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  • China set to launch high-stakes mission to moon's 'hidden' side

    China will send a robotic spacecraft in coming days on a round trip to the moon's far side in the first of three technically demanding missions that will pave the way for an inaugural Chinese crewed landing and a base on the lunar south pole. Since the first Chang'e mission in 2007, named after the mythical Chinese moon goddess, China has made leaps forward in its lunar exploration, narrowing the technological chasm with the United States and Russia. In 2020, China brought back samples from...

  • 2030 moon mission: China’s Shenzhou-18 mission docks with space station, Xinhua reports

    By Michael Zhang A spaceship carrying three astronauts from China’s Shenzhou-18 mission safely docked at Tiangong space station Friday, state-run media reported, the latest step in Beijing’s space programme that aims to send astronauts to the Moon by 2030. The crew took off in a capsule atop a Long March-2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite […]

  • The Mars Sample Return mission has a shaky future

    A critical NASA mission in the search for life beyond Earth, Mars Sample Return, is in trouble. Its budget has ballooned from US$5 billion to over $11 billion, and the sample return date may slip from the end of this decade to 2040. The mission would be the first to try to return rock samples from Mars to Earth so scientists can analyze them for signs of past life.NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said during a press conference on April 15, 2024, that the mission as currently conceived is too...