A Japanese enhanced Epsilon rocket launched a multi-satellite mission on 9 November at 0055 GMT. The launch took place from the Uchinoura Space Center, Southern Japan, and carried nine small satellites in a JAXA-sponsored mission. The satellites were carried to a...
Rocket Lab has secured another launch contract in September, this time with commercial space debris removal pioneer Astroscale. This contract is for the ADRAS-J 1 mission that Astroscale is developing for the Japanese space agency, JAXA. The mission is the first phase...
Some years ago this column started its annual analysis called “The Great Space Race”. The idea was that while the original “Moon race” ended in 1969 when the USA beat the Soviet Union onto the lunar surface with its Apollo 11 human landing, a new one has...
Two astronauts, NASA’s Kathleen Rubins and JAXA’s Soichi Noguchi, ventured out of the International Space Station (ISS) on 5 March for a near seven hour EVA spacewalk to finish work on the P6 truss new struts and brackets at locations 2B and 4B. The work...
The US commercial unmanned space freighter Cygnus NG-15 (Katherine Johnson) was launched successfully by an Antares 230+ rocket at 1736 GMT on 20 February from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia. The 8,050 kg craft was launched on a...
The Japanese Hayabusa-2 mission gave JAXA a laudable success when it returned to Earth with its asteroid samples safely on board the return capsule on 5 December. Having made trajectory corrections, the Hayabusa-2 spacecraft entered the Earth’s gravitational field at...
