Thiruvananthapuram: Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a historic announcement on Tuesday, revealing the names of the four astronauts who are currently undergoing rigorous training for India’s first-ever human space flight mission, Gaganyaan. Addressing the audience at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) at Thumba near here, the Prime Minister introduced to the nation the esteemed astronauts: … Read more
The first private spacecraft to softly land on the moon carries a Canadian instrument that will test the possibility of building an observatory at the Lunar south pole. The phone booth-sized lander by Intuitive Machines, named Odysseus, launched on Feb. 15 and touched down on Thursday near a small impact crater about 300 kilometers from the moon’s south … Read more
The moon’s newest arrival, a privately owned vessel not carrying people, was said to be “alive and well” a day after making the first U.S. landing in half a century, but flight controllers were still trying to get a better handle on its bearings. Intuitive Machines reported Friday that it’s communicating with its lander, Odysseus, … Read more
A private lander touched down on the moon Thursday but managed just a weak signal back, as flight controllers scrambled to gain better contact with the first U.S. spacecraft to reach the lunar surface in more than 50 years. Tension mounted in the company’s command centre in Houston, as controllers awaited a signal from the spacecraft … Read more
For two decades, Tamara Franz-Odendaal has been studying how space travel affects the human skeleton. Because of the absence of gravity in space, astronauts experience bone loss when they get back to Earth. “We always think of it as just the scaffold that kind of keeps the body together, but it’s a really dynamic tissue,” … Read more
Daniel Dolomont, Muneeb Azher, Victoria Vaters and C-CORE vice-president of remote sensing Desmond Power are just a few members of the big team behind the Killick-1 cube satellite. (Submitted by Memorial University) A team of students at Memorial University is counting down to blast-off. The group of engineers designed and built their own satellite, with a plan … Read more
Gabriela Cowperthwaite is the first to admit her new film, I.S.S., is out of step with her career to date. The director of Blackfish (a documentary about the cruel treatment of orcas in captivity, Children of the Underground (about a covert network built to smuggle families away from abusive partners) and Our Friend (a true story of … Read more
This year, outer space is going to be a busy place. We’ve got the launch of the Europa Clipper, which will orbit one of Jupiter’s enigmatic moons and investigate whether it could harbour conditions suitable for life; we could cheer on the first Canadian to orbit the moon; and we’re getting a total solar eclipse that … Read more
Thirty years ago, an 11-day space shuttle mission involving seven veteran astronauts performed the first servicing mission to correct the Hubble Space Telescope’s blurred vision. The unprecedented flight involved five spacewalks and would not have been possible without the assistance of the shuttle’s robotic Canadarm. The multi-billion dollar Hubble Space Telescope was a crown jewel … Read more
