Category: Science

BEIJING (Reuters) – A Chinese government space agency successfully launched on Saturday its first rocket meant for commercial use, state television CCTV reported, as firms in the country compete to join a commercial satellite boom. Smart Dragon-1 rocket, which weighs 23 tonnes and was developed by a unit of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp…

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine on Friday said Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama will anchor the U.S. space agency’s program to build a spacecraft to put astronauts back on the moon by 2024, a boon for the state and a disappointment for Texas. Bridenstine, accompanied by U.S. lawmakers from Alabama, made the…

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The head of NASA is set to announce plans on Friday to name the U.S. space agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama as headquarters for its human lunar lander program, signaling progress in its drive to put astronauts back on the moon by 2024, three people familiar with the plan said.…

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Jupiter, the solar system’s largest planet, may have been smacked head-on by an embryonic planet 10 times Earth’s mass not long after being formed, a monumental crash with apparent lasting effects on the Jovian core, scientists said on Thursday. The violent collision, hypothesized by astronomers to explain data collected by NASA’s Juno…

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Genetic research that reconstructed the past population dynamics of the cave bear, a prominent prehistoric denizen of Europe, implicates Homo sapiens rather than climate cooling in the Ice Age extinction of these brawny plant-loving beasts. Scientists said on Thursday they obtained genome data from 59 cave bears from bones unearthed at 14…

TOKYO (Reuters) – Millions of years after the ancestors of humans evolved to lose their tails, a research team at Japan’s Keio University have built a robotic one they say could help unsteady elderly people keep their balance. Dubbed Arque, the grey one-meter device mimics tails such as those of cheetahs and other animals used…

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese startup LinkSpace on Saturday completed its third test of a reusable rocket in five months, stepping up the pace in China’s race to develop a technology key to cheap space launches in an expected global boom in satellite deployment. LinkSpace’s RLV-T5 rocket blasted off in a desert in western Qinghai province…

(Reuters) – United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing Co and Lockheed Martin Corp, blasted off into space on Thursday morning, one of the final satellites for the U.S. Air Force’s new secure communications network. The satellite was launched at 6:13 a.m. (1030 GMT) from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station atop ULA’s Atlas…

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s seaside towns are at war with their seagulls, urging visitors not to feed the birds in an effort to stop them snatching titbits like potato chips from tourists’ hands. Warning signs deck promenade railings from Scarborough to Broadstairs and beyond but now research from the University of Exeter has suggested an…

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Space Communication said on Wednesday its Amos-17 communications satellite was launched into space and was enroute to its orbital position after separating from its SpaceX rocket. The Israeli satellite operator is counting on Amos-17, which was manufactured by Boeing and will provide communication services to Africa, to help it rebound from some…