China has successfully launched the second of three modules that will eventually make up its Tiangong space station. On Sunday at 2:22 PM local time (2:22 AM ET), the Wentian “Quest for the Heavens” module lifted off from the country’s Wenchang spaceport atop a Long March 5B rocket, Reuters reports. With the launch a “complete success,” Wentian is expected to rendezvous with the Tiangong space station later today.

At that point, the crew of China’s Shenzhou-14 mission will begin the work of linking Wentian with the Tianhe “Harmony of Heaves” module. The latter has been in space since orbital construction on Tiangong began in April 2021. Once Wentian is operational, it will serve as one of two laboratories that will form Tiangong’s eventual t-shaped structure. Once complete, the station will be about a fifth of the size of the International Space Station, with long-term accommodation for three astronauts.

In addition to including space and equipment for Chinese astronauts to carry out microgravity and life sciences research, Wentian features an airlock cabin that will serve as the main entry and exit point for future extravehicular activities out of Tiangong. The module also has temporary living quarters that will allow China to carry out crew handover missions. According to Space.com, the first such handover is planned for later this year. China plans to launch Tiangong’s final module in October. The country is exploring the possibility of allowing commercial space flights to visit Tiangong. It has also invited international space agencies to visit the station.

The final episode of Space Explorers: The ISS Experience is available starting today and it's closing things out with a bang. The four-part series, which debuted in October 2020, wraps up with the first spacewalk filmed in ultra high-resolution cinematic virtual reality. The episode, which is called "Expand," includes the arrival of a SpaceX crew on the International Space Station for the first time as well. Meanwhile, the astronauts are forced to reckon with the impact of COVID-19 back on Earth.

You can check out "Expand" on Meta Quest and Meta Quest 2 headsets for free. The other Space Explorers: The ISS Experience episodes are still available too. Meanwhile, Felix & Paul, the studio behind the series, plans to livestream the Artemis I launch in VR. The launch of an uncrewed mission to the Moon is currently slated for August 29th, September 2nd or September 5th.

With the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) now powered up and snapping some spectacular images, you may wonder exactly how it's storing them. Surprisingly enough, it carries a relatively tiny 68GB SSD, according to IEEE Spectrum — enough to handle a day's worth of JWST images, but not a lot more.

While that might sound ludicrously small for a $10 billion satellite, there are multiple reasons NASA chose the system. To start with, the JWST is a million miles from Earth where it gets bombarded by radiation and operates at a temperature of less than 50 degrees above absolute zero (-370 degrees F). So the SSD, like all other parts, must be radiation hardened and survive a grueling certification process. 

While not nearly as fast as consumer SSDs, it can still be nearly filled in as little as 120 minutes via the telescope's 48 Mbps command and data handling subsystem (ICDH). At the same time, the JWST can transmit data back to Earth at 28 Mbps via a 25.9 Ghz Ka-band connection to the Deep Space Network. 

That means that while it collects far more data than Hubble ever did (57GB compared to 1-2GB per day), it can transfer all that data back to Earth in about 4.5 hours. It does so during two 4-hour contact windows each day, with each allowing the transmission of 28.6GB of science data. In other words, it only needs enough storage to collect a day's worth of images — there's no need to keep them on the telescope itself.

There is one puzzler, though. NASA estimates that only 60GB of storage will be available at the end of the JWST's 10-year lifespan due to wear and radiation — and 3 percent of the drive is used for engineering and telemetry data storage. That will leave the JWST very little margin, making us wonder if it will have anywhere near the longevity of Hubble — still going strong after 32 years. 

The US may have imposed economic sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine, but in space, the two countries are finding ways to continue working together. NASA and Roscosmos have signed a long-awaited agreement to swap seats on flights to the International Space Station. After the space shuttle program shut down, NASA relied on Russian Soyuz flights for years to ferry its astronauts to the orbiting lab. That is, until SpaceX succeeded in getting the Crew Dragon certified for human spaceflights. Now, the agency will again be securing seats on the Soyuz, while Russian cosmonauts will be flying aboard SpaceX Crew Dragon flights. 

NASA said in a statement provided to The New York Times:

"Flying integrated crews ensures there are appropriately trained crew members on board the station for essential maintenance and spacewalks. It also protects against contingencies such as a problem with any crew spacecraft, serious crew medical issues or an emergency aboard the station that requires a crew and the vehicle they are assigned to return to Earth sooner than planned."

In other words, the agreement will ensure that both the US- and the Russian-operated segments of the station will never be unmanned in case of canceled flights or other emergencies. The agency also said that the first integrated flights will take place in September, with Anna Kikina being the first Russian cosmonaut to fly on a Crew Dragon. She will be joined by NASA's Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, as well as Japan's Koichi Wakata. Meanwhile, NASA astronaut Frank Rubio will be heading to the ISS aboard a Soyuz flight. In the spring of 2023, Russia's Andrei Fedyaev and NASA's Loral O’Hara will also be swapping seats. No money will change hands under the agreement, unlike in the past when NASA paid Roscosmos around $56 million a seat.

The announcement comes at the same time as Dmitry Rogozin's dismissal as the head of Roscosmos. Rogozin had made controversial statements and decisions for years, but especially in recent months following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. After the European Space Agency formally backed out of the ExoMars joint mission with Russia, for instance, Rogozin said he ordered the Roscosmos crew to stop working with the European-made robotic arm on the ISS. Roscosmos, under his leadership, also distributed images of cosmonauts holding the flags of pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine. NASA issued a statement afterward, saying it "strongly rebukes using the International Space Station for political purposes to support [the] war against Ukraine."

The Times said Kremlin's spokesperson clarified that Rogozin's dismissal has nothing to do with his performance. According to Space, Latvia-based news outlet Meduza reported that Rogozin would be assigned as Putin's chief of staff or as an administrator overseeing the Ukraine territories Russia had occupied, but neither rumor has been confirmed just yet. 

Casio has launched a new G-Shock model with a bold color that would look instantly familiar to space fans. It takes its eye-catching hue from the iconic orange suits astronauts wear for the ascent and entry portions of their flight so that they could be easily spotted by rescue teams in case their spacecraft has to bail out into the ocean. On the watch's official product page, G-Shock wrote that the black dial of the watch represents the black visor on the helmets astronauts wear with the suit, while the thin blue line on the dial mimics the suits' blue accents. 

In addition, the watch's band loop is adorned by an American flag and the back of its casing features the engraving of an astronaut. Even its packaging is on-theme: The watch comes in a tin can and a box that also feature elements of NASA's "pumpkin suits."

As collectSPACE notes, NASA introduced the vivid spacesuits following the Challenger tragedy in the 80's, and they had gone through several iterations since then. The latest version is the Orion Crew Survival System, which had been optimized for comfort, comes in more than one size and was designed to be easier to connect to the communications system. 

That Casio would release a new G-Shock watch based on a NASA spacesuit doesn't come as a surprise. It has a long history with the agency, with G-Shock being one of the few timepieces NASA has approved for use on the space shuttle and aboard the ISS. In fact, this is the third NASA-branded G-Shock model it has released, following an all-white and a black-and-white watch adorned with the red NASA logo known as "the worm."

This orange watch, however, is more expensive than its predecessors and will set buyers back $170. It's only available for a limited time and can be purchased from Casio's website.

Over the past few days, NASA has released stunning photos of nebulae, groups of galaxies and even the "deepest" view of the universe taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. Now, the agency has released images of something much closer to home that everyone's new favorite telescope — sorry, Hubble! — has captured. When the James Webb team was calibrating the instrument, members took photos of Jupiter to see if it can be used to observe nearby celestial objects like moons and asteroids, as well other elements like planet rings and satellites. The answer, it turns out, is yes.

A photo taken by the telescope's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument’s short-wavelength filter (above) clearly shows the gas giant's distinct bands and its moon Europa. The Great Red Spot is also perfectly visible, even though it looks white due to the way the image was processed. When the NIRCam instrument's 2.12 micron filter was used, the resulting image showed the Jovian moons Europa, Thebe, Metis and even Europa's shadow near the Great Red Spot. And when the team used NIRCam's 3.23 micron filter, the resulting image captured some of Jupiter's rings, as you can see below:

NASA, ESA, CSA, and B. Holler and J. Stansberry (STScI)

Bryan Holler, one of the scientists who helped plan these observations, said:

"Combined with the deep field images released the other day, these images of Jupiter demonstrate the full grasp of what Webb can observe, from the faintest, most distant observable galaxies to planets in our own cosmic backyard that you can see with the naked eye from your actual backyard."

It's worth noting that James Webb captured these images moving across its field of view in three separate observations, proving that it's capable of finding and tracking stars in the vicinity of a celestial body as bright as Jupiter. That means it can be used to study moons in our solar system and could give us the first images of the plumes of material known to spew out of natural satellites like Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus.

The team also tracked asteroids in the asteroid belt to figure out the fastest objects it can observe. They found that it can still get gather data from objects moving up to 67 milliarcseconds per second across its field of view. NASA says that's equivalent to tracking a turtle moving from a mile away. As Stefanie Milam, James Webb's deputy project scientist, said, these images show that "everything worked brilliantly." We can expect not just more impressively detailed images of space in the future, but also information that could shed more light on how the first galaxies had formed.

NASA has unveiled the first batch of full-color images that the James Webb Space Telescope has sent back to Earth. NASA, the European Space Agency, Canadian Space Agency and the Space Telescope Science Institute determined the initial targets to show off the JWST's capabilities. They include the Carina Nebula, Southern Ring, SMACS 0723, WASP-96b and Stephan’s Quintet. 

The first image revealed today was of the Southern Ring nebula, which was captured by JWST's NIRCam and MIRI instruments. NASA says the telescope was able to observe gas and dust from a dying star in "unprecedented detail" — far more than what Hubble was able to capture in 1998.

Along with the images, NASA revealed spectroscopic data that JWST captured from WASP-96b to show the atmospheric composition of the gas exoplanet, which is around 1,150 light years away. NASA says it's the most detailed exoplanet spectrum captured to date and that Webb detected "the unambiguous signature of water," well as indications of haze and clouds, which were previously not believed to exist on WASP-96b.

The very first full-color image from JWST, which was revealed by the White House on Monday, showed a cluster of galaxies, SMACS 0723, as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago. The astonishingly vivid image of thousands of galaxies was just an appetizer.

This is a big moment in advancing our understanding of the universe, as it marks the official beginning of the JWST's general science operations. The images indicate the JWST is working as intended, which should mean we'll gain much more insight into the cosmos in the coming years. JWST is expected to be in operation for at least five years, though NASA believes the observatory has enough propellant to support scientific work for over a decade.

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SpaceX has long been gearing up for the Starship's first orbital test flight, but that significant milestone may be delayed yet again. A Super Heavy booster designed for its massive launch vehicle has exploded at the company's Boca Chica, Texas facility. According to NASA Spaceflight, which uploaded a video of the incident, the booster caught fire while the company was testing its Raptor engines. As Gizmodo notes, Super Heavy's current prototype, the Booster 7, is equipped with 33 version 2 Raptor engines.

In response to NASA Spaceflight's tweet about the explosion, Musk said it's "actually not good" and that his team is assessing the damage. He also revealed that this issue was specific to the engine spin start test SpaceX had conducted — "Raptor has a complex start sequence," he said as an aside — and that going forward, the company "won't do a spin start test with all 33 engines at once."

Several Starship rocket prototypes had exploded in the past due to various reasons before the company finally managed its first successful launch and landing sequence in May 2021. Some of the boosters exploded during ground testing, while others caught fire after Starship had already landed following test flights. It's not just exploding Starships that had contributed to the heavy-lift space vehicle's orbital test flight delay — the company's plans also got held up by regulatory approvals. The FAA, for instance, kept extending its environmental review of SpaceX's Boca Chica launch site. Without that approval, the company can't launch the Starship from the facility. The agency finally approved a final environmental assessment of the Starship launch proposal from Boca Chica in June. 

Last month, Musk said that Starship will be "ready to fly" in July, but this incident will likely affect the company's timeline. In a tweet, Musk said the "[b]ase of the vehicle seems ok by flashlight" when they checked it out, but it remains to be seen how bad the damage was and how much it will affect the company's plans for the vehicle's first orbital flight.

After 14 years of development and six months of calibration, the James Webb Space Telescope is finally ready to embark on its mission to probe the depths of our cosmos. On Monday, NASA and President Joe Biden shared the first colored image from the space telescope, showcasing a look at the early days of the universe.

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NASA has decided to reveal the first James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) image today rather than waiting until tomorrow as planned, it announced in a tweet. President Joe Biden will do the honor at 5PM ET, with a live stream of the event available on NASA TV and images available simultaneously on NASA's website. 

Anticipation has been building for the first images, to say the least. NASA stoked that on Friday by announcing the targets to be shown, including the Carina and Southern Ring Nebulae, the gas exoplanet WASP-96b and a deep field view of the SMACS 0723 galaxy clusters. Only a select group of scientists and administrators have viewed the images so far. "What I have seen moved me, as a scientist, as an engineer, and as a human being," said NASA deputy administrator Pam Melroy.

It appears that just a single image will be revealed today, but NASA didn't say which one. The rest are still slated to arrive tomorrow, starting at 9:45 with remarks by NASA and Webb leadership. That'll be followed by live coverage of the image release slated for 10:30 AM ET on NASA TV, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Twitch and Daily Motion.