Tag: Moon
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Photographer catches space station transiting the moon
Australian photographer Dylan O’Donnell captured this view of the International Space Station transiting the moon June 30. Credit: Dylan O’Donnell It’s not an unprecedented sight, but catching the International Space Station transiting a celestial object like the sun or moon takes patience and precision. An Australian photographer was in the right place at the right…
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Falcon Heavy enabler for Dragon solar system explorer
SpaceX head Elon Musk has revealed plans to utilize the Falcon Heavy and Dragon 2 vehicles for science missions throughout the solar system. Citing Dragon 2’s capability as a “science delivery platform”, Mr. Musk claimed the crew-capable spacecraft could also be tasked with landing scientific payloads at destinations ranging from the Moon and Mars –…
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Former Atlas launch pad gets a new tenant
Artist’s concept of the Moon Express MX-1 spacecraft flying to the moon. Credit: Moon Express A decommissioned launch facility at Cape Canaveral where some of America’s first interplanetary missions left Earth will now be used as a test site for a commercial moon lander. Moon Express signed an agreement Thursday with Space Florida, a state…
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Chinese pathfinder probe arrives in lunar orbit
China’s lunar test probe and returned this stunning view of the Earth and the far side of the moon in October. Credit: Xinhua/SASTIND A Chinese spacecraft launched in October has settled into a circular orbit around the moon for rendezvous simulations and reconnaissance ahead of a planned lunar sample return mission, according to state media…
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UK team announces plan to crowd-source moon mission
Artist’s concept of the Lunar Mission One spacecraft landing on the moon. Credit: Lunar Missions Ltd. Scientists hope private backers will kick-start a mission to land a robotic probe on the South Pole of the moon within the next 10 years, drill deep into lunar bedrock and analyze primordial core samples to study the origins…
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Chinese probe returns from flight around the moon
Ground teams in China inspect the a space capsule after its return from a flight around the moon. Credit: Xinhua/Ren Junchuan Completing an eight-day test flight around the moon to verify technologies for a planned lunar sample return mission, an unpiloted Chinese space capsule re-entered Earth’s atmosphere at blazing speed Friday and parachuted to a…
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First commercial mission to the moon launched from China
Artist’s concept of the Manfred Memorial Moon Mission, which remains attached to the upper stage of a Long March 3C rocket for a flight around the moon. Credit: LuxSpace A modest privately-funded instrument package built by a company in Luxembourg became the first commercial to the moon to get off the ground with a fiery…
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China launches lunar sample return test mission
The Chinese have launched the third phase of its lunar exploration program on Thursday. Launch of the Chang’e-5-T1 mission took place at 1800UTC, utilizing a Long March-3C/G2 launch vehicle from the LC2 launch complex of the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, Sichuan Province. The mission is aimed at testing the technologies that are vital for the…
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Chinese probe launched on round-trip flight to the moon
A Chinese Long March 3C rocket lifted off at 1800 GMT (2 p.m. EDT; 2 a.m. Beijing time). Credit: Xinhua China launched a demonstrator probe Thursday on a round-trip flight around the moon to test out a heat shield and landing capsule planned for use on a lunar sample return mission in 2017. The unmanned…
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45 years after Tranquility: One small step to a bright future
Forty-five years ago, people across the world held their breaths as a hair-raising, heart-pounded descent occurred a quarter of a million miles away from Earth. At the Sea of Tranquility, on 20 July 1969, two humans succeeded in what many had considered impossible: landing and walking on the surface of another world. Cruise to the…