Tag: space

Private company shoots for first US moon landing in more than 50 years | Space News

NASA, the main sponsor with experiments on board, hopes to jumpstart lunar economy ahead of astronaut missions.

A lunar lander has taken off for the moon in a bid to make the first United States landing since the Apollo missions more than half a century ago and the first achieved by a privately owned spacecraft.

A Falcon 9 rocket flown by Elon Musk’s SpaceX lifted off after 1am (06:00 GMT) on Thursday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, launching a moon lander made by Intuitive Machines towards its destination 370,000km (230,000 miles) away.

If all goes well, a touchdown attempt is expected on February 22 after a day in lunar orbit.

Intuitive Machines, a Houston-based aerospace company, launched mission “IM-1” a month after a rival lunar lander made by Astrobotic Technology crashed back to Earth, burning up over the Pacific 10 days after takeoff.

“There have been a lot of sleepless nights getting ready for this,” said Steve Altemus, co-founder and chief executive of Intuitive Machines.

The lander resembled a six-pointed star jewel – each point a leg – as it successfully separated from the upper stage and drifted off into the black void.

Intuitive Machines named its lander after Homer’s hero in The Odyssey.

“Godspeed, Odysseus. Now let’s go make history,” said Trent Martin, vice president of space systems at Intuitive Machines.

NASA aims

Only five countries – the US, Russia, China, India and Japan – have scored a lunar landing and no private business has yet done so.

The US is the only country to have sent astronauts to the moon with Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt closing out the programme in December 1972. That was it for US moon landings until Astrobotic’s short-lived attempt last month.

NASA, the main sponsor with experiments on board, is hoping to jumpstart the lunar economy ahead of astronaut missions.

It hopes to operate near the moon’s south pole where Intuitive Machines is aiming for its 14-foot (4.3-m) tall, six-legged lander to touch down – a region full of treacherous craters and cliffs, yet potentially rich with frozen water.

This area is where NASA plans to land astronauts later this decade. The space agency said its six navigation and tech experiments on the lander can help smooth the way.

NASA is paying Intuitive Machines $118m to get its latest set of experiments to the moon.

The company also drummed up its own customers, including sculptor Jeff Koons, who is sending up 125-inch (317.5cm) moon figurines in a see-through cube.

The lander is carrying Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s EagleCam, which will snap pictures of the lander as they both descend.

The spacecraft is set to cease operations after a week on the surface.



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Iran launches three satellites amid rising tensions with Western powers | Space News

The satellites will be used to test communication and geopositioning technology, as well as the efficacy of delivering cargoes to space, Iran said.

Iran has successfully launched three satellites for the first time using its carrier rocket developed by the Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics, state media reported, a milestone the West fears will boost Tehran’s ballistic missile programme.

The satellites were sent to a minimum orbit of 450km (280 miles) on Sunday. One satellite weighing 32kg (71 pounds) and two nano-satellites of less than 10kg each were propelled using the Simorgh (Phoenix) satellite carrier rocket.

The nano-satellites, named Kayhan-2 and Hatef-1, will be used to test narrowband communication and geopositioning technology, state media said.

The larger satellite, named Mahda and built by the Iranian Space Agency, will aim to test the accuracy of the Simorgh rocket in delivering multiple cargoes to space. The Simorgh rocket has had multiple failures in the past.

An analysis by The Associated Press news agency of the footage of the launch showed that it took place at the Imam Khomeini Space Center in Iran’s rural Semnan province.

“The roar of the Simorgh [rocket] resonated in our country’s sky and infinite space,” said Abbas Rasooli, a state TV reporter, in the video.

The launch comes amid heightened tensions in the wider Middle East over Israel’s continued war on the Gaza Strip, sparking fears of a regional conflict. Iran-linked groups in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon have carried out attacks against US and Israeli interests in solidarity with Palestinians. More than 26,000 Palestinians have been killed in nearly four months of Israeli bombardment.

Nuclear and ballistic programmes

Earlier this month, Iran launched its Sorayya satellite with a rocket built by the country’s military Revolutionary Guards, which Europe believes Iran will use to develop long-range ballistic missiles.

Iran on Saturday dismissed that condemnation, saying it has a right to peaceful technological advancement in the aerospace field.

Meanwhile, the US intelligence community’s 2023 worldwide threat assessment said the development of satellite launch vehicles makes Iran one step closer to developing the missiles and cited the Simorgh as a possible dual-use rocket.

Under former President Hassan Rouhani, Iran slowed its space programme to ease tensions with the West, but under President Ebrahim Raisi, the programme has pushed forward.

The United States has previously said Iran’s satellite launches defy a UN Security Council resolution and called on Tehran to undertake no activity involving ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. UN sanctions related to Iran’s ballistic missile programme expired last October.

Since the US withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018, Iran has boosted its uranium enrichment to near weapons-grade, though US intelligence agencies and others assess Tehran has not begun actively seeking a nuclear weapon. Tehran maintains that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes.

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Japan counts down to ‘Moon Sniper’ landing on lunar surface | Space News

A successful touchdown will make Japan the fifth country ever to put a spacecraft on the moon.

Japan is attempting to land its high-precision “Moon Sniper” probe on the lunar surface and will become only the fifth country to put a spacecraft on the moon – if all goes according to plan.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is hoping for a precise landing of its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) probe, within 100 metres (328 feet) of the designated target, a technology it calls unprecedented and crucial for advancing lunar exploration, particularly in the quest for lunar water and the potential for human habitation.

Nicknamed the Moon Sniper, SLIM will start a 20-minute touchdown phase on its one-way mission from midnight on Saturday (15:00 GMT Friday), trying to land on a target site roughly the size of two athletic tracks on the slope of a crater just south of the lunar equator.

“No other nation has achieved this. Proving Japan has this technology would bring us a huge advantage in upcoming international missions like Artemis,” said Shinichiro Sakai, JAXA’s SLIM project manager, referring to US space agency NASA’s crewed moon mission.

The transformable lunar surface robot SORA-Q which is on the Moon Sniper spacecraft [Handout /AFP]

Japan has been actively looking to expand its role in space activities, forging partnerships with the United States, to address the growing military and technological influence of China, extending even into the realm of space.

Only four nations have successfully landed on the moon – India, China, the US and Russia.

Japan is actively participating in NASA’s Artemis programme with the goal of sending one of its astronauts to the moon.

However, JAXA has faced multiple setbacks, including a launch failure in March of the new flagship rocket H3 that was meant to match cost-competitiveness against commercial rocket providers like SpaceX.

In August, India’s Chandrayaan-3 made an historic touchdown on the moon’s south pole, a major technological feat given the rough terrain, highlighting the country’s rise as a major player in space.

JAXA has emphasised that its high-precision technology will become a powerful tool in future exploration of hilly moon poles, seen as a potential source of oxygen, fuel and water. Japan also plans a joint unmanned lunar polar exploration with India in 2025.

The Japanese agency has twice landed on small asteroids, but a moon landing is much more difficult due to its gravity, as seen in a number of recent failures.

Last year, a probe belonging to Japanese startup ispace Inc crashed onto the moon’s surface, and Russia’s Luna 25 followed suit.

A lander from US startup Astrobotic Technology last week suffered a fuel leak, forcing it to abandon a touchdown attempt.

JAXA says it will take up to a month to verify whether SLIM has achieved its high-precision goals after touchdown.

Star Wars-like probe on board

On board Japan’s Moon Sniper spacecraft is a little robot with a big mission: to pop open like a Transformer toy, wiggle across the lunar surface and beam images back to Earth.

The shape-shifting SORA-Q probe – codeveloped by a major toy company – has been compared with a friendly Star Wars droid and a sea turtle because of the way its metal form can navigate the dusty moonscape.

Sora means “universe” in Japanese, while “Q” refers to the words “question” and “quest”, its makers say.

Slightly bigger than a tennis ball and weighing as much as a large potato – eight centimetres (three inches) across and 250 grams (half a pound) – SORA-Q was designed by JAXA with Takara Tomy, the toy company behind the original 1984 Transformers.

If the mission succeeds, the probe’s cameras will take valuable images of a crater where parts of the moon’s mantle, usually hidden deep below its crust, are believed to be exposed.

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Fuel leak on Astrobotic’s moon lander leaves ‘no chance’ of soft landing | Space News

A ‘critical loss of fuel’ dims hope for what had been a planned moon landing on February 23.

Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander has “no chance” of a soft landing on the moon after springing a propellant leak in the first few hours of its journey in space, the company has said.

There was 40 hours of fuel left on the lander that would allow it to operate “as a spacecraft” even as engineers determine what its new mission in orbit will be, the space robotics firm said on Tuesday.

The craft was launched on board the first flight of Vulcan, a rocket that had been under development for a decade by United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

The lander was launched successfully on Monday from Cape Canaveral, Florida, but it suffered a propulsion system issue en route to the moon.

After the launch, the lander failed to enter its correct sun-facing orientation in space and saw its battery levels plummet, but Astrobotic said it was able to fix the issue.

“The team continues to work to find ways to extend Peregrine’s operational life,” it said, adding that engineers are receiving data and proving spaceflight operations for components and software related to its next lunar lander mission.

NASA had paid the company more than $100m to ship scientific hardware to a mid-latitude region of the moon to answer questions about the surface composition and radiation in the surrounding environment, as it prepares to send astronauts back to Earth’s nearest neighbour later this decade.

The United States is turning to the commercial sector to stimulate a broader lunar economy and cut costs, but Astrobotic’s failure could increase scrutiny about the strategy.

Controlled touchdown on the moon is challenging, with roughly half of all attempts failing. In the absence of an atmosphere that would allow the use of parachutes, a spacecraft must navigate treacherous terrain using only its thrusters to slow descent.

Private missions by Israel and Japan, as well as a recent attempt by the Russian space agency, have ended in failure – though Japan’s space agency is targeting mid-January for the touchdown of its SLIM lander launched last September.

In addition to the science instruments it carried for NASA, Peregrine contains more colourful cargo paid for by private customers, such as a physical Bitcoin as well as cremated remains and DNA, including those of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, legendary sci-fi author Arthur C Clarke, and a dog.

The Navajo Nation, the US’s largest Indigenous tribe, had objected to sending human remains to the moon, calling it a desecration of a sacred space.

Though they were granted a last-ditch meeting with White House and NASA officials, their misgivings were ultimately ignored.

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Fighting for Space: The Low Earth Satellite Race | Al Jazeera

People & Power investigates the new satellite space race and its implications for the future.

Space may be infinite, but the Earth’s orbit is not. Since 2019, the number of satellites circling the planet has more than doubled. Companies like Elon Musk’s Starlink, OneWeb, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, and even entities as large as the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) have launched thousands of satellites in hopes of gaining an upper hand in the lucrative market of orbital space around the Earth.

The commercial possibilities of space offer the potential to empower the roughly three billion people who are currently without broadband internet and provide an invaluable tool for researchers. But there is potential peril embedded in the promise. Expanded internet access increases the surveillance capabilities of government and private entities. The military use of satellites has already resulted in sabre-rattling between world powers. Reflected light from satellites could change the way we see the stars in the night sky. And every new satellite increases the chance of a disastrous collision which could set off a chain of events that could render the Earth’s orbit unusable.

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India’s Aditya-L1 sun mission reaches solar orbit | Space News

Launched in September, the solar observation mission will undertake a comprehensive study of the sun.

India’s solar observation mission has entered the sun’s orbit after a four-month journey, the latest success for the space exploration ambitions of the world’s most populous nation.

The Indian Space Research Organisation’s Aditya-L1 mission was launched in September and is carrying an array of instruments to measure and observe the sun’s outermost layers.

“India creates yet another landmark,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a post on X on Saturday. “It is a testament to the relentless dedication of our scientists in realising among the most complex and intricate space missions.”

India’s science and technology minister Jitendra Singh said on social media that the probe had reached its final orbit “to discover the mysteries of Sun-Earth connection”.

The spacecraft has positioned itself at Lagrange Point 1, from where it will undertake a comprehensive study of the sun, focusing on the solar corona and its influence on space weather.

The satellite covered approximately 1.5 million kilometres (930,000 miles) over the span of four months, just a fraction of the Earth-sun distance of 150 million kilometres (93 million miles).

Named after the Hindi word for the sun, this mission follows India’s recent achievement of being the first country to successfully land on the moon’s south pole, with the Chandrayaan-3 mission in August last year.

Scientists involved in the project aim to gain insights into the impact of solar radiation on the increasing number of satellites in orbit, with a particular focus on phenomena affecting ventures like Elon Musk’s Starlink communications network.

“Today’s event was only placing the Aditya-L1 in the precise Halo orbit … A lot of people are interested in understanding this effect. So we look forward to a lot of scientific outcomes in the coming days. At least five years of life is guaranteed with the fuel left out in the satellite,” ISRO Chairman S Somanath told reporters in India.

“We definitely need to know more about the sun, as it controls the space weather,” Manish Purohit, a former ISRO scientist, told the Reuters news agency. The low earth orbit is going to get “super” crowded over the coming years, he added.

ISRO has been sharing regular updates of the mission through posts on X, since the solar landing.

The United States and the European Space Agency have sent numerous probes to the centre of the solar system, beginning with NASA’s Pioneer programme in the 1960s.

Japan and China have both launched their own solar observatory missions into Earth’s orbit.

But the latest mission by the ISRO is the first by any Asian nation to be placed in orbit around the sun.



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ISRO’s Aditya-L1 Solar Mission Reaches Destination Within Four-Month Timeframe

The Indian Space Research Organisation’s inaugural solar mission, Aditya-L1, has reached its destination within the anticipated four-month timeframe, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday.

Launched on September 2 last year, the spacecraft positioned itself at Lagrange Point 1, from where it will undertake a comprehensive study of the Sun, focusing on the solar corona and its influence on space weather.

“India creates yet another landmark. It is a testament to the relentless dedication of our scientists in realising among the most complex and intricate space missions,” Modi said in a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

The satellite covered approximately 1.5 million km (930,000mi) over the span of four months, just a fraction of the Earth-Sun distance of 150 million km.

The Lagrange Point, where the satellite is stationed, benefits from gravitational forces that allow objects to remain relatively stationary, reducing fuel consumption for the spacecraft.

Equipped with seven payloads, Aditya-L1 is slated to conduct remote sensing of the Sun and in-situ observations for an estimated five years.

Named after the Hindi word for the Sun, this mission follows ISRO’s recent achievement of being the first country to successfully land on the Moon’s south pole, surpassing Russia’s failed Luna-25 with the Chandrayaan-3 mission. Chandrayaan-3 landed on the unexplored south pole of the Moon in August last year.

Scientists involved in the project aim to gain insights into the impact of solar radiation on the increasing number of satellites in orbit, with a particular focus on phenomena affecting ventures like Elon Musk’s Starlink communications network.

“We definitely need to know more about the Sun, as it controls the space weather,” said Manish Purohit, a former ISRO scientist.

The low earth orbit is going to get “super” crowded over the coming years, said Purohit.

“Satellites are going to become the main stay of all tech on Earth with Quantum implemented, with internet connectivity, disaster warning system, resource utilisation and many more applications,” said Purohit.

Stationing a spacecraft at L1 acts as an early warning system, with roughly one hour advantage, for an upcoming storm from the Sun, he said.

The mission to study the Sun is among a slate of projects ISRO has lined up through the year, key among them its first human space mission and a low-Earth orbit observatory system jointly developed by NASA and ISRO, called NISAR.

NISAR will map the entire planet once every 12 days, providing data for understanding changes in ecosystems, ice mass, vegetation biomass, sea level rise, ground water and natural hazards including earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes and landslides.

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Dazzling fireball meteor lights up sky over Europe

An unusually bright meteor known as a fireball was spotted over Europe on Saturday, with more than a hundred reports of the colorful shooting star over parts of the United Kingdom and France. 

A video recorded at 2:07 a.m. in Birmingham, England, showed a flash of blue light as a bright meteor screamed across the night sky. 

According to the International Meteor Organization (IMO), more than 100 reports of a fireball came in Saturday around the same time from areas across England, Scotland, Wales and France. 

More than a dozen videos shared with IMO captured the flash in the sky. Witnesses described the meteor as “beautiful and bright” and some witnesses noted it had a green color. The color changes can be caused by the different metals found in metallic meteors burning up as they interact with Earth’s atmosphere.

One meteor spotter said the flash of light was so bright it was as if it was “daytime,” according to the IMO witness report. 

“I have been looking at the night sky for many years hoping to see something like this, what a sight to behold,” another witness near London wrote.

According to NASA, a fireball is an “unusually bright meteor” that reaches a visual magnitude of 3 or brighter by the observer.

Fireball events can exceed one meter in size, and fireballs that explode in the atmosphere are called bolides.


A video recorded at 2:07 a.m. in Birmingham, England, showed a flash of blue light as a bright meteor screamed across the night sky.  X/@JohnStew82 via REUTERS

One meteor spotter said the flash of light was so bright it was as if it was “daytime,” according to the IMO witness report.  Matt Cooper via Storyful

The Quadrantids meteor shower is ongoing, with peak activity on Jan. 4.

According to the American Meteor Society, the Quadrantids have the potential to be the strongest meteor shower of the year, but poor weather usually thwarts viewing. 

Other annual meteor showers have one or two-day peak activity, but the Quadrantids’ peak happens over a few hours with up to 120 meteors per hour, according to NASA.

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US military launches robot spaceplane on seventh mission | Space News

The delayed launch on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket came two weeks after China launched its Shenlong space plane.

The US military’s secretive X-37B robotic spaceplane has taken off from Florida on its seventh mission.

The mission marks the first time the plane has been launched on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket capable of delivering it into a higher orbit than ever before.

The Falcon Heavy, made up of three rocket cores strapped together, roared off its launch pad from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday in a spectacular nighttime lift-off that was streamed live.

The US launch comes two weeks after China’s own robot spaceplane, known as the Shenlong, or Divine Dragon, was launched on its third mission into orbit since 2020, adding a new twist to the two countries’ growing rivalry in space.

The Pentagon has disclosed few details about the X-37B mission, which is expected to last for years and is being conducted by the US Space Force under the military’s National Security Space Launch programme.

The Boeing-built aircraft, which is about nine metres (29 feet) long and resembles a mini space shuttle, is unmanned and carries various experiments.

Its first mission was in 2010, and the most recent in May 2020, with those flights confined to low-Earth orbit, at altitudes below 2,000km (1,200 miles).

The Pentagon has not said how high the plane will fly during this mission, but in a statement last month, the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office said it would involve tests of “new orbital regimes, experimenting with future space domain awareness technologies”.

The X-37B is also carrying out an experiment to study how plant seeds are affected by prolonged exposure to the harsh environment of radiation in space.

China’s equally secretive Shenlong was launched on December 14 by a Long March 2F rocket.

Space Force General B Chance Saltzman told reporters at an industry conference earlier this month that it was probably “no coincidence” that the launches had taken place so close together.

“It’s no surprise that the Chinese are extremely interested in our spaceplane. We’re extremely interested in theirs,” Saltzman said, according to remarks published in Air & Space Forces Magazine, a US aerospace journal.

“These are two of the most watched objects on orbit while they’re on orbit. It’s probably no coincidence that they’re trying to match us in timing and sequence of this,” he said.

The planned duration of the latest X-37B mission has not been made public, but it will presumably run until June 2026 or later, given the prevailing pattern of successively longer flights.

The last flight, the longest one yet, lasted for two and a half years before touching down on the runway at the Kennedy Space Center in November last year.

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Winter solstice: The longest night of the year and the start of winter | Weather News

Winter solstice 2023 will mark the day with the fewest sunlight hours and coincides with the Ursid meteor shower.

After weeks of dwindling daylight, Friday marks the longest night of the year and the day with the fewest light of the year. The event is known as winter solstice as it marks the start of winter in the northern hemisphere.

The event will also be a turning point for longer hours of daylight in the northern hemisphere, a phenomenon that has been tied to various cultural and folkloric beliefs in ancient times.

Here’s what to know about the 2023 winter solstice and how it is celebrated in different communities.

What is winter solstice and what happens during it?

December’s winter solstice is when the northern half of the Earth is tilted furthest away from the sun, making it the “astronomical” first day of winter.

The northern hemisphere will experience the fewest hours of sunlight, making it the shortest day of the year while the night is the longest.

The duration of daylight will vary across countries. In the United Kingdom’s London, the day is expected to last seven hours and 49 minutes, more than eight hours shorter than the longest day of the year.

The event will also coincide with the peak of the Ursid meteor shower – an annual display that occurs over the northern hemisphere when the Earth passes through debris left by the comet 8P/Tuttle.

Every day after the winter solstice will grow longer in the northern hemisphere until its summer solstice, or the longest day of the year, between June 20 and 22.

Solstice comes from a Latin word translating to “sun stands still”.

When is the winter solstice?

This shortest day of the year will occur on December 22, while the exact moment of the solstice will occur at 03:27 GMT – at this point, the Earth’s axis will be furthest from the sun.

This shift in axial tilts as the Earth orbits around the sun allows the world to experience varying degrees of sunlight on different days. Otherwise, the sun would remain directly above the equator and shed the same amount of light on the Earth throughout the year.

(Al Jazeera)

Is it also the summer solstice in the southern hemisphere?

The summer solstice in the southern hemisphere occurs at the same time as the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere.

Seasons of the northern and southern hemispheres are reversed, so countries such as Brazil and New Zealand will be experiencing the longest day of the year.

The winter solstice in the northern hemisphere can occur between December 20 to 23 but often falls on December 21 or 22.

The last time it occurred on December 23 was in 1903, while its next appearance on that date will be in 2303.

Three interesting facts about winter solstice

  • Although the solstice is said to mark the astronomical start of winter, the winter season or its meteorological first day occurs on a different date and is based on temperature records.
  • Standing outside at noon on December 22 will cast the longest shadow of the entire year.
  • At the moment of the winter solstice, the sun appears directly over the Tropic of Capricorn, which is located 23 degrees south of the equator.

What is winter solstice celebrated for?

Several cultures celebrate the winter solstice in different ways which tends to be rooted in almost supernatural or folkloric significance of the day in ancient times. Today, we understand the event in more scientific terms but people continue to enjoy old traditions.

For ancient people, the gradual increase in daylight hours after winter solstice marked a time of rebirth.

People in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden hold a multiday feast to celebrate Juul, or Yule, when ancient people would welcome the return of the Sun God. Scandinavians burn a Yule log to honour the God Thor, who was tasked with returning the sun’s warmth.

In Finnish myth, the waning daylight in the lead-up to the winter solstice is caused by a powerful and evil witch that holds the sun and the moon captive inside a mountain.

For people in Iran, winter solstice or the “Yalda festival” marks the day when Mithra, an angel of light, was thought to have been born.

In China, winter solstice is the “Dongzhi festival” when winter’s darkness begins to give way to light. Families eat special foods such as rice balls called tang yuan.

In the United Kingdom, people visit Stonehenge to catch the rays of the sunrise as they fall between the stones.

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