Communication between spacecraft relies upon line of site technology, if anything is in the way, communication isn’t possible. Exploration of the far side of the Moon is a great example where future explorers would be unable to communicate directly with Earth. The only way around this is to use relay satellites and the Chinese Space Agency is on the case. The first Queqiao-1 was able to co-ordinate communications with Chang’e-4 landers and now they are sending Queqiao-2 to support the Change’e-6 mission.
Space News & Blog Articles
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James Webb Space Telescope to investigate the stunning light shows of Saturn and Uranus
The James Webb Space Telescope will soon investigate stunning light shows from Uranus and Saturn as two projects look at the auroras of these planets to discover the processes that make them tick.
Life after Ingenuity: How scientists hope to reach the skies of Mars once more
The concept for a flying, wing-heavy drone called MAGGIE could one day show us an entirely new perspective on Mars.
NASA Experiments Planned for the April 8th Total Solar Eclipse
Totality and the April 8th total solar eclipse offers a rare chance to study the Sun.
NASA's DART mission hammered its target asteroid into a new shape. Here's how
When NASA's DART spacecraft crashed into the small asteroid Dimorphos in September of 2022, the impact's energy changed the asteroid’s trajectory and substantially altered its shape.
Toward the next generation of air quality monitoring
Video: 00:17:57
Air pollution is the largest environmental health risk in Europe and significantly impacts the health of the European population, particularly in urban areas.
How to build an environmental monitor to track air purity
Sponsor Content Created With United States Space Force
Russian Soyuz rocket suffers rare last-minute abort during launch of 3 astronauts to ISS (video)
A Russian Soyuz rocket carrying three astronauts bound for the International Space Station experienced a rare abort on the launch pad on Thursday (March 21).
How environmentally friendly is SpaceX's Starship?
SpaceX's Starship uses greener propellant than other rockets, but its environmental footprint could still be substantial if plans for hundreds of launches per year come to pass, experts warn.
The Mars Science Helicopter Could be an Airborne Geologist on Mars
After over 70 successful flights, a broken rotor ended the remarkable and groundbreaking Ingenuity helicopter mission on Mars. Now, NASA is considering how a larger, more capable helicopter could be an airborne geologist on the Red Planet. For the past several years scientists and engineers have been working on the concept, proposing a six-rotor hexacopter that would be about the size of the Perseverance rover.
Could We See a Solar Eruption on Eclipse Day?
Ejections of solar material are increasingly commonplace as the Sun’s activity ramps up. Here’s what to expect if an eruption occurs on eclipse day.
What is the most distant thing we can see?
To the unaided human eye, the night sky is resplendent with over 9,000 individual points of light, but that perspective covers only a bare fraction of the universe.
Gaia unravels the ancient threads of the Milky Way
ESA’s Gaia space telescope has further disentangled the history of our galaxy, discovering two surprising streams of stars that formed and wove together over 12 billion years ago.
Live coverage: Soyuz launch to add 3 more crew members to the ISS roster
Expedition 71 NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, and Belarus spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya are seen in quarantine, behind glass, during a press conference, Wednesday, March 20, 2024 a the Cosmonaut Hotel in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Dyson, Novitskiy, and Belarus spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya are scheduled to launch aboard their Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft on March 21. Image: NASA/Bill Ingalls
A Russian cosmonaut, an American astronaut and a Belarusian flight attendant turned spaceflight participant are preparing for a mission to the International Space Station. Their arrival at the orbiting outpost will mark the beginning of Expedition 71.
NASA is Planning to Shut Down One of the Great Observatories to Save Money
The US Government budget announcement in March left NASA with two billion dollars less than it asked for. The weeks that followed have left NASA with some difficult decisions forcing cuts across the agency. There will be a number of cuts across the agency but one recent decision came as quite a shock to the scientific community. NASA have just announced they are no longer going to support the Chandra X-Ray Observatory which has been operational since 1999 and made countless discoveries.
Live coverage: Dragon flights return to Cape Canaveral’s pad 40 with SpaceX’s 30th cargo mission to the Space Station
For the first time, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a Dragon 2 spacecraft on top is positioned in launch configuration at pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Image: SpaceX
SpaceX is gearing up for the next phase of launches from Cape Canaveral that is, in a way, a callback to a previous era in their launch history. While this will be SpaceX’s 30th flight as part of NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program, it’s the first time a Dragon 2 spacecraft will launch to the International Space Station (ISS) from pad 40.
SpaceX's Starship could fly again as soon as early May
SpaceX hopes to launch the fourth test flight of its Starship megarocket just six weeks or so from now, according to the company's president and COO.
China launches satellite to support future moon missions (video)
China launched a relay satellite towards the moon atop a Long March 8 rocket this week after a previous launch this month failed to reach lunar orbit.
1 in 12 stars might have swallowed a planet
A new study suggests that stars may chomp on planets way more often than you'd expect.
Whee! Zip down from the launch tower in SpaceX's new emergency-escape slide (video)
SpaceX has given us an astronaut's-eye view of the company's new emergency-escape slide in action at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
It’s Time to Study Lunar Lava Tubes. Here’s a Mission That Could Help
The Moon is practically begging to be explored, and the momentum to do so is building. The Artemis Program’s effort to return astronauts to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo missions captures a lot of attention. But there are other efforts underway.
