Search results for "low earth orbit"

Japan’s New Rocket Fails after Engine Issue, in Blow to Space Ambitions

Japan’s new medium-lift rocket failed on its debut flight in space on Tuesday after the launcher’s second-stage engine did not ignite as planned, in a blow to its efforts to cut the cost of accessing space and compete against Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The 57-metre (187 ft) tall H3 rocket, Japan’s first new model in three […]

SpaceX Launches Latest Space Station Crew to Orbit for NASA

Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX launched a four-man crew to orbit en route to the International Space Station early on Thursday, with a Russian cosmonaut and United Arab Emirates astronaut joining two NASA crewmates for the flight. The SpaceX launch vehicle, consisting of a Falcon 9 rocket topped with an autonomously operated Crew Dragon capsule […]

Chinese Astronauts Land on Earth After China's Longest Crewed Space Mission

Three Chinese astronauts returned to earth on Saturday after 183 days in space, state television reported, completing the country’s longest crewed space mission to date. The astronauts landed nine hours after they left a key module of China’s first space station. While in orbit, the Shenzhou-13 mission astronauts took manual control in the Tianhe living […]

US-European ocean monitoring satellite launches into orbit

A U.S.-European satellite designed to extend a decades-long measurement of global sea surface heights was launched into Earth orbit from California on Saturday. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the satellite blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base at 9:17 a.m. and arced southward over the Pacific Ocean. The Falcon’s first stage flew back to […]