Verge Science is here to bring you the most up-to-date space news and analysis, whether it’s about the latest findings from NASA or comprehensive coverage of the next SpaceX rocket launch to the International Space Station. We’ll take you inside the discoveries of new exoplanets, space weather, space policy, and the booming commercial space industry.
The Ariane 6 vehicle was supposed to begin service in 2020, but then... some things happened.
At about 3PM ET, it finally took off from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana and successfully reignited its Vinci engine in orbit, beginning the journey’s second of three planned stages that you can continue to follow live.
Their simulated mission to Mars tested “how future astronauts may react to isolation and confinement during deep-space journeys,” according to NASA. The crew of four went through 18 health studies during their stint at a 650-square-foot habitat at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Outside of each other’s company, the crew kept four pet triops shrimp: Buzz, Alvin, Simon, and Theodore.
The contract granted by NASA — worth up to $843 million — will see SpaceX develop a vehicle to safely deorbit the space station “in a controlled manner after the end of its operational life in 2030.”
NASA says the station will remain in use until then, and expects both the station and deorbit vehicle to break apart upon re-entry to avoid risk to populated areas.
Closing a loop that began with this 2016 launch, NASA is about to send the fourth and final satellite in the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) – R Series into space as part of a system for much better real-time weather forecasting.
NASA has pushed back the capsule’s return to Earth from the ISS to examine helium leaks and a valve issue. The Starliner ran into multiple delays before finally launching earlier this month.
The agency is targeting a return “no earlier than” June 22nd, and plans to hold a teleconference at 12PM ET on June 18th to talk over details of the delayed departure.
NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick, who’s been on the International Space Station since March, seems to enjoy sharing his camera settings. For the picture of the Boeing Starliner below, he followed up:
For the photography nerds: 1 second exposure, f 1.4, ISO 2000, 24 mm lens.
It includes images of cloud vortices (white), an aurora (pink), a solar flare (light blue), Jupiter’s North Temperate Belt (brown), Jupiter’s moon Io (yellow), Mars (orange), the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (black), a red sprite cluster (red), an algal bloom (green), Neptune (blue), and crab nebula (purple).
Happy Pride!
I was just chatting about The Moon, a movie I watched last year about a Korean astronaut getting stranded in space. It was a fun sci-fi flick but to my surprise, Korea actually launched its very first space agency last week.
This comes at a time when China, Japan, and India have heavily invested in space exploration. Korea’s pledged roughly $72 billion to its new agency, with a lunar landing planned for 2032, and a Mars landing for 2045.
SpaceX isn’t the only one busy today, as the finally-launched Starliner is closing in on the International Space Station. Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have already performed “about two hours of free-flight demonstrations,” and more are planned, despite additional helium leaks detected by flight controllers overnight.
The autonomous docking procedure is scheduled for 12:15PM ET.
SpaceX’s Starship is attempting re-entry over the Indian Ocean, and with the signal going in and out, a live video stream showed some damage and burning on a fin.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has granted SpaceX the license it needed for the fourth flight test of its massive Starship rocket this week.
After the previous launch achieved Starship’s first reentry from space, SpaceX says its next objectives will be executing a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico with the Super Heavy booster, and a controlled entry of Starship.
What happens when remote villages get Starlink and all the good and bad that comes with unfettered internet access? The New York Times traveled deep into the Amazon rainforest to find out:
Modern society has dealt with these issues over decades as the internet continued its relentless march. The Marubo and other Indigenous tribes, who have resisted modernity for generations, are now confronting the internet’s potential and peril all at once, while debating what it will mean for their identity and culture.
The contrast and familiarity of the NYT’s photography is striking, seeing people hunched over their brightly lit rectangles hoping for just one more hit of dopamine.
NASA, Boeing, and the United Launch Alliance had hoped for a shorter delay, but NASA says the ULA is taking more time to troubleshoot an issue with ground launch systems that halted the mission less than four minutes from liftoff.
The next launch window begins on June 5th.
With just 3 minutes and 50 seconds to go, one of three redundant ground computers involved in the launch was slow to respond, triggering a hold and the call to abort liftoff, United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno said during a press conference today.
The next target for launch is 12:03PM ET tomorrow.
Wait, you’re telling me that consumer tech can be foiled by a determined and well-funded military?
The new outages appeared to be the first time the Russians have caused widespread disruptions of Starlink. If they continue to succeed, it could mark a tactical shift in the conflict, highlighting Ukraine’s vulnerability and dependence on the service provided by Mr. Musk’s company.
Time for Musk to deploy the Starshield! Or, did he?
The video call works, barely, and that’s before fighting other LTE-compatible phones for access to the T-Mo service first announced in 2022.
But when the choice is no coverage versus this, well, I’d call that a win. And it’ll only be available for texting later this year in the US, with data coming in 2025 as SpaceX launches more D2C Starlink satellites.
All of the crew of Blue Origin’s NS-25 flight have emerged from the capsule, safe and sound. That includes Ed Dwight, who was selected as the first Black Astronaut candidate in the early days of NASA’s space program but never went to space before today.
“I thought I really didn’t need this in my life,” he said during Blue Origin’s livestream, “but now I need it in my life.”
The capsule parachuted down to the desert too, landing shortly after the New Shepard rocket. One of its parachutes didn’t deploy fully, but Blue Origin’s webcasters say the company has tested for that possibility and that it’s fine. They added that the crew are reporting they’re fine.
The reusable rocket that just took the NS-25 capsule into space has now touched down in the desert of West Texas.
