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Five space exploration missions to look out for in 2023
It’s been an eventful year for space exploration, with successes including the completion of Nasa’s Artemis 1 mission (finally), the inauguration of the James Webb Space Telescope, and the completion of China’s Tiangong space station.
2023 is set to be another busy year. Here are five of the most exciting missions to watch out for.
1. Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer
2. SpaceX Starship
3. dearMoon
The long-awaited dearMoon project, which will take members of the public on a six-day trip around the Moon and back, is due for launch on Starship and was originally planned for 2023. The exact date will depend on the successful test of Starship, but has been on the books since 2018. It will be the first true deep space tourism launch.
4. Asteroid explorer returns to Earth
OSIRIS-REx is now fast returning to Earth with up to a kilogram of precious asteroid samples stored aboard. If all goes well, the capsule will detach from the spacecraft, enter the Earth’s atmosphere and parachute to a soft landing in the deserts of Utah on September 24.
5. India’s private space launch
While SpaceX is the most prominent private space launch company, there are many others developing their own series of launchers around the world. Skyroot Aerospace, which successfully launched its Vikram-S rocket in November 2022, is soon to become the first private Indian company to launch a satellite.

A six-planet solar system in perfect synchrony has been found in the Milky Way
(AP) — Astronomers have discovered a rare in-sync solar system with six planets moving like a grand cosmic orchestra, untouched by outside forces since their birth billions of years ago.
The find, announced Wednesday, can help explain how solar systems across the Milky Way galaxy came to be. This one is 100 light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. A light-year is 5.8 trillion miles.
A pair of planet-hunting satellites — NASA’s Tess and the European Space Agency’s Cheops — teamed up for the observations.

27 November
New book details U.S. government’s UFO investigations and search for alien life
(PBS Newshour) Since the 1940s, unidentified flying objects have been a part of our nation’s cultural phenomena. But for the U.S. government, UFOs have been a mystery and something the military has been investigating for decades. Amna Nawaz discussed that with Garrett Graff, author of the new book, “UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government’s Search for Alien Life Here―and Out There.”
17 November
The U.S. Government UFO Cover-Up Is Real—But It’s Not What You Think
Decades of declassified memos, internal reports, and study projects create the sense that the government doesn’t have satisfying answers for the most perplexing sightings.
By Garrett M. Graff
There aren’t many secrets that John Brennan doesn’t know. He spent 25 years in the CIA, became the White House homeland-security adviser, and then returned to the CIA as its director. If a question interested him, he could’ve commanded legions of analysts, officers, surveillance networks, and tools to find the answer. Yet in a December 2020 interview with the economist Tyler Cowen, Brennan admitted, somewhat tortuously, that he was flummoxed by the wave of recent reporting about UFOs: “Some of the phenomena we’re going to be seeing continues to be unexplained and might, in fact, be some type of phenomenon that is the result of something that we don’t yet understand and that could involve some type of activity that some might say constitutes a different form of life.”

14 September
NASA says more science and less stigma are needed to understand UFOs
(AP) — NASA said Thursday that the study of UFOs will require new scientific techniques, including advanced satellites as well as a shift in how unidentified flying objects are perceived.
The space agency released the findings after a yearlong study into UFOs.
In its 33-page report, an independent team commissioned by NASA cautioned that the negative perception surrounding UFOs poses an obstacle to collecting data. But officials said NASA’s involvement should help reduce the stigma around what it calls UAPs, or unidentified anomalous phenomena.
NASA recently appointed a director of UAP research, but refused to divulge his identity at Thursday morning’s news conference in hopes of avoiding the threats and harassment faced by panel members during the study.
Eight hours later, however, NASA said it’s Mark McInerney, who previously served as a liaison on the subject of UAPs between the space agency and the Defense Department. He’s also worked with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Hurricane Center.
No top-secret files were accessed by the panel’s scientists, aviation and artificial intelligence experts, and retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, the first American to spend nearly a year in space. Instead, the group relied on unclassified data in an attempt to better understand unexplained sightings in the sky.
Officials said there are so few high-quality observations that no scientific conclusions can be drawn. Most events can be attributed to planes, drones, balloons or weather conditions, said panel chairman David Spergel, president of the Simons Foundation, a scientific research group.
NASA names chief of UFO research; panel sees no alien evidence
By Joey Roulette
(Reuters) – NASA on Thursday said it has named a new director of research into what the government calls “unidentified anomalous phenomenon,” or UAP, while the U.S. space agency’s chief said an expert panel that urged deeper fact-finding on the matter found no evidence of an extraterrestrial origin for these objects.
Administrator Bill Nelson made the announcement about the new research chief – without disclosing the person’s identity – after the independent panel of experts recommended in a new report that NASA increase its efforts to gather information on UAP and play a larger role in helping the Pentagon detect them.

23 August
India lands spacecraft near south pole of moon in historic first
Vikram lander touches down at lunar south pole shortly after 6pm India time
(Th Guardian) India lands spacecraft near south pole of moon in historic first
India has become the first country to successfully land a spacecraft near the south pole of the moon, in a historic moment that drew cheers at watching parties around the country.
“India is on the moon,” Sreedhara Panicker Somanath, the chair of the Indian Space Research Organisation, said as the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft’s Vikram lander touched down shortly after 6pm near the little-explored lunar south pole in a world first for any space programme.
The successful landing marks India’s emergence as a space power as the government looks to spur investment in private space launches and related satellite-based businesses.
With nuclear-armed India emerging as the world’s fifth-largest economy last year, Modi’s nationalist government is eager to showcase the country’s rising standing as a technology and space powerhouse. A successful moon mission dovetails with Modi’s image of an ascendant India asserting its place among the global elite and would help bolster his popularity ahead of a crucial general election next year.
The anticipation for a successful landing rose after Russia’s failed attempt and as India’s regional rival China reaches for new milestones in space. In May, China launched a three-person crew for its orbiting space station and hopes to put astronauts on the moon before the end of the decade.

20 August
Russia’s first lunar mission in 47 years smashes into the moon in failure
Country’s 1st moon mission in 47 years fails ahead of planned landing on Monday
Russia moon mission fails
Luna-25 crashes into the moon
Failure is a blow to Russian space prestige
Soviet space veteran: Luna-25 was my last hope
(Reuters) – Russia’s first moon mission in 47 years failed when its Luna-25 space craft spun out of control and crashed into the moon after a problem preparing for pre-landing orbit, underscoring the post-Soviet decline of a once mighty space programme.

10 August
Russia shoots for the moon as space race against US heats up
Washington and Moscow are scrambling to win the lunar south pole and its natural resources.
Despite war and sanctions, Vladimir Putin is trying to haul Russia back into the space race.
In the early hours of Friday morning, state space agency Roscosmos launched the country’s first lunar mission in nearly half a century as an ambitious play in the scramble to build a base on the moon.
“If they pull it off, it will be a massive technological and scientific achievement,” said Tim Marshall, author of “The Future of Geography” on the geopolitics of space. He argues a successful Russian landing, and fruitful year of research, would mark a big step forward in plans to build a moon base with China by the 2030s.

8 August
Europe’s space chief confirms rocket rival to Musk’s SpaceX won’t launch this year
Ariane 6 hits another delay.
(Politico Eu) Because of the delays to Ariane 6, the European Commission wants to contract out launches of its satellites to the likes of SpaceX, but relying on Elon Musk’s rocket company undermines the EU executive’s insistence that it is building strategic autonomy.

31 July
Biden reverses Trump, keeps Space Command in Colorado
(Politico) The news, which was first reported by The Associated Press, brings to an end months of speculation about whether Biden would reverse President Donald Trump’s decision to move the command. The Air Force initially recommended the command stay in Colorado, but later selected Alabama after a high-level meeting at the White House in January 2021, during the final days of the Trump administration. Trump later credited himself for “single-handedly” putting the command in the red state.
Keeping the headquarters at Colorado Springs “maintains operational readiness and ensures no disruption to its mission or to its personnel,” according to the official. The command is set to achieve “full operational capability” this month, the official said.
A move to Alabama, by contrast, would have forced the command to transition to a new headquarters in the mid-2020s, and the new site would not have been open until the early to mid-2030s, the official said.

29 July
Falcon Heavy sends Jupiter-3 broadband giant toward geostationary orbit
(SpaceNews) The Maxar Technologies-built satellite lifted off on a dedicated Falcon Heavy at 11:04 p.m. Eastern from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, separating from the rocket about three and a half hours later.
Both Falcon Heavy side boosters landed at nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station just over seven minutes after launch for reuse. They had supported two earlier Falcon Heavy missions, both for the U.S. Space Force: USSF-44 in November and USSF-67 early this year.
Pedro Gregorio comments: Very excited to share the successful launch of the Jupiter 3 satellite last night. This was one of the most complex geosynchronous satellite antenna programs I worked on with my fabulous team at MDA here in Montreal.
The heaviest telecoms satellite ever launched SpaceX’s extraordinary Falcon Heavy launch vehicle was required to deliver it to orbit. This was only the 7th launch of Falcon Heavy and proceeded flawlessly.
My congratulations to teams at MDA, Maxar, Hughes, and SpaceX for this remarkable achievement.

26 July
Whistleblower tells Congress the U.S. is concealing ‘multi-decade’ program that captures UFOs
(AP) — The U.S. is concealing a longstanding program that retrieves and reverse engineers unidentified flying objects, a former Air Force intelligence officer testified Wednesday to Congress. The Pentagon has denied his claims.
Retired Maj. David Grusch’s highly anticipated testimony before a House Oversight subcommittee was Congress’ latest foray into the world of UAPs — or “unidentified aerial phenomena,” which is the official term the U.S. government uses instead of UFOs. While the study of mysterious aircraft or objects often evokes talk of aliens and “little green men,” Democrats and Republicans in recent years have pushed for more research as a national security matter due to concerns that sightings observed by pilots may be tied to U.S. adversaries.

20-21 April
SpaceX didn’t want to blow up its launchpad. It may have done just that.
Videos show a war-like barrage of shrapnel blasting away from the launch site into nearby beaches, wetlands and at least one car
SpaceX’s Starship Lifts Off And Explodes In Space
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk had warned a 50/50 chance that it might happen.
The inaugural flight of SpaceX’s Starship can be considered a partial success that ended in an unscheduled rapid disassembly. That means it went kaboom. Unfortunately, it exploded about three minutes into the flight after it failed to separate from its Super Heavy booster.
The rocket is the tallest and most powerful launch vehicle ever built and the first one to be designed to be fully reusable. The Super Heavy booster would separate and come back to Earth, and that would be followed at a later time by Starship. However, the separation did not take place, and the entire system was seen spinning until it came apart.

17 February
U.S. and China Vie in Hazy Zone Where Balloons, U.F.O.s and Missiles Fly
Near space is liminal space, a stratospheric netherworld where no international law applies and no military force holds dominance, where hypersonic missiles and space planes fly and surveillance balloons drift without being picked up by radars.
U.S. officials are worried about a literal gap called near space and China’s growing presence there.
High above earth, but below orbiting satellites, the United States and China are testing new defense systems. China’s exploitation of the zone with aerial craft and advanced munitions suggests it is pulling ahead of its superpower rival in important ways.
This little-known and little-seen strategic contest over near space — a phrase that is suddenly on the lips of every other American politician and policymaker — is increasingly critical for the honing of advanced warfare and certain types of espionage.
Near space is liminal space, a stratospheric netherworld where no international law applies and no military force holds dominance, where hypersonic missiles and space planes fly and surveillance balloons drift without being picked up by radars.
American officials are worried China is far along in developing military technology that operates in the unregulated high-altitude zone of “near space.”
U.S. officials are worried about a literal gap called near space and China’s growing presence there.
High above earth, but below orbiting satellites, the United States and China are testing new defense systems. China’s exploitation of the zone with aerial craft and advanced munitions suggests it is pulling ahead of its superpower rival in important ways.
This little-known and little-seen strategic contest over near space — a phrase that is suddenly on the lips of every other American politician and policymaker — is increasingly critical for the honing of advanced warfare and certain types of espionage.
Near space is liminal space, a stratospheric netherworld where no international law applies and no military force holds dominance, where hypersonic missiles and space planes fly and surveillance balloons drift without being picked up by radars.

2022

News near and far: The year in space 2022
With beginnings, endings, and new discoveries, space was a busy place in 2022. New Atlas looks back at the best space stories of the past 12 months.

22-23 December
Top Canadian Space Stories of 2022
Canadian space delivered a lot of high-profile missions this year, from low Earth orbit all the way to the Moon and even a Lagrange Point. Despite a decline in spending, the Canadian Space Agency financed Moon and Earth observation plans – and the Canadian military opened its own Space Force.
Private industry was also busy, with Telesat reconfiguring its Lightspeed constellation and Maritime Launch Services breaking ground on Canada’s first launch site in decades. Below are the top 10 stories of Canadian space in 2022.
2022 in space: Moon missions, smashing asteroids, and peering into the cosmos
2022 has been a milestone year for space exploration.
From new space telescopes giving a view into the deep past of the universe to the belated test launch of a rocket that will fire humans to the Moon once again, this year saw a steady flow of major forward steps in humanity’s quest to investigate the cosmos.
There were also ramifications for space exploration from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has seen a deterioration in relations between Western space agencies and Russia’s Roscosmos.

21 November
NASA’s Orion capsule reaches the Moon, 50 years after Apollo
NASA’s Orion capsule reached the Moon on Monday, whipping around the far side and buzzing the lunar surface on its way to a record-breaking orbit with test dummies sitting in for astronauts.

16 November
NASA’s Overshadowed Moon Launch
After a successful takeoff, a crewless capsule is on its way to the moon. Where’s the fanfare?
A giant new rocket, the most powerful that the agency has ever built, soared into space just before 2 a.m. today, carrying a gumdrop-shaped capsule on a journey to the moon and back. It’s the first mission in the Artemis program, NASA’s ambitious effort to land American astronauts on the moon for the first time in 50 years.
No astronauts were inside the Orion capsule this morning. But the successful flight of the rocket, the very straightforwardly named Space Launch System, has brought NASA one step closer to delivering the next batch of human beings to the lunar surface. A few months after their scheduled takeoff, America’s 21st-century moon dreams are finally under way.
NASA capsule on way to moon after launch by giant new rocket
By Marcia Dunn
(AP) — A space capsule hurtled toward the moon Wednesday for the first time in 50 years, following a thunderous launch of NASA’s mightiest rocket in a dress rehearsal for astronaut flights.
No one was on board this debut flight, just three test dummies. The capsule is headed for a wide orbit around the moon and then a return to Earth with a Pacific splashdown in about three weeks.
After years of delays and billions in cost overruns, the Space Launch System rocket roared skyward, rising from Kennedy Space Center on 8.8 million pounds (4 million kilograms) of thrust and hitting 100 mph (160 kph) within seconds. The Orion capsule was perched on top and, less than two hours into the flight, busted out of Earth’s orbit toward the moon.

20 October

NASA’s giant telescope captures clearer view of ‘Pillars of Creation’
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured a new view of an iconic cosmic site: the region known as the “Pillars of Creation,” where stars are born.
The U.S. space agency’s Hubble Space Telescope first photographed the structure in 1995, revealing its columns of gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula star nursery 6,500 light-years away. It became one of the most famous Hubble photos.
In the new image, the Webb telescope’s near-infrared camera cut through the dust to see the stars more clearly … Stars come from collapsing clouds of interstellar material: Clumps of mass that form within the pillars of gas and dust begin to collapse under their own gravity, slowly heat up, and form new stars.

11 October
NASA Spacecraft Accomplishes Mission and Smashes Asteroid Into New Orbit
The DART mission proved more successful than expected in adjusting the trajectory of Dimorphos, suggesting that a deadly space rock could be deflected in the future.
Defending the planet from hazardous space rocks is a newer addition to NASA’s portfolio, and [Double Asteroid Redirection Test] DART was the first mission to test this strategy that could be used in the future. The asteroids that tend to keep astronomers up at night aren’t necessarily the giant planet-killers of science fiction lore, most of which are known and tracked. Instead, they worry about the smaller ones, akin to Dimorphos, that are harder to discover, more numerous and capable of causing great damage to people and property on Earth.
Scientists hoped the collision would push Dimorphos closer to Didymos and speed up its orbit, and they have been crunching data and taking more observations of the double-asteroid system to understand how effective this particular defense mechanism was. Scientists, according to [NASA administrator Bill] Nelson, would have considered DART a huge success if it had only shortened Dimorphos’s orbit by 10 minutes. The reality — around three times that shift — delighted the team that managed the mission.

5 October
SpaceX launched new crew to the International Space Station
(Axios) SpaceX launched four new crew members to the International Space Station for NASA on Wednesday.
Why it matters: SpaceX is currently the only American company able to send astronauts to orbit from U.S. soil.
This launch is the company’s eighth crewed mission to orbit and the sixth to the ISS under a NASA contract.

26 September
Hurricane Ian forces Nasa to shelter Artemis Moon rocket
The American space agency is to pull its Artemis-I Moon rocket off the launch pad in Florida because of an approaching hurricane.
Nasa says the Space Launch System (SLS) vehicle will be rolled back into its engineering workshop to protect it.
High winds and heavy rain are forecast for the Kennedy Space Center.
Although the spaceport will probably escape the worst of the storm’s impacts, Nasa can’t risk its multi-billion-dollar rocket being damaged.
The return to Kennedy’s famous Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) will now delay the maiden flight of the SLS to late October at the earliest and possibly even to the second half of November.
NASA’s Megarocket Heads for Shelter as Hurricane Ian Approaches
With Hurricane Ian threatening the Florida peninsula, NASA has opted to transport its 321-foot-tall Space Launch System to the Vehicle Assembly Building where the Artemis rocket and Orion spacecraft will be safe from potentially damaging winds.
On Saturday, NASA scrapped its plans to perform the third launch attempt of its SLS rocket due to a tropical storm brewing in the Caribbean.

15 September
A new space race? China adds urgency to US return to moon
(AP) — It’s not just rocket fuel propelling America’s first moonshot after a half-century lull. Strategic rivalry with China’s ambitious space program is helping drive NASA’s effort to get back into space in a bigger way, as both nations push to put people back on the moon and establish the first lunar bases.
American intelligence, military and political leaders make clear they see a host of strategic challenges to the U.S. in China’s space program, in an echo of the U.S.-Soviet rivalry that prompted the 1960s’ race to the moon. That’s as China is quickly matching U.S. civil and military space accomplishments and notching new ones of its own.
… There’s also a civilian side to the space race. The U.S. is wary of China taking the lead in space exploration and commercial exploitation, and pioneering the technological and scientific advances that would put China ahead in power in space and in prestige down on Earth.

3-9 September
NASA eyes late September for its next attempt to launch the Artemis moon mission
(NPR) NASA says it hopes to attempt another launch of the unmanned Artemis I moon mission later this month.
NASA calls off 2nd launch attempt for Artemis I — and next attempt not likely until at least late September
NASA postpones 2nd attempt at moon rocket launch citing another fuel leak
NASA‘s new moon rocket sprang another dangerous fuel leak Saturday, forcing launch controllers to call off their second attempt to send a crew capsule into lunar orbit with test dummies. The first attempt earlier in the week was also marred by escaping hydrogen.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said repair work could bump the launch into October.

29 August
Artemis delay won’t stop Canada’s space industry from blasting off, says minister
Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne says Canada has an important role to play in the future of space exploration.
We are the strategic partner of NASA. And it’s also about diplomacy. It’s almost like space diplomacy where you bring the case for Canada.
Obviously, we’ve been with them since [the first] Canadarm, [a robotic arm that supports space missions]…. Now we have Canadarm 3, which is going to be essential to build what they call the lunar gateway, which is really that space station that will be in orbit around the moon. And why we are so relevant is because this station is not going to be manned for most of the time, so you need the Canadarm basically to do repair and maintenance. So we are essential to the success of the mission.
NASA scrubs launch of new moon rocket after engine problem
(AP) — NASA called off the launch of its mighty new moon rocket on its debut flight with three test dummies aboard after a last-minute cascade of problems culminating in unexplained trouble related to an engine.
NASA is set to return to the moon. Here are 4 reasons to go back
NASA’s Apollo missions already sent astronauts to the moon from 1969 to 1972. But scientists say there’s still lots of good science to do there. The moon also could be an ideal stepping stone to Mars.
(NPR) The uncrewed Artemis I, the first test flight of the hardware that will be used to send astronauts later, is set to lift off Monday, if all goes well.
Why go back?
There’s a lot of science to be done on the moon
The rock samples brought back by Apollo astronauts decades ago taught scientists a lot about the geologic history of Earth and the moon.
It’s a stepping stone to Mars
Mars is at least 200 times farther from Earth than the moon, which means an enormous challenge in keeping astronauts safe from such things as radiation exposure,
“We need to build an infrastructure that’s going to say, ‘OK, we’re going to have human permanence on the moon and transition to commercial operations there in the future,'” [Clive Neal, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and Earth sciences at the University of Notre Dame] says. “And we can have a blueprint then at the moon of how to do these things sustainably that can be applied to more distant destinations.”
It could spur new technologies
Dozens of new technologies created to go into space and to the moon have also brought substantial benefits to people on Earth — spawning everything from hand-held computers to insulin pumps and freeze-dried food.
A 2013 study commissioned by NASA estimates that commercial products emerging from the space agency’s research return between $100 million and $1 billion annually to the U.S. economy. Many of those “spinoffs” had their origin in the Apollo program.
It has the potential to inspire a generation of engineers and scientists
It’s often said that the Apollo moonshot inspired thousands of new engineers and scientists
Artemis: NASA’s New Chapter In Space
Humans haven’t set foot on the moon in 50 years, but NASA hopes to take one step closer with the launch of a new rocket and space capsule on Monday.
Humans are heading back to the moon — and Canada is playing a bigger role than you may realize
‘I just don’t think Canadians … realize how awesome we are,’ says program manager at the Canadian Space Agency
(CBC) Canada was the third country to have a satellite in space. We have sent astronauts to live and work in space. We have provided crucial instruments to Martian rovers, and tools on a spacecraft that charted a distant asteroid. We are partners in the newly launched James Webb Space Telescope, providing the instrument that keeps it guided.
And, of course, we built the iconic robotic arms — Canadarm and Canadarm2 — that have been used on space shuttles and the International Space Station, as commemorated on our $5 bill.
And we, too, are going to the moon.
The mission of Artemis I is to test the SLS rocket and the Orion capsule. But after that comes Artemis II, scheduled for 2024 or 2025, when four astronauts will travel in Orion and orbit the moon.
On that capsule will be a yet-unnamed Canadian astronaut — the first to travel to deep space.
NASA also has plans to build the Lunar Gateway, a small space station that will orbit the moon. Canada is contributing the Canadarm3, built by MDA, to that project — and the new arm is much more sophisticated than the originals.
About Canadarm3
The next-generation Canadian robotic system will be designed to:
maintain, repair and inspect the Gateway
capture visiting vehicles
relocate Gateway modules
help astronauts during spacewalks
enable science both in lunar orbit and on the surface of the Moon
Canadarm3 is designed to work autonomously. However, the system could also be operated by robotics flight controllers in Canada, or by Gateway crew during spacewalks.

NASA Reveals Webb Telescope’s First Images of Unseen Universe

12 July
(NASA) The dawn of a new era in astronomy is here as the world gets its first look at the full capabilities of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, a partnership with ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
“Today, we present humanity with a groundbreaking new view of the cosmos from the James Webb Space Telescope – a view the world has never seen before,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “These images, including the deepest infrared view of our universe that has ever been taken, show us how Webb will help to uncover the answers to questions we don’t even yet know to ask; questions that will help us better understand our universe and humanity’s place within it.
The full set of the telescope’s first full-color images and spectroscopic data, which uncover a collection of cosmic features elusive until now, released Tuesday, are available at: nasa.gov/webbfirstimages

One of the first images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, this landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars is actually the edge of a nearby young star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

Stop for a minute. These space images are worth your time.
(WaPo) Everything about the Webb telescope is mind-boggling. Ponder this: Humans sent a telescope the size of a tennis court into space and parked it four times farther away than the moon.
The very first Webb image made public showed thousands of galaxies as they appeared about 13 billion years ago — that’s almost as far back in time as the Big Bang itself:
… The Webb will help us better understand much more than how galaxies form.
… With the Webb, we’ll also be able to see how stars are born
… Finally, the Webb telescope allows scientists to collect data of the chemical composition of stars and planets outside our solar system. This kind of detailed information will ultimately help us look for signs of life elsewhere in our galaxy.
These stunning images are a major achievement for us Earthlings. And given everything absurd we’ve witnessed on Earth of late, they are more than that. If nothing else, the humongousness of the universe ought to put our problems into perspective. A little insignificance isn’t such a bad thing.

1 June
Reaction Dynamics accelerates development of hybrid rocket technology
Reaction Dynamics will leverage Velo3D’s metal additive manufacturing technology to manufacture environmentally friendly, safe, and affordable commercial rockets as soon as 2024.
Next Generation Manufacturing Canada (NGen), the industry-led community behind Canada’s most advanced manufacturing projects has announced its latest project with Reaction Dynamics (RDX), a Quebec-based rocket manufacturing company. … Founded in 2017, Reaction Dynamics  is a rocket manufacturing company with a mission to enable routine access to space by launching one of the most eco-friendly, safe and affordable launch vehicle ever created. Reaction Dynamics has developed a revolutionary launch technology, leveraging a novel hybrid propulsion system that dramatically reduces the environmental impact of reaching space compared to current technologies. This technology has the potential to enable regular and affordable access to orbit. Aurora, Reaction Dynamics’ first demo suborbital launch vehicle, is currently undergoing qualification testing with a first flight scheduled for late 2022.

1 May
Amid tensions on Earth, the United States claims that ‘conflict in space is not inevitable’
Kuan-Wei Chen, Executive Director, Centre for Research in Air and Space Law, McGill University
Space is a global commons, “available for all to use.” According to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, space must be explored and used “for peaceful purposes” and “for the benefit and in the interests of all countries.”
(The Conversation) Earlier this month, U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris stated that the United States would not be conducting anti-satellite missile testing. This is a significant statement — the escalations of the recent invasion of Ukraine have affected space collaboration, and in late 2021, the Russian military tested an anti-satellite missile.
The effects of conflict in space would be disastrous on a planetary scale. Our increasing reliance on space for services, communications and monitoring means that a space war could affect these global systems with an unimaginable impact on our lives.
Under international law, “declarations publicly made and manifesting the will to be bound” can create legal obligations. In this case, the U.S. issued a unilateral declaration, which has both tremendous political impact and legal effect.
The U.S. declaration must be read in light of the ongoing multilateral exchanges on reducing space threats through norms, rules and principles of responsible behaviour, and the upcoming Open-Ended Working Group on reducing Space Threats. It will be of interest to see whether other countries will join the U.S. in making such declarations.
Related: We need new treaties to address the growing problem of space debris

17-18 March
3 Russian cosmonauts arrive at International Space Station
(AP) — A trio of Russian cosmonauts arrived at the International Space Station on Friday, the first new faces in space since the start of the Russian war in Ukraine.
Russian space corporation Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveyev and Sergey Korsakov blasted off successfully from the Russia-leased Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan in their Soyuz MS-21 spacecraft at 8:55 p.m. Friday (11:55 a.m. EDT). They smoothly docked at the station just over three hours later, joining two Russians, four Americans and a German on the orbiting outpost.
The war has resulted in canceled spacecraft launches and broken contracts. Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin has warned that the U.S. would have to use “broomsticks” to fly into space after Russia said it would stop supplying rocket engines to U.S. companies. Many worry, however, that Rogozin is putting decades of a peaceful off-planet partnership at risk, most notably at the International Space Station.
… “The other people that work in the Russian civilian space program, they’re professional,” Nelson told the AP on Friday. “They don’t miss a beat with us, American astronauts and American mission control. Despite all of that, up in space, we can have a cooperation with our Russian friends, our colleagues.”
NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei — who on Tuesday broke the U.S. single spaceflight record of 340 days — is due to leave the International Space Station with two Russians aboard a Soyuz capsule for a touchdown in Kazakhstan on March 30.
In April, another three NASA and one Italian astronaut are set to blast off for the space station.
No European Mars mission this year, due to war in Ukraine
(AP) — Because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Europe is going to have to wait at least several more years and may need NASA’s help before its first planned Mars rover can drill into the planet’s dusty surface, seeking signs of whether it ever hosted life.
The European Space Agency said Thursday that it will no longer attempt to send the ExoMars rover aloft this year on a Russian rocket and may now have to strip out the mission’s many Russian components.

Nasa’s giant new SLS Moon rocket makes its debut
The American space agency has rolled out its new giant Moon rocket for the first time.
(BBC) The vehicle, known as the Space Launch System (SLS), was taken to Pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to conduct a dummy countdown.
If that goes well, the rocket will be declared ready for a mission in which it will send an uncrewed test capsule around the Moon.
Ultimately, it’s hoped astronauts would climb aboard later SLS rockets to return to the Moon’s surface sometime in the second half of this decade.
These missions are part of what Nasa calls its Artemis programme.
Watching the roll-out, agency administrator Bill Nelson said we were entering a golden era of human space exploration.
“This generation will return astronauts to the Moon and this time, we will land the first woman and the first person of colour on the surface, to conduct ground-breaking science.”

24 January
Astronomy’s Most Dazzling Era Is About to Begin
The James Webb Space Telescope is now about 1 million miles from Earth, and almost ready to scan the cosmos.
By Marina Koren
(The Atlantic) The telescope and all its parts have traveled by truck, plane, ship, and rocket. But the most nerve-racking leg of its journey was the one it finally completed today, when Webb fired its engines and nudged itself into position about 1 million miles from Earth—four times farther than the moon’s orbit. Until this moment, Webb was mostly a marvel of logistics. Now nestled in its final orbit, the space telescope is finally poised to be a marvel of science. Over the next several months, Webb will make its last adjustments, switch on its instruments, and start basking in the starlight from distant galaxies. It’s all wonder from here on out.
Webb, a hundred times more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope, will soon study nearly everything between Mars and the edges of the observable universe. NASA has grand plans to re-create Hubble’s famous deep-field image using Webb’s ability to scan the cosmos in infrared, which should reveal even more distant galaxies. Caitlin Casey, an astronomer at the University of Texas at Austin, once told me that a Webb deep field will resemble the spray of a freshly opened bottle of champagne—a sparkling display, with every amber droplet a galaxy.

2021

25 December
James Webb Space Telescope, world’s largest, lifts off into orbit
The $9bn observatory seeks out faint light from the first stars and galaxies, providing a glimpse into cosmic creation.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope soared from French Guiana on South America’s northeastern coast, riding a European Ariane rocket into the morning sky on Saturday.
The $9bn observatory hurtled towards its destination 1.6 million kilometres (1 million miles) away – or more than four times beyond the moon. It will take a month to get there and another five months before its infrared eyes are ready to start scanning the cosmos.
First, the telescope’s enormous mirror and sunshield need to unfurl; they were folded origami-style to fit into the rocket’s nose cone. Otherwise, the observatory will not be able to peer back in time 13.7 billion years as anticipated, within a mere 100 million years of the universe-forming Big Bang.
James Webb Space Telescope Launches on Journey to See the Dawn of Starlight
Astronomers were jubilant as the spacecraft made it off the launchpad following decades of delays and cost overruns. The Webb is set to offer a new keyhole into the earliest moments of our universe.
(CSA) The telescope, which promises to change our understanding of the universe, is an international collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the CSA.
Canada contributed two important elements:
– the Fine Guidance Sensor, which will guide the telescope with incredible precision during all of the telescope’s observations; and
– the Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS), one of the telescope’s four science instruments, which will enable scientists to observe distant galaxies and study exoplanets’ atmospheres to determine their potential for supporting life.
In exchange, Canada will receive a guaranteed share of Webb’s observation time, making Canadian scientists some of the first to study data collected by the most advanced space telescope ever built.

23 December
‘Game changer’: Canada’s crucial role in the James Webb telescope launch
(CTV) As the James Webb telescope prepares for launch, Canadians have had a crucial role in its development and in processing the information scientists will receive from it.
Els Peeters, a physics and astronomy professor at the University of Western Ontario, is part of the team leading the “Early Release Science Program,” which is designed to release some of the information from the JWST to the astronomical community as soon as possible, to show off its capabilities.
“In order to showcase what all the instruments could do, the project basically decided to come up with a special category of programs of which the data would be immediately public for the entire astronomical community and showcase what the instruments could do,” she said.
For this role, Peeters will be among the first people to see what images JWST can produce.
“The nice thing about these special programs is that they will be scheduled very early in the lifetime of James Webb and so it will be one of the first observations that will be taken,” she said. “I’m very excited about it because for the research that I’m doing … the instruments are just fantastic.”

19-21 December
James Webb Space Telescope Launch Update
…due to adverse weather conditions at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, the flight VA256 to launch Webb – initially scheduled for Dec. 24 – is being postponed.
The new targeted launch date is Dec. 25
Why the most powerful space telescope ever needs to be kept really, really cold
(NPR) Armed with the telescope, scientists intend to peer back in time to the formation of the earliest galaxies in the universe, to study how our solar system evolved and to analyze the atmospheres of distant planets, searching for gases that might signal habitability
In order to make these observations, the scientific instruments on the telescope need to be kept incredibly cold. That means a crucial part of the telescope is the massive sunshield that will protect it from the heat of the sun.
We Have One Shot to See the Universe Like Never Before
Days from now, the James Webb Space Telescope will launch and unfold a whole new view of the cosmos. That is, if it actually works.
By Marina Koren
(The Atlantic) We don’t really know, beyond those broad outlines, how or when the very first stars and galaxies came to be. Scientists have done what they can, stretching existing telescopes to their limits and filling in the gaps with theoretical models. But they know that there’s more primordial light out there, streaked with answers to some of humanity’s most existential questions. They just need a new kind of instrument to help them look even deeper.
Nasa sets new date for James Webb space telescope launch
The instrument will be the largest and most powerful telescope ever to be launched into space
(The Guardian) The project, begun in 1989, was originally expected to deploy the instrument – which will be the largest and most powerful telescope ever to be launched into space – in the early 2000s.
The James Webb Space Telescope is currently sitting on top of a rocket in South America, surrounded by technicians obsessively checking every bit of it. Launch for the $10 billion observatory is currently scheduled for December 24, Christmas Eve. Webb, the product of a collaboration between three space agencies, is 100 times more powerful than its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope.

16 November
Russian anti-satellite missile test draws condemnation
Space junk is a rapidly worsening situation. Sixty-four years of activity above our heads means there are now roughly a million objects running around up there uncontrolled in the size range of 1cm (0.4in) to 10cm.
The US has condemned Russia for conducting a “dangerous and irresponsible” missile test that it says endangered the crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
The test blew up one of Russia’s own satellites, creating debris that forced the ISS crew to shelter in capsules.
It’s impossible to control the debris field that results from a high-velocity impact. Thousands of fragments are produced. Some will be propelled downwards towards Earth and out of harm’s way, but many will also head to higher altitudes where they will harass operational missions for years into the future – including those of the nation state that carried out the test.
An impact from any one of these could be mission-ending for a vital weather or telecommunications satellite. Nations need to be clearing up the space environment, not polluting it still further.

The Elusive Peril of Space Junk
Millions of human artifacts circle the Earth. Can we clean them up before they cause a disaster?
By Raffi Khatchadourian
(The New Yorker) In the fourteen billion years between the big bang and the autumn of 1957, space was pristine. Then came Objects No. 1 and 2 in the NORAD catalogue: Sputnik 1—a polished orb of aluminum alloy with four long prongs—and the rocket that the Soviet Union had used to launch it, ushering in the space age. Sputnik circled the planet in an elliptical orbit, but at an altitude so low that atmospheric drag brought it down within three months. The following year, NASA launched Object No. 4, Vanguard 1, farther out into space, but then lost contact with it. Adrift since 1964, it still circles the planet. At the apex of the Cold War, Sputnik and Vanguard were triumphant emblems of a bold future. Today, they are emblems of junk.
Since 1957, humanity has placed nearly ten thousand satellites into the sky. All but twenty-seven hundred are now defunct or destroyed. Collectively, they cost billions of dollars, but they were launched with the understanding that they were cheaper to abandon than to sustain.
(21 September 2020)

8 October
Bob McDonald: Are celebrity tourists eclipsing the real science done in space?
William Shatner is scheduled to fly into space, but perhaps the late Leonard Nimoy would have been a better choice, as he played science officer Spock.
(CBC) Actor William Shatner, famously known as Captain Kirk of the original 1960s Star Trek television series, is the latest in a line of celebrities slated to fly into space aboard a Blue Origin rocket. While these flights are great publicity for the emerging space tourism industry, it could overshadow the real science taking place in space.
It is interesting that much of the public knows more about the adventures of a fictional space traveller on a fictional starship than they do about the actual people who are up there in a real space station.
It would be in the best interest of the space agencies to do a better job of publicizing the results of their space station research. It would go a long way towards justifying the upwards of $100 billion invested in the ISS. Otherwise it could end up looking like the world’s most expensive movie set. Space science may not be as exciting as an action movie or seeing your favourite celebrity floating weightless, but it can still be enormously valuable.

6 August
The Right Chemistry: All aboard for space tourism! Well, maybe not all
Joe Schwarcz
With all the publicity surrounding Richard Branson’s and Jeff Bezos’s recent flights into space, you might get the impression that these men are the pioneers of space tourism. Actually, the honour of being the world’s first space tourist belongs to American millionaire Dennis Tito, who in 2001 paid $20 million for a ride to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket. An aeronautical engineer who once worked for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Tito made his fortune as an investment manager.
Tito had been captivated by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s orbital flight in 1961 and dreamed of following in his footsteps. He described his first sensation of weightlessness as the greatest moment of his life, and his ISS stint as “eight days of euphoria.” Seven other space tourists followed, paying the Russians millions of dollars until the program ended in 2009 when the U.S. Space Shuttle Program was retired, leaving the Russian Soyuz craft as the only means of transport to the ISS.
Dr. Joe Schwarcz on the long, controversial history of space tourism (video)

24 July
Why the billionaire Space Race is something to cheer
(CAPX) The reactions to Branson and Bezos’ trips have been predictably negative. Criticisms fall into three broad camps:
Space exploration is a waste of money. With so many pressing needs here on earth it’s wrong to pour billions into what is essentially a vanity exercise.
If they’ve got so much spare cash, why don’t they pay their taxes and treat their workers better.
The commercialisation of space travel is wrong and will just lead to yet another industry offering expensive perks to the super-wealthy.
There is actually a fourth category of criticism which boils down to ‘I really, really, don’t like these people’, which is perfectly reasonable but not particularly relevant or useful to debate.
…the most immediate justification for the money poured into space travel by both states and individuals: practical uses here on Earth for innovations developed in order to enable space exploration and the research that it has enabled.
Looking back over the last few decades it is truly astounding how many of these there are. Products in daily use today which only exist because of the research carried out for space exploration include: artificial limbs; the insulin pump; the polymers used in firefighters’ heat-resistant suits; shock absorbers to protect buildings during earthquakes; solar cells; water filtration technology; wireless headsets; camera phones; CAT scans; air purifiers; memory foam; home insulation; LED devices that relieve pain.
… There is a more fundamental challenge however about the ownership of the Moon, Mars, the skies themselves and the resources and knowledge they provide. As the Moon is increasingly visited by private companies as well as national agencies, perhaps even colonised, how it will it be used? Will access be modelled on the Antarctic, with strict controls on uses and population? Or will governments and private companies just stake claims? The legal issues are extremely complex. We urgently need an internationally agreed framework, with treaties agreed by the countries actively involved in space flight and a clear set of rules governing the involvement of private companies.
Much of the criticism of Jeff Bezos centres on the ability of large companies like Amazon to avoid paying much tax. That arises from the failure of nations and international bodies to keep up with the internationalisation of the world’s economy and put in place effective rules to govern it. Now that economy is set to become not just international but inter-planetary, we must not make the same mistake.

20 July
Jeff Bezos And Blue Origin Travel Deeper Into Space Than Richard Branson
(NPR) The founder of Amazon, who stepped down as CEO earlier this month, lifted off early Tuesday with three crewmates on the maiden flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard launch vehicle.
Liftoff! Jeff Bezos And Three Crewmates Travel To Space And Back In Under 15 Minutes
The date of the New Shepard’s maiden launch is no accident: July 20 was the day in 1969 that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon
Heather Cox Richardson: In 2021, Bezos paid $973 million in taxes on $4.22 billion in income while his wealth increased by $99 billion, making his true tax rate 0.98%. After his trip into the sky, he told reporters: “I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all of this…. Seriously, for every Amazon customer out there and every Amazon employee, thank you from the bottom of my heart very much. It’s very appreciated.”

11 July
Richard Branson Has Completed A Historic Trip To The Edge Of Space On Virgin Galactic
(NPR) The ascent to the launch [the spacecraft was attached to a larger plane,] — where the mothership released the Galactic Unity 22 — lasted nearly 50 minutes. Once detached, an on-board rocket was engaged, shooting Galactic Unity 22 to a peak altitude of more than 282,000 feet.
Branson…is one in a trio of billionaire businessmen who’ve launched commercial space flight ventures.
Jeff Bezos, the founder and executive chairman of Amazon and owner of The Washington Post, is set to take his company Blue Origin to space on July 20. Elon Musk, the CEO and chief engineer of Space X, has also been in pursuit of creating commercial space flight opportunities.

3 July
How to Decipher the Pentagon’s UFO Report The crucial, missing context for what military pilots might actually be seeing.
By Jeff Wise
(New York) For many, aerial objects moving in impossible ways immediately brings to mind alien visitors. But for those working in the electronic warfare industry, strangely manifesting phenomena are their stock-in-trade. The field is tasked with the detection of adversaries across the electromagnetic spectrum, from visual light to infrared and radar, as well as manipulating signals so that your forces are not detected by the enemy. “By radiating electromagnetic energy, one can deny, deceive, disrupt, delay or deceive that energy to confuse an observer about what you’re doing,” says Glenn “Powder” Carlson, president of the Old Crows Association, the EW professional organization. …
By opening up discussion of mysterious aeronautical encounters to the general public, even to the extent of endorsing the idea that alien UFOs are real, the military hopes to encourage the regular reporting of potentially worrisome anomalies.
25 June
Watershed U.S. UFO report does not rule out extraterrestrial origin
(Reuters) – A U.S. government report on UFOs issued on Friday said defense and intelligence analysts lack sufficient data to determine the nature of mysterious flying objects observed by American military pilots including whether they are advanced earthly technologies, atmospherics or of an extraterrestrial origin.report, released to Congress and the public, encompasses 144 observations – mostly from U.S. Navy personnel – of what the government officially calls “unidentified aerial phenomenon,” or UAP, dating back to 2004.
Labeled a preliminary assessment, it was compiled by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in conjunction with a Navy-led task force created by the Pentagon last year.

24 June
Cosmic dawn: scientists hope to peer back in time to see birth of stars
Telescope may be able to observe event now calculated to have taken place 250-350m years after big bang
It is often said that looking through a telescope is like peering back in time, because of the millions of years it takes light from distant cosmic objects to reach Earth. Now scientists have calculated that they may be able to see far enough back to observe the birth of the very first stars – with the first images possibly available as early as next year. They have also pinpointed when this momentous event occurred.
Observing the moment when the universe was first bathed in light, the cosmic dawn, is a major quest in astronomy.
“All of the chemical elements that make up you and me are synthesised in stars, so in some sense, cosmic dawn is our own birth,” said Prof Richard Ellis at University College London, who was involved in the research. “It has been a holy grail for astronomers to not only predict when this occurred, but to actually witness it.”

14 June
The woman who forced the US government to take UFOs seriously
(The Guardian) In 1999, Leslie Kean was handed a 90-page report of UFO sightings by pilots. After publishing her first story on the subject, she was hooked.
Kean’s biggest breakthrough came in 2017, when she was invited by a longtime source to meet with Luis “Lue” Elizondo on the day he resigned as the director of a clandestine Pentagon program that collected information about UFOs, the shadowy Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP).
Essentially, he revealed the very program she had lobbied for.
Kean teamed up with Ralph Blumenthal and Helene Cooper to write up her scoop for the New York Times, Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious UFO Program. The story revealed the existence of AATIP from 2007 to 2012, funded by an initiative from the former Senate majority leader Harry Reid and fellow Senators Ted Stevens and Daniel Inouye.
[Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program
In the $600 billion annual Defense Department budgets, the $22 million spent on the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program was almost impossible to find.
Which was how the Pentagon wanted it.
For years, the program investigated reports of unidentified flying objects, according to Defense Department officials, interviews with program participants and records obtained by The New York Times.
16 December 2017]
17 May
For some Navy pilots, UFO sightings were an ordinary event: ‘Every day for at least a couple years’
(WaPo) When the Navy pilot first spotted the strange object hovering in restricted airspace off the Atlantic Coast, he was stunned — no exhaust plume, no visible engine and all the makings of something secret, something mysterious or something dangerous.
But years later, Ryan Graves sounded almost bored as he recounted for a national television audience his history with unidentified aerial phenomena — UAPs, better known as UFOs.
Perhaps because for him and some of his former Navy colleagues, such sightings became a regular occurrence.
Graves has told his story before. But the interview — part of a “60 Minutes” report dedicated to the subject — signaled something new: UFOs are going mainstream. The shift — from kooky conspiracy theory to object of congressional inquiry — has accelerated in recent years, fueled by the revival of a Pentagon unit to investigate the sightings. And in the next six weeks, a report is due that is required to make public everything the government knows about UFOs.
19 May
A very long, thorough, account of the gradual acceptance of the existence of UFOs or Unidentified Aerial Phenomena
How the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously
For decades, flying saucers were a punch line. Then the U.S. government got over the taboo.
(The New Yorker May 10 issue) Last summer, David Norquist, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, announced the formal existence of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. The 2021 Intelligence Authorization Act, signed this past December, stipulated that the government had a hundred and eighty days to gather and analyze data from disparate agencies. Its report is expected in June. In a recent interview with Fox News, John Ratcliffe, the former director of National Intelligence, emphasized that the issue was no longer to be taken lightly. “When we talk about sightings,” he said, “we are talking about objects that have been seen by Navy or Air Force pilots, or have been picked up by satellite imagery, that frankly engage in actions that are difficult to explain, movements that are hard to replicate, that we don’t have the technology for, or are travelling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom.”

5 May
America’s moon effort is getting weirder
(The Atlantic) We’re living in an exciting moment in American spaceflight history. I’m sure every space journalist since the Apollo era has said this at some point. But it’s true, and it’s true now in stranger ways than before. NASA is in the midst of a new moon effort—named Artemis, for Apollo’s sister—to return American astronauts to the surface of the moon, this time including the first woman and the first person of color.
The space agency has already picked which of its astronauts are eligible to train for these missions, though they’re not yet household names like Armstrong and Aldrin were. The most high-profile figures in this new project are instead Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, who are also the two richest people in the world. Both men had pitched their rocket companies for the NASA mission, which is supposed to leave in 2024. NASA picked Musk’s SpaceX, but then Bezos’s Blue Origin challenged the decision, and now the whole thing is on hold. It’s a messy situation…
This is what I mean when I say that this moment in space history is different. Private companies are now doing work once reserved for government agencies, and their billionaire founders are shaping the future of space travel, for better or worse. Rich people can pay for flights to the edge of space to experience a few minutes of weightlessness, or for trips all the way into orbit, to loop around Earth for a couple of days. One very rich person has already purchased a moon journey.
Deeper in the solar system, robotic spacecraft are doing ever more exciting exploring for us. NASA’s little Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, has already completed several flights on the red planet’s surface, proving that people can make machines fly in the atmosphere of an entirely alien world. Space robots such as Ingenuity are distinctly good at capturing the public’s imagination. People tend to anthropomorphize robots that act as if they have minds of their own, even something as purely mechanical as Ingenuity wiggling its blades. When machines make the long journeys to Mars and other planets in our cosmic neighborhood, they take a little piece of humankind with them. — Marina Koren

6 May
Elon Musk Is Maybe, Actually, Strangely, Going to Do This Mars Thing
From his private Cape Canaveral, the billionaire is manifesting his own interplanetary reality—whatever the cost.

5 May
How the Space Fantasy Became Banal
The final frontier, as a setting, has long channeled giddy dreams of human communion. A new group of cultural works explores the opposite possibility.

29 April
Path to the Pad: NASA Artemis I Moon Rocket Comes Together
NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket is on its path to the pad for Artemis I, the first integrated mission of SLS and NASA’s Orion spacecraft through the agency’s Artemis program. … With the Artemis program, NASA will land the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon and establish sustainable exploration in preparation for missions to Mars. SLS and NASA’s Orion spacecraft, along with the commercial human landing system and the Gateway in orbit around the Moon, are NASA’s backbone for deep space exploration. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and supplies to the Moon in a single mission.

28 April
The World’s Richest Men Are Brawling Over the Moon
NASA gave Elon Musk’s SpaceX a coveted contract for a lunar mission. Jeff Bezos plans to fight for it.
Marina Koren
(The Atlantic) In one corner is Jeff Bezos, the founder of the rocket company Blue Origin, and the richest person in the world. In the other is Elon Musk, the founder of the rocket company SpaceX, and the second-richest person in the world. Bezos and Musk have pitched their respective businesses to NASA in the space agency’s search for new technology to land astronauts on the moon. It is a massive opportunity. Astronauts haven’t set foot on the moon since the final Apollo mission, in 1972. But American officials have long called for a triumphant return, longer stays, and even the construction of a permanent base. And in recent years, they have turned to the private sector for help.|NASA announced last week that SpaceX had won the coveted contract, worth $2.9 billion, to develop a lunar lander, beating out Blue Origin, which had partnered with a few longtime space contractors for its bid. This week, Blue Origin filed a protest with the federal agency that investigates government spending, challenging the decision.