Privatised Moon landings: the two US missions set to open a new era of commercial lunar exploration: Photograph: Nasa (Goddard Space Flight Center) Two commercial spacecraft are scheduled to launch to the Moon early in 2024 under a Nasa initiative called the Commercial Lunar Payload Service CLPS. This programme is intended to kickstart a commercial …
Six space missions to look forward to in 2024: Nasa It’s going to be a bumper time for space missions in 2024 – especially to the Moon, our nearest neighbour. And that’s following on from an already epic 2023. I’m a laboratory scientist, so I always like to have a “proper” sample to analyse. Rather …
Women’s secret war: the inside story of how the US military sent female soldiers on covert combat missions to Afghanistan: US marines with a female engagement team in southern Helmand province, Afghanistan, in May 2012. Cpl. Meghan Gonzales/DVIDS A US Army handbook from 2011 opens one of its chapters with a line from Rudyard Kipling’s …
Astronauts are returning to the Moon, but they won’t be repeating the Apollo missions: From left to right: Christina Koch, Reid Wiseman (seated), Victor Glover and Jeremy Hansen make up the Artemis II crew. Nasa If all goes to plan, sometime in November 2024, NASA’s newly announced Artemis II crew – Christina Koch, Victor Glover, …
Five space exploration missions to look out for in 2023: Artist's impression of Starship cruising past the Moon. Space Exploration Technologies Corp./SpaceX Flickr, CC BY-SA It’s been an eventful year for space exploration, with successes including the completion of Nasa’s Artemis 1 mission (finally), the inauguration of the James Webb Space Telescope, and the completion …
UN peacekeeping missions: how they work and the challenges they face: UN peacekeeping missions aim to build sustainable security and peace in countries affected by conflict. They must also deal with the complex international politics, resourcing, and management of the mission itself. Since the end of the cold war, UN peacekeeping operations have been designed …
Protests against UN in eastern Congo highlight peace mission’s crisis of legitimacy: A Congolese soldier in Goma during protests against the UN peacekeeping mission in July 2022. Michel Lunanga/AFP via Getty Images Violent protests erupted in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in late July 2022, resulting in the deaths of at least three peacekeepers and …
How Chad’s involvement in peace missions held back democracy back home: Chadian soldiers benefited from foreign aids and training. Troop contributions to international interventions by authoritarian states pose a puzzle. On the one hand, participation in such interventions indicates support for a liberal-cosmopolitan order that entails the protection of human rights at an international level. …
To stay in the game directors need to rewire corporate missions and bring new faces to the table: Getty images In the first ever case of its kind, ClientEarth – a UK-based organisation that works with NGOS to fight legal battles on environmental issues – is taking Shell’s board of directors to court for failing …
Asteroid sharing Earth’s orbit discovered – could it help future space missions?: Where 2020 XL5 would appear in the dawn sky if we could see it with the naked eye from Chile. NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva, CC BY-NC-SA Research has shown that the Earth trails an asteroid barely a kilometre across in its orbit about the …
mRNA vaccines, asteroid missions and collaborative robots: what to watch in science in 2022 – podcast: mRNA vaccines: not just for COVID. Cryptographer/Shutterstock From new mRNA vaccines to space missions and developments in robotic automation, in this episode of The Conversation Weekly we talk to three experts about some scientific advances they’re watching out for …
Asteroids, the Moon and Mars: space missions to look forward to in 2022: The rocket boosters for the Space Launch System that will launch Nasa's Artemis I mission to the Moon. NASA/Kim Shiflett Astronomers ended 2021 on a high with the launch on December 25 of the James Webb Space Telescope, a joint mission between …
South Africa in the news: National Treasury saves cost after Dirco cuts 10 diplomatic missions: In the MTBPS it showed the Department of International Relations and Cooperation reduced 10 missions abroad and saved R51 million.: “South Africa” – BingNews There’s little to choose between the finalists, but New Zealand is a side not to be …
Nasa: imminent asteroid missions could reveal our origins – and help save Earth from deadly strike: DART will change the orbit of a moon around an asteroid. Nasa Asteroids are remnants of the early Solar System, with the potential to reveal secrets of our planet’s origins. But they could also bring an end to life …
A nice Paternoster image: Image from page 6 of “In leper-land : being a record of my tour of 7,000 miles among Indian lepers ; including some notes on missions and an account of eleven days with Miss Mary Reed and her lepers” (1901) Image by Internet Archive Book Images Identifier: additionalnoteso00morsrich Title: In leper-land …
Nasa has just rejected missions to moons of Jupiter and Neptune – here’s what we would have found out: A volcanic eruption on Jupiter's moon Io. NASA/JPL/DLR It’s been 30 years since Nasa last visited Venus, with the Magellan orbiter in 1990. Now, two new missions have been selected to explore the deadly atmosphere, crushing …
Nasa has announced two missions to Venus by 2030 – here’s why that’s exciting: NASA/JPL For decades, the exploration of our solar system left one of our neighbouring planets, Venus, largely unexplored. Now, things are about to change. In the latest announcement from Nasa’s solar system exploration program, two missions have been given the go-ahead …
Landing on Mars: the historical missions that failed and the ones that made it: IPGP/Nicolas Sarter, CC BY-SA China’s rover Zhurong, named after the mythological fire god, successfully touched down on Mars on May 14 – the first time that China has successfully landed a rover on the red planet. On May 19, China’s National …