Following the Gemini XII splashdown on Nov. 15, 1966, astronauts Buzz Aldrin, left, and Jim Lovell are welcomed aboard the recovery aircraft carrier, USS Wasp, concluding their four-day mission. Gemini XII was the final flight of the Gemini program, a bridge between the Mercury and Apollo programs. To source
Just weeks before Sentinel-2B is packed up and sent to French Guiana for its launch next March, media representatives and specialists got one last look at the second satellite for Europe’s Copernicus programme. To source
<div data-cycle-pager-template=”” readability=”35″> Artist’s Impression of Gaia Credit: ESA/D. Ducros The European Space Agency’s Gaia spacecraft will create a three-dimensional map of the Milky Way, revealing information about its composition, formation and evolution. The mission will measure the position for about one billion stars in our galaxy and local group, with radial velocity measurements for […]
See the launch of Galileo satellites 15–18 on Thursday 17 November. Streaming starts at 12:36 GMT (13:36 CET) To source
ESA’s Ministerial Council 2016 is being held in Lucerne, Switzerland, 1 and 2 December To source
Human spaceflight and robotic exploration image of the week: Soyuz rocket ready to launch ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet to the Space Station To source
The joint NASA/ESA’s Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) aims to slam an impactor into an asteroid in 2022 to test deflection technologies. BERLIN — If a large asteroid were headed for a direct hit with Earth, humanity probably couldn’t count on Bruce Willis and a nuclear bomb to save the world from certain doom, […]
Getting the first humans to Mars will be exciting, challenging and risky, and will probably involve the private spaceflight company SpaceX — at least, that seems to be the thesis of the debut episode of the new National Geographic TV series “Mars.” The new show, which debuted last night (Nov. 14), has a unique format […]
The prospect of aliens visiting Earth has been percolating through human thought for decades, thanks to countless sci-fi books and movies, such as the newly released film “Arrival .” But it’s still not clear how we would deal with the real thing. Astronomers have drawn up a series of recommended actions to be taken after […]
A Leonid meteor streaks over a New Jersey house in this amazing image by astrophotographer Jeffrey Berkes. The 2016 Leonid meteor shower will peak overnight on Nov. 16 and 17, 2016. This week, one of the most famous of the annual meteor displays is due to reach its peak: the Leonid meteor shower . According […]
NASA hopes a final 2017 appropriations bill will not include a prohibition on funding the Asteroid Redirect Mission featured in a House bill. WASHINGTON — Nearly a week after Donald Trump was elected president, his campaign has yet to send a team to NASA to prepare for the upcoming transition in administrations, an agency official […]
“MARS,” a six-part miniseries premiering on National Geographic Channel, combines feature film-quality scripted drama and visual effects with documentary sequences to tell the story of humanity’s quest to colonize Mars. Humanity is still years away from landing on Mars, but the first documentary to look back at that achievement is already complete. The six-part television […]
The moon, or supermoon, is seen rising behind the Soyuz rocket at the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch pad in Kazakhstan, Monday, Nov. 14, 2016. NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos, and ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome to the International Space Station at 3:20 p.m. EST Nov. 17. […]