A Cold War Spy Satellite Named After Farrah Fawcett Just Blew Apart in Orbit
An American spy satellite unexpectedly shattered into pieces, creating a cloud of debris in low-Earth orbit. The U.S.…
Chinese Satellite Breaks Apart in Rare Orbit That Could Hold Debris for Centuries
A reconnaissance satellite suffered an unidentified anomaly and broke apart into pieces. Now, those fragments are trapped in…
Chinese reconnaissance satellite breaks up in rare retrograde orbit
HELSINKI — A Chinese satellite launched into an unusual orbit early this year has suffered an apparent fragmentation…
Gong Zizheng, who led China’s planetary defence project, dies at 61
Gong Zizheng, a pioneer of space debris research and a key figure in China’s planned asteroid defence mission,…
NASA tests first-of-its-kind spacecraft that navigates without GPS
NASA’s Starling mission has demonstrated a first-of-its-kind navigation system that lets a spacecraft determine its position in orbit…
Point Nemo is so remote that astronauts can be closer than people on Earth, yet its surrounding waters are a cemetery for spacecraft
There is a stretch of the South Pacific Ocean so remote that the closest people to it are…
Huge space radars to track tiny objects could be assembled by robots
Space is becoming increasingly crowded, and tracking the objects orbiting Earth is becoming a harder engineering problem. NASA…
UK observatory nervously watches growing space junk threat
In the sweeping shadow of a satellite dish, staff at the Chilbolton Observatory in southern England track a…
A SpaceX Rocket Is About to Punch a New Crater Into the Moon
The Falcon 9 rocket’s liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Credit: Cristóbal Herrera/EPA This Wednesday, at around 06:35:37.5 UTC, a…
Astronomers Found a Hidden Swarm of Space Junk Threatening Earth’s Most Valuable Orbit
Earth’s geosynchronous orbit (GEO) holds some of the most valuable satellites that carry out tasks for phones, television,…
Meet China’s moon porter for Chang’e-8 mission: a 4-wheeled robot with 2 arms
China is sending a new kind of explorer to the moon – with a humanoid upper body and…
Copernicus Sentinel-1D satellite now fully operational
Launched last November, the Copernicus Sentinel-1D satellite has completed the critical in-orbit commissioning phase and marks a milestone…