After years of waiting, Richard Branson’s journey to space this month on a Virgin Galactic vessel was supposed to be a triumphant homecoming. Instead, the jaunt attracted significant criticism — about its carbon footprint. With Jeff Bezos set to launch on a Blue Origin rocket on July 20, and Elon Musk’s SpaceX planning an all-civilian […]
Space
Earth’s richest man Bezos to blast off into space
Jeff Bezos, the richest person in the world, is set to join the astronaut club Tuesday on the first crewed launch by Blue Origin, another key moment in a big month for the fledgling space tourism industry. The mission comes days after Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson crossed the final frontier, narrowly besting the Amazon […]
After conquering Earth, Bezos eyes new frontier in space
Jeff Bezos sets his sights on a new frontier in space in the coming days after building a gargantuan business empire which has in many ways conquered the Earth. His journey into space aboard a reusable rocket built by his firm Blue Origin comes just two weeks after he stepped aside as chief executive of […]
Jeff Bezos donates record breaking $200 mn to Smithsonian
Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos will donate $200 million to the Smithsonian, the largest gift in the history of the institute, a statement said Wednesday. A $70 million portion of the donation will support the renovation of the National Air and Space Museum while $130 million will launch a new education center to […]
NASA, European Space Agency join forces on climate change
NASA and the European Space Agency joined forces Tuesday in the battle against climate change, a move they said paves the way to a global response to the problem. “To ensure that data from Earth-observing satellites are used to their best advantage, further science and, ultimately, bring the most benefit to humankind, ESA and NASA have […]
Russia launches cargo ship to space station
Russia on Wednesday successfully launched an unmanned space freighter carrying supplies to the International Space Station from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Soyuz rocket carrying the Progress spacecraft launched at 02:27 am Moscow time (2327 GMT) from the Kazakh steppes and reached its target orbit, the Roscosmos space agency said in a statement. Docking […]
Musk set to invest up to $30 billion in Starlink
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk said Tuesday he plans to invest up to 30 billion dollars to develop his ambitious Starlink satellite internet service. Starlink plans to deploy thousands of low-orbit satellites to provide high-speed internet to isolated and poorly connected areas. It has so far deployed over 1,500 satellites and by August it will be […]
US, French astronauts make ISS spacewalk
A French and an American astronaut completed a six-hour spacewalk Sunday as they installed new solar panels to boost power supplies to the International Space Station (ISS), NASA said. “It is a huge team effort each time and couldn’t be happier to return with @astro_kimbrough,” tweeted Frenchman Thomas Pesquet, referring to his American colleague Shane […]
NASA reports trouble with Hubble Space Telescope
The Hubble Space Telescope, which has been peering into the universe for more than 30 years, has been down for the past few days, NASA said Friday. The problem is a payload computer that stopped working last Sunday, the US space agency said. It insisted the telescope itself and scientific instruments that accompany it are […]
First astronauts arrive at China’s space station
The first astronauts arrived at China’s new space station on Thursday in the country’s longest crewed mission to date, a landmark step in establishing Beijing as a major space power. The trio blasted off on a Long March-2F rocket from the Jiuquan launch centre in northwest China’s Gobi desert, and their craft docked around seven […]