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Tag: Space launches

  • NASA moves its Artemis II moon rocket off launch pad for more repairs

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA moved its grounded Artemis moon rocket from the launch pad back to its hangar Wednesday for more repairs.

    The slow-motion trek at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center was expected to take all day. The 322-foot (98-meter) Space Launch System rocket had spent a month at the pad ready for potential liftoff, but encountered a series of problems serious enough to require a return to the Vehicle Assembly Building, about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) away.

    Managers ordered the rollback over the weekend after the rocket’s helium pressurization system malfunctioned. Already delayed a month by hydrogen fuel leaks, the launch team had been targeting March for astronauts’ first trip to the moon in decades. But now the Artemis II lunar fly-around by a U.S.-Canadian crew is off until at least April.

    All four astronauts were at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday night for President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address as invited guests, since the flight delay means they no longer need to quarantine.

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  • NASA targets March for Artemis moon mission after fueling test success

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA aims to send astronauts to the moon in March after acing the latest rocket fueling test.

    Administrator Jared Isaacman said Friday that launch teams made “major progress” between the first countdown rehearsal, which was disrupted by hydrogen leaks earlier this month, and the second test, which was completed without significant seepage Thursday night.

    The test was “a big step toward America’s return to the lunar environment,” Isaacman said on the social media platform X.

    NASA could launch four astronauts on the Artemis II lunar fly-around as soon as March 6 from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. To keep their options open, the three Americans and one Canadian plan to go into the mandatory two-week health quarantine Friday night.

    The space agency has only five days in March to launch the crew aboard the Space Launch System rocket, before standing down until April. February’s opportunities evaporated after dangerous amounts of liquid hydrogen leaked during the first fueling demonstration.

    Technicians replaced two seals, leading to Thursday’s successful rerun. The countdown clocks went all the way down to the desired 29-second mark.

    The fixes worked, but there’s still pending work including conducting a flight readiness review, said NASA’s Lori Glaze.

    Commander Reid Wiseman and two of his crew monitored Thursday’s operation alongside launch controllers. The astronauts will be the first to fly to the moon since Apollo 17 closed out NASA’s first chapter in moon exploration in 1972.

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  • NASA conducts 2nd rocket fueling test that decides when astronauts head to moon

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA took another crack at fueling its giant moon rocket Thursday after leaks halted the initial dress rehearsal and delayed the first lunar trip by astronauts in more than half a century.

    For the second time this month, launch teams began pumping more than 700,000 gallons (2.6 million liters) of supercold fuel into the rocket atop its launch pad.

    It’s the most critical and challenging part of the two-day practice countdown. The outcome will determine whether a March launch is possible for the Artemis II moon mission with four astronauts.

    During the rehearsal two weeks ago, dangerous amounts of supercold liquid hydrogen escaped from the connections between the pad and the 322-foot (98-meter) Space Launch System rocket. Engineers replaced a pair of seals and a clogged filter in hopes of getting through the repeat test at Kennedy Space Center.

    NASA won’t set a launch date for the Artemis II mission until it passes the fueling demonstration. Like last time, the crew — three Americans and one Canadian — watched the test from afar.

    The soonest astronauts could soar is March 6. They will become the first people to fly to the moon — making a 10-day out-and-back trip with no stops — since Apollo 17 in 1972. They won’t orbit or land.

    NASA has been battling hydrogen fuel leaks ever since the space shuttle era, which provided many of the SLS engines. The first Artemis test flight without anyone on board was grounded for months by leaking hydrogen before finally blasting off in November 2022.

    Going years between flights exacerbates the problem, according to NASA’s new administrator Jared Isaacman, a tech entrepreneur who financed his own trips to orbit through SpaceX.

    Just two months into the job, Isaacman already is promising to redesign the fuel connections between the rocket and pad before the next Artemis III launch. Still a few years away, that mission will attempt to land two astronauts near the moon’s south pole.

    “We will not launch unless we are ready and the safety of our astronauts will remain the highest priority,” he said last week on X.

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  • Four new astronauts arrive at the ISS to replace NASA’s evacuated crew

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The International Space Station returned to full strength with Saturday’s arrival of four new astronauts to replace colleagues who bailed early because of health concerns.

    SpaceX delivered the U.S., French and Russian astronauts a day after launching them from Cape Canaveral.

    Last month’s medical evacuation was NASA’s first in 65 years of human spaceflight. One of four astronauts launched by SpaceX last summer suffered what officials described as a serious health issue, prompting their hasty return. That left only three crew members to keep the place running — one American and two Russians — prompting NASA to pause spacewalks and trim research.

    Moving in for eight to nine months are NASA’s Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, France’s Sophie Adenot and Russia’s Andrei Fedyaev. Meir, a marine biologist, and Fedyaev, a former military pilot, have lived up there before. During her first station visit in 2019, Meir took part in the first all-female spacewalk.

    Adenot, a military helicopter pilot, is only the second French woman to fly in space. Hathaway is a captain in the U.S. Navy.

    NASA has refused to divulge the identity of the astronaut who fell ill in orbit on Jan. 7 or explain what happened, citing medical privacy. The ailing astronaut and three others returned to Earth more than a month sooner than planned. They spent their first night back on Earth at the hospital before returning to Houston.

    The space agency said it did not alter its preflight medical checks for their replacements.

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  • New astronauts launch to the International Space Station after medical evacuation

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A new crew rocketed toward the International Space Station on Friday to replace the astronauts who returned to Earth early in NASA’s first medical evacuation.

    SpaceX launched the replacements as soon as possible at NASA’s request, sending the U.S., French and Russian astronauts on an expected eight- to nine-month mission stretching until fall. The four should arrive at the orbiting lab Saturday, filling the vacancies left by their evacuated colleagues last month and bringing the space station back to full staff.

    “It turns out Friday the 13th is a very lucky day,” SpaceX Launch Control radioed once the astronauts reached orbit. “That was quite a ride,” replied the crew’s commander, Jessica Meir.

    NASA had to put spacewalks on hold and deferred other duties while awaiting the arrival of Americans Meir and Jack Hathaway, France’s Sophie Adenot and Russia’s Andrei Fedyaev. They’ll join three other astronauts — one American and two Russians — who kept the space station running the past month.

    Satisfied with medical procedures already in place, NASA ordered no extra checkups for the crew ahead of liftoff and no new diagnostic equipment was packed. An ultrasound machine already up there for research went into overdrive Jan. 7 when used on the ailing crew member. NASA has not revealed the ill astronaut’s identity or health issue. All four returning astronauts went straight to the hospital after splashing down in the Pacific near San Diego.

    It was the first time in 65 years of human spaceflight that NASA cut short a mission for medical reasons.

    With missions becoming longer, NASA is constantly looking at upgrades to the space station’s medical gear, said deputy program manager Dina Contella. “But there are a lot of things that are just not practical and so that’s when you need to bring astronauts home from space,” she said earlier this week.

    In preparation for moon and Mars trips where health care will be even more challenging, the new arrivals will test a filter designed to turn drinking water into emergency IV fluid, try out an ultrasound system that relies on artificial intelligence and augmented reality instead of experts on the ground, and perform ultrasound scans on their jugular veins in a blood clot study.

    They also will demonstrate their moon-landing skills in a simulated test drawing extra attention because of the impending launch of four astronauts to the moon on Artemis II, humanity’s first lunar voyage in more than half a century.

    Adenot is only the second French woman to launch to space. She was 14 when Claudie Haignere flew to Russia’s space station Mir in 1996, inspiring her to become an astronaut. Haignere cheered her on from the Florida launch site, wishing her “Bon vol,” French for “Have a good flight,” and “Ad astra,” Latin for “To the stars.”

    Hathaway, like Adenot, is new to space, while Meir and Fedyaev are making their second station trip. On her first mission in 2019, Meir took part in the first all-female spacewalk. The other half of that spacewalk, Christina Koch, is among the four Artemis II astronauts waiting to fly around the moon as early as March. A ship-to-ship radio linkup is planned between the two crews.

    Meir wasn’t sure astronauts would return to the moon during her career. “Now we’re right here on the precipice of the Artemis II mission,” she said ahead of liftoff. “The fact that they will be in space at the same time as us … it’s so cool to be an astronaut now, it’s so exciting.”

    SpaceX launched the latest crew from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Elon Musk’s company is preparing its neighboring Kennedy Space Center launch pad for the supersized Starships, which NASA needs to land astronauts on the moon.

    NASA’s new administrator Jared Isaacman said following Friday’s liftoff that testing continues at the Artemis pad, where the Space Launch System moon rocket awaits liftoff. A practice fueling last week unleashed hydrogen fuel leaks. Two seals have since been replaced and a mini fueling conducted.

    Isaacman stressed that no launch date will be set until additional fueling tests — potentially a series of them — are completed. The earliest that Artemis II could launch is March 3, he noted.

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  • NASA fuels moon rocket in crucial test to decide when Artemis astronauts will launch

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA fueled its new moon rocket in one final make-or-break test Monday, with hopes of sending astronauts on a lunar fly-around as soon as this coming weekend.

    The launch team began loading the 322-foot (98-meter) rocket with super-cold hydrogen and oxygen at Kennedy Space Center late at midday. More than 700,000 gallons (2.6 million liters) had to flow into the tanks and remain on board for several hours, mimicking the final stages of an actual countdown.

    The only thing missing from the critical dress rehearsal was the crew. The three Americans and one Canadian monitored the action from nearly 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) away in Houston, home to Johnson Space Center. They have been in quarantine for the past 1½ weeks, awaiting the practice countdown’s outcome.

    The all-day operation will determine when they can blast off on the first lunar voyage by a crew in more than half a century.

    Running two days behind because of a bitter cold snap, NASA set its countdown clocks to stop a half-minute before reaching zero, just before engine ignition. The clocks began ticking Saturday night, giving launch controllers the chance to go through all the motions and deal with any lingering problems with the Space Launch System rocket. Hydrogen leaks kept the first SLS rocket on the pad for months in 2022. Launch managers said they’re confident the issues are behind them.

    If the fueling demo goes well, NASA could launch commander Reid Wiseman and his crew to the moon as soon as Sunday. The rocket must be flying by Feb. 11 or the mission will be called off until March. The space agency only has a few days in any given month to launch the rocket, and the extreme cold already has shortened February’s launch window by two days.

    The nearly 10-day mission will send the astronauts past the moon, around the mysterious far side and then straight back to Earth, with the goal of testing the capsule’s life support and other vital systems. The crew will not go into lunar orbit or attempt to land.

    NASA last sent astronauts to the moon during the 1960s and 1970s Apollo program. The new Artemis program aims for a more sustained lunar presence, with Wiseman’s crew setting the stage for future moon landings by other astronauts.

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  • NASA begins practice countdown for first moonshot with astronauts in over 50 years

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA began a two-day practice countdown Saturday leading up to the fueling of its new moon rocket, a crucial test that will determine when four astronauts blast off on a lunar flyby.

    Already in quarantine to avoid germs, Commander Reid Wiseman and his crew will be the first people to launch to the moon since 1972. They will monitor the dress rehearsal from their Houston base before flying to Kennedy Space Center once the rocket is cleared for flight.

    The 322-foot (98-meter) Space Launch System rocket moved out to the pad two weeks ago. If Monday’s fueling test goes well, NASA could try to launch within a week. Teams will fill the rocket’s tank with more than 700,000 gallons of super-cold fuel, stopping a half-minute short of when the engines would light.

    A bitter cold spell delayed the fueling demo, and the launch, by two days. Feb. 8 is now the earliest the rocket could blast off.

    Riding in the Orion capsule on top of the rocket, the U.S. and Canadian astronauts will hurtle around the moon and then straight back without stopping until splashdown in the Pacific. The mission will last nearly 10 days.

    NASA sent 24 astronauts to the moon during the Apollo program, from 1968 to 1972. Twelve of them walked on the surface.

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  • Astronaut who was stuck on space station for months retires within year of returning

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s Suni Williams — one of two astronauts stuck for months at the International Space Station — has retired.

    The space agency announced the news Tuesday, saying her retirement took effect at the end of December.

    Williams’ crewmate on Boeing’s ill-fated capsule test flight, Butch Wilmore, left NASA last summer.

    The pair launched to the space station in 2024, the first people to fly Boeing’s new Starliner crew capsule. Their mission should have lasted just a week, but stretched to more than nine months because of Starliner trouble. In the end, they caught a ride home last March with SpaceX.

    Boeing’s next Starliner mission will carry cargo — not people — to the space station. NASA wants to make sure all of the capsule’s thruster and other issues are solved before putting anyone on board. The trial run will take place later this year.

    Williams, 60, a former Navy captain, spent more than 27 years at NASA, logging 608 days in space over three station missions. She also set a record for the most spacewalking time by a woman: 62 hours during nine excursions.

    NASA’s new administrator Jared Isaacman called her “a trailblazer in human spaceflight.”

    “Congratulations on your well-deserved retirement,” he added in a statement.

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  • NASA’s new moon rocket heads to pad ahead of astronaut launch as early as February

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s giant new moon rocket headed to the launch pad Saturday in preparation for astronauts’ first lunar fly-around in more than half a century.

    The out-and-back trip could blast off as early as February.

    The 322-foot (98-meter) rocket began its 1 mph (1.6 kph) creep from Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building at daybreak. The four-mile (six-kilometer) trek could take until nightfall.

    Thousands of space center workers and their families gathered in the predawn chill to witness the long-awaited event, delayed for years. They huddled together ahead of the Space Launch System rocket’s exit from the building, built in the 1960s to accommodate the Saturn V rockets that sent 24 astronauts to the moon during the Apollo program. The cheering crowd was led by NASA’s new administrator Jared Isaacman and all four astronauts assigned to the mission.

    “What a great day to be here,” said Reid Wiseman, the crew commander. “It is awe-inspiring.”

    Weighing in at 11 million pounds (5 million kilograms), the Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule on top made the move aboard a massive transporter that was used during the Apollo and shuttle eras. It was upgraded for the SLS rocket’s extra heft.

    The first and only other SLS launch — which sent an empty Orion capsule into orbit around the moon — took place back in November 2022.

    “This one feels a lot different, putting crew on the rocket and taking the crew around the moon,” NASA’s John Honeycutt said on the eve of the rocket’s rollout.

    Heat shield damage and other capsule problems during the initial test flight required extensive analyses and tests, pushing back this first crew moonshot until now. The astronauts won’t orbit the moon or even land on it. That giant leap will take come on the third flight in the Artemis lineup a few years from now.

    Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and Christina Koch — longtime NASA astronauts with spaceflight experience — will be joined on the 10-day mission by Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, a former fighter pilot awaiting his first rocket ride.

    They will be the first people to fly to the moon since Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt closed out the triumphant lunar-landing program in 1972. Twelve astronauts strolled the lunar surface, beginning with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969. Only four moonwalkers are still alive; Aldrin, the oldest, turns 96 on Tuesday.

    “They are so fired up that we are headed back to the moon,” Wiseman said. “They just want to see humans as far away from Earth as possible discovering the unknown.”

    NASA is waiting to conduct a fueling test of the SLS rocket on the pad in early February before confirming a launch date.

    “We’ve, I think, zero intention of communicating an actual launch date” until completing the fueling demo, Isaacman told reporters.

    The space agency has only five days to launch in the first half of February before bumping into March.

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  • The moon and sun figure big in the new year’s lineup of cosmic wonders

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The moon and sun share top billing in 2026.

    Kicking off the year’s cosmic wonders is the moon, drawing the first astronauts to visit in more than 50 years as well as a caravan of robotic lunar landers including Jeff Bezos’ new supersized Blue Moon. A supermoon looms on Jan. 3 and an astronomical blue moon is on the books for May.

    The sun will also generate buzz with a ring-of-fire eclipse at the bottom of the world in February and a total solar eclipse at the top of the world in August. Expect more auroras in unexpected places, though perhaps not as frequently as the past couple years.

    And that comet that strayed into our turf from another star? While still visible with powerful backyard telescopes, the recently discovered comet known as 3I/Atlas is fading by the day after swinging past Earth in December. Jupiter is next on its dance card in March. Once the icy outsider departs our solar system a decade from now, it will be back where it belongs in interstellar space.

    It’s our third known interstellar visitor. Scientists anticipate more.

    “I can’t believe it’s taken this long to find three,” said NASA’s Paul Chodas, who’s been on the lookout since the 1980s. And with ever better technology, “the chance of catching another interstellar visitor will increase.”

    Here’s a rundown on what the universe has in store for us in 2026:

    NASA’s upcoming moonshot commander Reid Wiseman said there’s a good chance he and his crew will be the first to lay eyeballs on large swaths of the lunar far side that were missed by the Apollo astronauts a half-century ago. Their observations could be a boon for geologists, he noted, and other experts picking future landing sites.

    Launching early in the year, the three Americans and one Canadian will zip past the moon, do a U-turn behind it, then hustle straight back to Earth to close out their 10-day mission. No stopping for a moonwalk — the boot prints will be left by the next crew in NASA’s Artemis lunar exploration program.

    More robotic moon landings are on the books by China as well as U.S. companies. Early in the year, Amazon founder Bezos is looking for his Blue Origin rocket company to launch a prototype of the lunar lander it’s designing for NASA’s astronauts. This Blue Moon demo will stand 26 feet (8 meters), taller than what delivered Apollo’s 12 moonwalkers to the lunar surface. The Blue Moon version for crew will be almost double that height.

    Back for another stab at the moon, Astrobotic Technology and Intuitive Machines are also targeting 2026 landings with scientific gear. The only private entity to nail a lunar landing, Firefly Aerospace, will aim for the moon’s far side in 2026.

    China is targeting the south polar region in the new year, sending a rover as well as a so-called hopper to jump into permanently shadowed craters in search of ice.

    The cosmos pulls out all the stops with a total solar eclipse on Aug. 12 that will begin in the Arctic and cross over Greenland, Iceland and Spain. Totality will last two minutes and 18 seconds as the moon moves directly between Earth and the sun to blot out the latter. By contrast, the total solar eclipse in 2027 will offer a whopping 6 1/2 minutes of totality and pass over more countries.

    For 2026, the warm-up act will be a ring-of-fire eclipse in the Antarctic on Feb. 17, with only a few research stations in prime viewing position. South Africa and southernmost Chile and Argentina will have partial viewing. A total lunar eclipse will follow two weeks after February’s ring of fire, with a partial lunar eclipse closing out the action at the end of August.

    Six of the solar system’s eight planets will prance across the sky in a must-see lineup around Feb. 28. A nearly full moon is even getting into the act, appearing alongside Jupiter. Uranus and Neptune will require binoculars or telescopes. But Mercury, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn should be visible with the naked eye shortly after sunset, weather permitting, though Mercury and Venus will be low on the horizon.

    Mars will be the lone no-show. The good news is that the red planet will join a six-planet parade in August, with Venus the holdout.

    Three supermoons will lighten up the night skies in 2026, the stunning result when a full moon inches closer to Earth than usual as it orbits in a not-quite-perfect circle. Appearing bigger and brighter, supermoons are a perennial crowd pleaser requiring no equipment, only your eyes.

    The year’s first supermoon in January coincides with a meteor shower, but the moonlight likely will obscure the dimmer fireballs. The second supermoon of 2026 won’t occur until Nov. 24, with the third — the year’s final and closest supermoon — occurring the night of Dec. 23 into Dec. 24. This Christmas Eve supermoon will pass within 221,668 miles (356,740 kilometers) of Earth.

    The sun is expected to churn out more eruptions in 2026 that could lead to geomagnetic storms here on Earth, giving rise to stunning aurora. Solar action should start to ease, however, with the 11-year solar cycle finally on the downslide.

    Space weather forecasters like Rob Steenburgh at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration can’t wait to tap into all the solar wind measurements coming soon from an observatory launched in the fall.

    “2026 will be an exciting year for space weather enthusiasts,” he said in an email, with this new spacecraft and others helping scientists “better understand our nearest star and forecast its impacts.”

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  • Japan’s new flagship H3 rocket fails to put geolocation satellite into orbit

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    TOKYO — Japan’s space agency said its H3 rocket carrying a navigation satellite failed to put the payload into a planned orbit, a setback for the country’s new flagship rocket and its space launch program.

    Monday’s failure is the second for Japan’s new flagship rocket after its botched 2023 debut flight and six successful flights.

    The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said the H3 rocket carrying the Michibiki 5 satellite took off from the Tanegashima Space Center on a southwestern Japanese island Monday as part of Japan’s plans to have a more precise location positioning system of its own.

    The rocket’s second-stage engine burn unexpectedly had a premature cutoff and a subsequent separation of the satellite from the rocket could not be confirmed, Masashi Okada, a JAXA executive and launch director, told a news conference.

    Whether the satellite was released into space or where it ended up is unknown, and that JAXA is investigating the data to determine the cause and other details, Okada said.

    Jun Kondo, an official at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, told reporters that the failure was “extremely regrettable” and that the government set up a task force to investigate the cause and take necessary measures as soon as possible to “regain credibility.”

    Monday’s failure is a setback for Japan’s new flagship that replaced the earlier mainstay H-2A which had near-perfect success record. It also delays Japan’s satellite launch plans, including one to have a more independent geolocation system for smartphones, maritime navigation and drones without relying on the U.S. GPS system.

    The H3 rocket is designed to be more cost-competitive in the global space market. Japan sees a stable, commercially competitive space transport capability as key to its space program and national security.

    JAXA’s H3 project manager, Makoto Arita, said the new flagship is still in the early stages of operation but can be globally competitive. “We will pull ourselves together so that we won’t fall behind rivals. We’ll fully investigate the cause and put H3 back on track.”

    Monday’s launch came five days after JAXA aborted just 17 seconds before liftoff, citing an abnormality of a water spray system at the launch facility, following an earlier problem with the rocket.

    In its debut flight in March 2023, H3 failed to ignite the second-stage engine.

    Japan currently has the quasi-zenith satellite system, or QZSS, with five satellites for a regional navigation system that first went into operation in 2018. The Michibiki 5 was to be the sixth of its network.

    Japan currently relies partially on American GPS and wants to have a seven-satellite network system by March 2026 and an 11-satellite network by the late 2030s.

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  • US-Russian crew of 3 blasts off to the International Space Station in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft

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    In this photo taken from video released by Roscosmos space corporation, the Soyuz-2.1 rocket booster with Soyuz MS-28 space ship carrying NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey Mikaev, a new crew to the International Space Station, ISS, blasts off in Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025. (Roscosmos space corporation, via AP)

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  • South Korea’s largest satellite launched on Nuri rocket in ambitious space mission

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    SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea launched its largest satellite yet on its nationally developed space rocket early Thursday in the fourth of six launches planned through 2027.

    The three-stage Nuri rocket lifted off from a spaceport on an island off the southwestern coastal county of Goheung. Aerospace officials said the rocket placed a 516-kilogram (1,137-pound) science satellite and 12 microsatellites into a target orbit about 600 kilometers (372 miles) above Earth.

    The Korea Aerospace Administration said the main satellite made contact with a South Korean ground station in Antarctica about 40 minutes after liftoff at 1:55 a.m., confirming normal function and deployment of its solar panels. The satellite later established links with ground stations in South Korea’s central Daejeon city and Svalbard, Norway, as well as further contact with the King Sejong Station in Antarctica.

    Five of the 12 microsatellites had contacted ground stations as of Thursday afternoon, and the rest were expected to do so in a scheduled sequence.

    Kyunghoon Bae, the country’s science minister, said the successful launch reaffirmed that South Korea had independent space launch and transport capability.

    He said the launch was a turning point as the first time a private company, Hanwha Aerospace, assembled the rocket under a technology transfer from the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, the national space agency.

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    “Building on today’s success, we will steadfastly pursue the development of next-generation launch vehicles, lunar exploration and deep-space missions,” Bae said.

    The main satellite launched Thursday is equipped with a wide-range airglow camera to observe auroral activity and separate systems for measuring plasma and magnetic fields and for testing how life-science experiments perform in space.

    The dozen smaller “cube” satellites, developed by university teams and research institutions, include GPS systems to study Earth’s atmosphere, infrared cameras to track plastic in the oceans, and systems for testing solar cells or communication equipment.

    Thursday’s event was the country’s first launch involving a Nuri rocket since May 2023, when it successfully placed a 180-kilogram (397-pound) observation satellite into orbit, and the fourth overall since its first attempt in October 2021, which failed to deliver a dummy device.

    Further launches are planned in 2026 and 2027 to advance the country’s space technologies and industries, and to reduce the gap with leading Asian space powers, such as China, Japan and India.

    Nuri is a three-stage rocket powered by five 75-ton-class engines in its first and second stages and a 7-ton-class engine in its third stage, which releases the payloads at the desired altitude. It’s the country’s first space launch vehicle built primarily with domestic technology, a core asset for a nation that had largely relied on other countries to launch its satellites since the 1990s.

    The Naro Space Center, South Korea’s lone spaceport, saw its first successful launch in 2013 with a two-stage rocket built with Russian technology, following years of delays and repeated failures. The rocket reached its target altitude during its first test in 2009 but failed to deploy a satellite, and then exploded shortly after liftoff during its second test in 2010.

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  • South Korea’s largest satellite launched on Nuri rocket in ambitious space mission

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    SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea launched its largest satellite yet on its nationally developed space rocket early Thursday, the fourth of six planned launches through 2027.

    The three-stage Nuri rocket lifted off from the country’s spaceport on an island off the southwestern coastal county of Goheung. Aerospace officials were monitoring whether it will successfully deliver a 516-kilogram (1,137-pound) science satellite and 12 other microsatellites into orbit.

    The main satellite, designed to orbit 600 kilometers (372 miles) above Earth, is equipped with a wide-range airglow camera to observe auroral activity and separate systems for measuring plasma and magnetic fields and for testing how life-science experiments perform in space.

    The dozen smaller “cube” satellites, developed by university teams and research institutions, include GPS systems to study Earth’s atmosphere, infrared cameras to track plastic in the oceans, and systems for testing solar cells or communication equipment.

    Thursday’s event was the country’s first launch involving a Nuri rocket since May 2023, when it successfully placed a 180-kilogram (397-pound) observation satellite into orbit, and the fourth overall since its first attempt in October 2021, which failed to deliver a dummy device.

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  • China launches Shenzhou 22 spacecraft to assist in return of 3 astronauts

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    BEIJING — China launched the Shenzhou 22 spacecraft on Tuesday to help bring back a team of astronauts after a damaged spacecraft left them temporarily stranded on China’s space station.

    The Shenzhou 22 will be used sometime in 2026 by the three astronauts who docked on the Tiangong space station on Nov. 1.

    Earlier this month, another group of Chinese astronauts from the Shenzhou 20 mission faced a nine-day delay in their return to Earth after their craft’s window was damaged. They eventually returned using the Shenzhou 21 spacecraft, which had just carried the replacement crew to Tiangong.

    While the three-person crew landed safely on Earth, three of their fellow astronauts on the replacement crew were temporarily left without a guaranteed way to return in case of an emergency.

    The Shenzhou 20 spacecraft — the damaged one, which for now remains in space — will be brought down to Earth later and assessed, according to state broadcaster CCTV. The space program determined it didn’t meet safety standards for transporting the astronauts.

    Chinese astronauts have been carrying out missions to the Tiangong space station in recent years as part of Beijing’s rapidly progressing space program, initially building out the station module-by-module.

    China developed Tiangong after the country was excluded from the International Space Station over U.S. national security concerns, since China’s space program is controlled by its military.

    Tiangong, which means “Heavenly Palace,” hosted its first crew in 2021. It is smaller than the International Space Station, which has been operating for 25 years.

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  • Blue Origin launches huge rocket carrying twin NASA spacecraft to Mars

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Blue Origin launched its huge New Glenn rocket Thursday with a pair of NASA spacecraft destined for Mars.

    It was only the second flight of the rocket that Jeff Bezos’ company and NASA are counting on to get people and supplies to the moon — and it was a complete success.

    The 321-foot (98-meter) New Glenn blasted into the afternoon sky from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, sending NASA’s twin Mars orbiters on a drawn-out journey to the red planet. Liftoff was stalled four days by lousy local weather as well as solar storms strong enough to paint the skies with auroras as far south as Florida.

    In a remarkable first, Blue Origin recovered the booster following its separation from the upper stage and the Mars orbiters, an essential step to recycle and slash costs similar to SpaceX. Company employees cheered wildly as the booster landed upright on a barge 375 miles (600 kilometers) offshore. An ecstatic Bezos watched the action from Launch Control.

    “Next stop, moon!” employees chanted following the booster’s bull’s-eye landing. Twenty minutes later, the rocket’s upper stage deployed the two Mars orbiters in space, the mission’s main objective. Congratulations poured in from NASA officials as well as SpaceX’s Elon Musk, whose booster landings are now routine.

    New Glenn’s inaugural test flight in January delivered a prototype satellite to orbit, but failed to land the booster on its floating platform in the Atlantic.

    The identical Mars orbiters, named Escapade, will spend a year hanging out near Earth, stationing themselves 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometers) away. Once Earth and Mars are properly aligned next fall, the duo will get a gravity assist from Earth to head to the red planet, arriving in 2027.

    Once around Mars, the spacecraft will map the planet’s upper atmosphere and scattered magnetic fields, studying how these realms interact with the solar wind. The observations should shed light on the processes behind the escaping Martian atmosphere, helping to explain how the planet went from wet and warm to dry and dusty. Scientists will also learn how best to protect astronauts against Mars’ harsh radiation environment.

    “We really, really want to understand the interaction of the solar wind with Mars better than we do now,” Escapade’s lead scientist, Rob Lillis of the University of California, Berkeley, said ahead of the launch. “Escapade is going to bring an unprecedented stereo viewpoint because we’re going to have two spacecraft at the same time.”

    It’s a relatively low-budget mission, coming in under $80 million, that’s managed and operated by UC Berkeley. NASA saved money by signing up for one of New Glenn’s early flights. The Mars orbiters should have blasted off last fall, but NASA passed up that ideal launch window — Earth and Mars line up for a quick transit just every two years — because of feared delays with Blue Origin’s brand-new rocket.

    Named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit the world, New Glenn is five times bigger than the New Shepard rockets sending wealthy clients to the edge of space from West Texas. Blue Origin plans to launch a prototype Blue Moon lunar lander on a demo mission in the coming months aboard New Glenn.

    Created in 2000 by Bezos, Amazon’s founder, Blue Origin already holds a NASA contract for the third moon landing by astronauts under the Artemis program. Musk’s SpaceX beat out Blue Origin for the first and second crew landings, using Starships, nearly 100 feet (30 meters) taller than Bezos’ New Glenn.

    But last month NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy reopened the contract for the first crewed moon landing, citing concern over the pace of Starship’s progress in flight tests from Texas. Blue Origin as well as SpaceX have presented accelerated landing plans.

    NASA is on track to send astronauts around the moon early next year using its own Space Launch System, or SLS, rocket. The next Artemis crew would attempt to land; the space agency is pressing to get astronauts back on the lunar surface by decade’s end in order to beat China.

    Twelve astronauts walked on the moon more than a half-century ago during NASA’s Apollo program.

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    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Solar storms delay launch of Blue Origin’s big new rocket with Mars orbiters for NASA

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Intense solar storms responsible for breathtaking auroras across the U.S. delayed the launch of Blue Origin’s big new rocket Wednesday.

    Already grounded by poor weather, the New Glenn rocket was poised to blast off Wednesday afternoon with two Mars orbiters for NASA from Florida. But five hours before the targeted liftoff, it was called off because of the heightened solar activity.

    Worried about the possible impact of increased radiation on its Mars-bound spacecraft, NASA decided to postpone the launch until conditions improve. No new launch date was set.

    This will be only the second flight of a New Glenn rocket, which made its debut in January. At 321 feet (98 meters), it is considerably larger and more powerful than the New Shepard rockets Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is launching from Texas with passengers.

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    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Japan successfully launches new cargo spacecraft to deliver supplies to ISS

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    TOKYO — Japan’s space agency successfully launched Sunday its most powerful flagship H3 rocket, carrying a newly developed unmanned cargo spacecraft for its first mission to deliver supplies to the International Space Station.

    The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said the HTV-X1 spacecraft successfully lifted off atop the No. 7 H3 rocket from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center in the country’s south and confirmed it entered targeted orbit 14 minutes after liftoff.

    The spacecraft was separated and placed into a planned orbit, JAXA said. If everything goes smoothly, it is expected to arrive at the ISS in a few days to deliver supplies. Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui, currently at the ISS, is set to catch the craft with a robot arm in the early hours of Thursday.

    The HTV-X is the successor to JAXA’s unmanned H-II Transfer Vehicle, known as Kounotori, or stork in Japanese, which flew nine missions to the ISS between 2009 and 2020.

    The new freighter can carry a bigger payload and supply power during flight, enabling the transport of lab samples that require storage at low temperatures.

    The HTV-X is designed to be connected to the ISS for up to six months to deliver supplies and retrieve waste from the ISS, then conduct technical missions while making an orbital flight after leaving the station, this time for three months.

    Sunday’s launch also marks a successful debut for H3 rocket’s most powerful version, with four rocket boosters and a bigger fairing, a top compartment for payloads, officials said.

    JAXA President Hiroshi Yamakawa called Sunday’s launch “a major step forward” that demonstrated Japan’s capability of delivering supplies to space, which serves as “the basis of autonomous space activity.”

    Iwao Igarashi, head of the Space Business Department at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, responsible for developing H3 with JAXA and operating rocket launches, said Japan’s track record of on-time launch and accuracy in delivering payloads and the newly modified rocket prove they can accommodate a range of customer needs. He said his company plans to expand its launch facility.

    H3 rocket replaces Japan’s long-beloved mainstay H-2A rocket, which made its final flight in June, as a new flagship model designed to be more cost-competitive in the global space market. The H3 has so far made six consecutive successful flights after a failed debut attempt in 2023, when the rocket had to be destroyed with its payload.

    Japan sees a stable, commercially competitive space transport capability as key to its space program and national security.

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  • NASA introduces its newest astronauts: 10 chosen from more than 8,000 applicants

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA introduced its newest astronauts Monday, 10 scientists, engineers and test pilots chosen from more than 8,000 applicants to help explore the moon and possibly Mars.

    For the first time, there were more women than men in a NASA astronaut class. They included a geologist who worked on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover, a SpaceX engineer who flew on a billionaire-sponsored spaceflight that featured the world’s first private spacewalk and a former SpaceX launch director.

    The group will undergo two years of training before becoming eligible for spaceflight. Acting Administrator Sean Duffy said one of them could become the first person to step on Mars.

    It is the 24th astronaut class for NASA since the original Mercury Seven made their debut in 1959. The previous class was in 2021.

    Only 370 people have been selected by NASA as astronauts, making it an extraordinarily small and elite group composed mostly of men. The latest additions — revealed during a ceremony at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston — will join 41 active U.S. astronauts currently serving in the corps.

    NASA’s flight operations director Norm Knight said competition was stiff and called the newcomers “distinguished” and “exceptional.”

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    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Another US military mini shuttle launches on a secret mission

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    Another U.S. military mini shuttle blasted off Thursday night to conduct classified experiments in space.

    Launched by SpaceX, the space plane with no one aboard took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It’s the eighth such flight for the test vehicles known as X-37B. This one will test laser communications and safe navigation without GPS, according to the U.S. Space Force.

    It’s not yet clear how long the mini shuttle will remain aloft. The last X-37B circled the globe for a little over a year before returning to Earth in March. Previous missions have lasted months to years.

    The Boeing-made reusable space planes were first launched in 2010 and are 29 feet (9 meters) long with a wingspan of almost 15 feet (4.5 meters).

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    AP science writer Adithi Ramakrishnan contributed.

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    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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