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A pioneering moon lander has beamed home its first photos from the final frontier. Intuitive Machines' robotic Odysseus spacecraft snapped a few selfies with Earth in the background shortly after its Feb. 15 launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket — and we can all check them out. "Intuitive Machines successfully transmitted its first IM-1 mission images to Earth on February 16, 2024. The images were captured shortly after separation from @SpaceX's second stage on Intuitive Machines' first journey to the moon under @NASA's CLPS initiative," the Houston-based company wrote Saturday (Feb. 17) in a post on X that shared four of the photos. CLPS is the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, which puts agency Science instruments on private robotic moon lander s like Odysseus. These instruments are designed to collect data that will aid NASA's Artemis program, which aims to establish a crewed base near the lunar south ...

I used to love rocket launches when I was younger. During every launch, I imagined what it would feel like to be an astronaut sitting in the spacecraft, listening to that final countdown and then feeling multiple gees push me up through the atmosphere and away from our blue marble. But as I learned more about the severe limitations of human space flight, I turned my attention to the oldest and most accessible form of space exploration : the Science of Astronomy . Since 2019, I've watched my unencumbered enthusiasm for rocket launches soften to tepid interest, and finally sour to outright dread. The corporate space race, led by SpaceX, is entirely responsible for this transformation in my mindset. I am worried by the complete shift to the move-fast-and-break-things attitude that comes from the tech sector instead of government scientific agencies. I am put off by the colonialist language and billionaire-worship of private corporations. I am increasingly furiou...

Russia is reportedly developing a space-based nuclear weapon designed to disable or destroy satellites. The United States Congress and America's European allies were informed of Russia's plans to develop the anti-satellite capability on Wednesday (Feb. 14). It's unclear what the exact nature of the planned weapon is — that is, whether it involves detonating a nuclear explosive in space or is another anti-satellite technology powered by a space-based nuclear reactor. According to the intelligence presented to Congress, the U.S. military "does not have the ability to counter such a weapon and defend its satellites," according to a report in the New York Times. The report adds that U.S. government officials do not believe that such a weapon will be launched any time soon, but that there is "a limited window of time" to stop it from being launched and deployed. Orbital nuclear weapons are currently banned due to the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, although...

Running out of gas is annoying at the best of times, let alone if you're a satellite traveling at speeds of up to 17,500 mph (28,200 km/h) high above Earth's surface. At the moment, a satellite that burns through all its fuel simply becomes space junk, adding to the vast debris field surrounding our planet. "It's the equivalent of buying a car with one tank of fuel in it, and you throw the car away when you run out of that fuel," Ray Fielding , head of space sustainability at the UK Space Agency, told Live Science. Often, the satellites are perfectly functional and just lack the fuel to maneuver around debris, he added. However, the space industry is aiming to change this paradigm by investing in projects that will allow satellites to be refueled and serviced in orbit. In addition to mitigating the growing problem of space junk , this more sustainable approach could cut down on wasted resources and reduce the costs associated with operating satellites. Rela...

A planned Monday night launch of the US  Military 's secretive X-37B robot spaceplane on its seventh mission to orbit, and its first flight atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, was postponed for at least 24 hours, SpaceX said. The flight was called off for the night about 25 minutes before the start of a targeted launch window set to open at 8:14 p.m. EST (0114 GMT Tuesday) as the rocket stood poised for liftoff from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. In a message posted on the social media platform X, Elon Musk's California-based rocket venture said the countdown was halted "due to a ground side issue," adding that the "vehicle and payload remain healthy." SpaceX did not elaborate. The company did not immediately say when it would try again. The mission's next launch opportunity is Tuesday night, SpaceX said. The original plan to send the spacecraft to orbit late on Sunday was scrubbed due to poor weather conditions at...

NASA expert claims to have seen a 3 meter tall entity with 2 astronauts on a space mission A former NASA engineer claims to have seen a 10-foot-tall alien while monitoring a space mission . Clark McClelland reportedly had been part of a team based at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, when he saw the humanoid alien. The “ entity ”, he says, stood on two legs and approached the American astronauts , with whom he had a conversation that lasted one minute and several seconds. Clark McClelland was the “aero space engineer and NASA worker” who claimed to have participated in more than 660 space mission s between 1958 and 1992. In 2012 McClelland published a controversial video in which he claimed to have seen a three- meter humanoid entity on the shuttle space . . Clark McClelland, photographed while working with NASA. McClelland claimed to have observed (through his monitor) an entity giving commands to hum...

The US Navy and NASA may have a working fleet of ships in space (Part II) The media focused on Gary McKinnon’s spectacular fight against extradition to the United States when he managed to access the most sensitive Pentagon data. Most newspapers and TV stations, on the other hand, paid little attention to the data on the US Military revealed by the Scottish hacker. Given that McKinnon has made multiple claims about the material he acquired from the Military database, the silence around this revelation is extremely surprising. An Excel spreadsheet containing the details of a group of alien officers was one of the top-secret documents seen by McKinnon. This suggests that the police in question are not human at all. McKinnon also discovered evidence of a hidden space fleet known only as “USS”. According to McKinnon, the United States operates this fleet , which is manned entirely by Military personnel. Although many people ...

Researchers have discovered a new superhighway network that allows them to Travel much faster through the Solar System than was previously possible. Such paths can transport comets and asteroids from Jupiter to Neptune in less than a decade and to 100 astronomical units in less than a century. They could be used to rapidly send space craft to the far reaches of our solar system, as well as to monitor and comprehend near-Earth objects that may collide with our planet. In their paper, which was published in the November 25, 2020 issue of Science Advances, the researchers looked at the dynamical structure of these routes. They found that they form a connected series of arches inside what are called “ space manifolds,” which go from the asteroid belt to Uranus and beyond. This newly found “celestial autobahn” or “celestial highway” works over several decades instead of the usual hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Jupiter and the strong gravitational forces it has are li...