceships – orbiting some 343 kilometers in the heavens above at 1:37 [...]

Read the full article →

China launches Shenzhou-8 bound for Historic 1st Docking in Space

November 1, 2011

China today launched the Shenzhou-8 capsule on a historic mission to accomplish the nation’s first ever docking in space with another vehicle, already in orbit, and pave the way toward’s China’s true ambition – constructing a multi-module space station by 2020. The unpiloted Shenzhou-8 streaked skywards today in a blinding flash atop a powerful and [...]

Read the full article →

Shenzhou-8 rolled out for Blastoff to China’s 1st Space Station on November 1

October 31, 2011

China’s Shenzhou-8 capsule and the Long March booster rocket have been rolled out to the Gobi desert launch pad and will blast off early on November 1 bound for the 1st orbiting Chinese prototype space station – named Tiangong-1 (which translates as Heavenly Palace-1). If successful, the Shenzhou -8/Tiangong -1 combined orbital complex will certainly [...]

Read the full article →

Russia Fuels Phobos-Grunt and sets Mars Launch for November 9

October 29, 2011

Russia’s Space Agency, Roscosmos, has set November 9 as the launch date for the Phobos-Grunt mission to Mars and its tiny moon Phobos. Roscosmos has officially announced that the audacious mission to retrieve the first ever soil samples from the surface of Phobos will blastoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan atop a Zenit-2SB rocket [...]

Read the full article →

China’s Shenzhou-8 Mission Poised For Launch

October 26, 2011

What’s new in space flight? With only days to go, China is ready to launch an unmanned spacecraft that will attempt to dock with an experimental space station module – Tiangong 1. The Shenzhou 8 mission is the latest step in what will be a decade-long effort to place a manned permanent space station in [...]

Read the full article →

Bizarre Video: China’s Tiangong 1 Space Lab Animation set to ‘America the Beautiful’ Soundtrack

October 2, 2011

The Guardian newspaper in England is reporting that China’s state run television, CCTV, and China’s space agency released a video animation of the just launched Tiangong 1 miniature space station showing extensive footage of rendezvous and docking maneuvers in Earth orbit that is inexplicably set to the tune of “America the Beautiful”, a patriotic hymn [...]

Read the full article →

China Blasts First Space Lab Tiangong 1 to Orbit

September 29, 2011

China launched their first space station module into orbit today (Sept. 29), marking a major milestone in the rapidly expanding Chinese space program. The historic liftoff of the man rated Tiangong 1 (Heavenly Palace 1) space lab on a Long March 2F rocket took place at 9:16 p.m. local time (9:16 a.m. EDT) from the [...]

Read the full article →

China set to ‘Leap Forward in Space’ as Tiangong 1 Rolls to Launch Pad

September 26, 2011

China’s human spaceflight program is gearing up to take a highly significant “Leap forward in Space” after their “Tiangong 1” prototype space station was rolled out to the remote Gobi desert launch pad at the countries Jiuquan Satellite Launching Center in Gansu Province in anticipation of blastoff sometime this week. Space officials from the Chinese [...]

Read the full article →

Can China enter the international space family?

January 10, 2011

It has often been called a ‘100 billion boondoggle’ – yet it is also unquestionably one of the most successful international programs in human history. The International Space Station (ISS) is just now starting to produce some of the valuable science that was the station’s selling point from the beginning. However, this delay can be [...]

Read the full article →

Cool Chang’E 2 Videos

November 16, 2010

Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society blog unearthed some really cool videos taken by the Chinese Chang’E 2 spacecraft at the Moon. The five engineering videos include Chang’E 2′s solar panel deployment, orbit insertion burn, the first and second orbital trim maneuvers, and low lunar orbit. They are all especially unique in that the video [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries