Most wise humans know that while we should take our roles seriously as workers, parents, carers and the like, we should not take ourselves too seriously. Nothing saps the spirit like having a po-faced professional colleague whose humourless attitude tends to get...
The Mars One plan to base a reality TV show on the surface of Mars in 2024 and its competition to send 24 participants there has, of course, ended in tears. To no-one’s surprise, except perhaps its instigators Bas Lansdorp and Arno Wielders, the project came to...
The United Launch Alliance (ULA) has won a NASA contract to launch the LUCY mission – a “Discovery-class” mission to the Trojan asteroids. Using an Atlas V 401 launch vehicle, the mission will launch in October 2021. Launch-related costs are set to total US$148.3...
At 0226 GMT on 3 January 2019, China’s Chang’e 4 lander along with the rover it was carrying successfully landed on the Moon’s lunar far side, at the Atkin Basic crater near its South Pole. The official location is at 177.6 degrees East, 45.5 degrees South. On the...
The world was congratulating NASA after its New Horizons spacecraft successfully passed space object Ultima Thule on 1 January some four billion miles from Earth. The spacecraft then began slowly relaying images of the body located in the Kuiper Belt beyond Pluto,...
While lunar orbiters have imaged the lunar far side before, China is attempting a world first in trying to land its Chang’e 4 lander and rover mission near the South Pole. The first stage of the mission went well with the successful launch of Chang’e 4 on a Long March...
