On Saturday night, August 6, India’s brand-new rocket successfully launched for the first time, but due to a sensor problem, it was unable to place its satellite payloads into the desired orbit.
NASA’s CAPSTONE mission, which will chart a new orbit around the moon that will hopefully be used for a future crewed lunar space station, is underway after a successful launch on Tuesday morning. Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle delivered the CAPSTONE satellite, which is roughly the size of a large microwave oven, to Earth orbit for step one of its lunar journey.
China on Sunday launched three astronauts into space as a part of its mission to complete assembly work on its permanent orbiting space station. The ‘Shenzhou 14’ crew blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on the edge of the Gobi Desert at 10:44 a.m. (02:44 p.m. CST). The three astronauts will spend the next six months on China’s Tiangong space station, which translates to “heavenly palace.”
