United News of Bangladesh

SpaceX launched its shiny, bullet-shaped, straight-out-of-science fiction Starship several miles into the air from a remote corner of Texas on Wednesday, but the 6 1/2-minute test flight ended in an explosive fireball at touchdown.

A small capsule containing asteroid soil samples that was dropped from 220,000 kilometers (136,700 miles) in space by Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft landed as planned in the Australian Outback on Sunday. After a preliminary inspection, it will be flown to Japan for research. The extremely high precision required to carry out the mission thrilled many in Japan, who said they took pride in its success. The project’s manager, Yuichi Tsuda of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, called the capsule a (asterisk)treasure box.(asterisk) The AP explains the significance of the project and what comes next.

The ascender of China's Chang'e-5 probe successfully rendezvoused and docked with the orbiter-returner combination in lunar orbit at 5:42 a.m. (Beijing Time) on Sunday, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) has announced.

Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft successfully released a small capsule on Saturday and sent it toward Earth to deliver samples from a distant asteroid that could provide clues to the origin of the solar system and life on our planet, the country’s space agency said.

China has planted its flag on the Moon, more than 50 years after the US first planted the Stars and Stripes there, reports BBC.

A huge, already damaged radio telescope in Puerto Rico that has played a key role in astronomical discoveries for more than half a century completely collapsed on Tuesday.

China launched an ambitious mission on Tuesday to bring back rocks and debris from the moon’s surface for the first time in more than 40 years — an undertaking that could boost human understanding of the moon and of the solar system more generally.

Two drugmakers, Pfizer and Moderna, have announced promising interim results for their vaccine candidates, raising hopes that the end of the pandemic may be in sight. But, if and when the vaccines are authorized by the Food and Drug Administration, distributing them presents a daunting challenge, reports NPR.

SpaceX’s newly launched capsule with four astronauts arrived Monday at the International Space Station, their new home until spring.

China's third-generation space tracking ship Yuanwang-6 departed on Friday for multiple spacecraft monitoring missions.