Tag: JAXA
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Japan’s GOSAT-GW launches aboard final H-IIA rocket
The final flight of Japan’s H-IIA rocket took place on Saturday, carrying the GOSAT-GW environmental research satellite to orbit and ending a career that has spanned 24 years and 50 missions. Liftoff from the Tanegashima Space Center occurred on time at 16:33:03 UTC (1:33 AM local time on Sunday), the opening of a 19-minute window.…
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A Japanese lander crashed on the Moon after losing track of its location
A robotic lander developed by a Japanese company named ispace plummeted to the Moon’s surface Thursday, destroying a small rover and several experiments intended to demonstrate how future missions could mine and harvest lunar resources. Ground teams at ispace’s mission control center in Tokyo lost contact with the Resilience lunar lander moments before it was…
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NASA switches Starliner crew to SpaceX Dragon as testing continues on troubled Boeing capsule
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 members stand inside the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on Nov. 13, 2024. From left are Mission Specialist Kimiya Yui from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), Commander NASA astronaut Zena Cardman, Mission Specialist Oleg Platonov of Roscosmos, and Pilot NASA astronaut Mike Fincke. Image: NASA/Josh…
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SpaceX launches NASA’s Crew-10 mission to the ISS
NASA and SpaceX successfully launched the next ISS crew-rotation mission, Crew-10. The 10th operational crewed mission under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon Endurance is carrying a crew of four NASA, JAXA, and Roscosmos astronauts to the orbiting laboratory for a six-month stay as part of Expedition 72/73. Falcon 9 lifted…
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Launch Roundup: SpaceX, Rocket Lab, and Firefly set to launch amid busy launch manifest
This week, a busy launch manifest saw SpaceX launch the Crew-10 and two Starlink missions from Florida and the delayed SPHEREx/PUNCH and Transporter 13 missions from California. Outside of the United States, Rocket Lab flew an Electron from New Zealand. A Chang Zhang 8 rocket launched from a new commercial pad in China which also…
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Astroscale aced the world’s first rendezvous with a piece of space junk
There’s a scene in the film Interstellar where Matthew McConaughey’s character flies his spaceplane up to meet a mothership spinning out of control. The protagonist rises to the challenge with a polished piece of piloting and successfully links up with his objective. Real life, of course, isn’t quite this dramatic. Slow down that spin to a…
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Launch Roundup: New Shepard to simulate lunar gravity, India and Japan launch navigation satellites
This week’s schedule has a mix of orbital and suborbital missions launching from seven different sites around the globe. In addition to launches from the Florida space coast, India and Japan have both launched navigation satellites. Rocket Lab is launching another batch of satellites for its French customer, Kinéis, while SpaceX has launched a next-generation replacement…
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NASA’s CLPS program accelerates as two landers head for the Moon
As NASA focuses on returning humans to the Moon with Artemis, commercial providers are gearing up to deliver cargo to the lunar surface for NASA and other customers. Over a dozen uncrewed lunar missions are scheduled to be launched in the coming years, and more concepts are being developed globally. Two commercial lunar landers are…
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New study provides explanation behind origins of Martian moons Phobos and Deimos
Using supercomputer simulations, a team of NASA scientists recently modeled the destruction of an asteroid around Mars to investigate the possible origins of Mars’ two, mysterious moons — Phobos and Deimos. Since their discovery in 1877 and subsequent investigations by telescopes and Martian spacecraft, scientists have pondered how the two moons came to be, and…
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Scientists use data from BepiColombo flyby to discover features within Mercury’s magnetosphere
In June 2023, the joint European Space Agency (ESA) and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) BepiColombo mission performed a flyby of its target planet — Mercury. During the flyby, the spacecraft experienced a variety of phenomena mainly caused by the planet’s magnetic field. BepiColombo measured these phenomena, providing scientists with a preview of Mercury’s magnetic…