China has named the two Pakistani astronauts selected to train for a mission to its space station this year, Xinhua said on Wednesday. After undergoing assessments, one of the men will serve as a payload specialist on a space mission alongside the Chinese crew to become the first foreign astronaut to enter the Tiangong space station. Muhammad Zeeshan Ali and Khurram Daud will soon arrive in China for their training, according to the China Manned Space Agency. They were selected after China and...
The three astronauts currently stationed on China’s Tiangong space station will extend their stay by around a month, state broadcaster CCTV said on Friday. The crew lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre on October 31 on board the Shenzhou-21 vessel and were expected to return to Earth at the end of this month after a standard six-month mission. In November, a crack was discovered in a window of the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft, forcing the space station’s previous crew to extend their...
NASA’s Artemis II astronauts have returned to Earth after completing the first crewed lunar mission in 53 years.
The four Artemis II astronauts, returning from the world’s first crewed moon voyage in over half a century, hurtled back towards Earth on Friday as they prepared their Orion spacecraft for the final phase of their descent and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off Southern California. On Friday afternoon, the autonomously piloted Orion crew capsule executed one last eight-second firing of its jet thrusters to fine-tune the flight course, a critical manoeuvre to ensure a safe return. Nasa’s...
NASA’s Artemis II astronauts are preparing for re-entry
A Nasa crew of four astronauts will fly by the moon on Monday at the closest distance they will get to the lunar surface during their mission and the nearest any human has got to the moon in more than 50 years. The historic moment is set to occur just after 7pm New York time on Monday, part of a several hours-long fly-by where the astronauts will snap images of the moon’s far side – a vantage that is never seen from Earth. The close approach is the pinnacle moment of Nasa’s Artemis II mission,...
They are sipping smoothies, snapping phone pics, dealing with crashed email and fixing broken toilets: astronauts, they are just like us. The four crew members zipping through space towards the moon are carrying out a mission unlike any before it, but they are also still muddling on through life’s mundanities – all while they float around together in a square footage equivalent to two minivans. Mission specialist Christina Koch, the first woman to venture into deep space, said preparing for the...
The crew on board the Artemis II spoke by video link, sharing messages for their families and experiences of the trip so far.