Technology

The JAXA Tsukuba Space Center of Japan has just announced the release of the very first images taken by a space drone that is operating on the International Space Station (ISS).

The Japanese space agency sent the zero-gravity Internal Ball Camera drone in order to get photos and videos of astronauts at the ISS.

Operated from earth, the Internal Ball Camera drone has been offering an unbelievable window into life on the orbiting laboratory.

A privately-owned U.S.-based firm has announced its plan to use robotic technology to launch a series of commercial missions to Earth’s only natural satellite - the Moon.

Cape Canaveral, Florida-based Moon Express CEO Bob Richards has confirmed that his firm is working on a fleet of low-cost robotic spacecraft that could be assembled like Legos to handle complex space missions.

The first spacecraft of the firm called MX-1E is scheduled to be launched before the end of this year using a Rocket Lab Electron booster.

Chinese researchers have started 200-day self-sustaining project under name Lunar Palace I. Four students from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics will be staying for 200 days under conditions similar to those in space. The experiment for 200-day self-sustaining stay has been started after conducting a similar experiment for 60 days. China is trying hard to improve its position in space exploration technologies.

SpaceX has successfully launched the first Bulgarian satellite using SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The launch was earlier delayed due to small glitch and the mission from Florida’s east coast on Friday has successfully placed Bulgaria-owned television broadcasting satellite. Bulgariasat-1 is the first geostationary communications satellite launched for Bulgaria.

A team of astronomers working with Kepler Space telescope has found 219 new exoplanets. NASA released a list of 219 exoplanets discovered by astronomers over a period of four years using Kepler Space Telescope. 10 exoplanets among the latest list are in the ‘Goldilocks’ zone and their size is comparable to that of our planet Earth. These planets can support water in liquid form on their surface as they orbit at a suitable distance from their host star. Presence of water in liquid form is one of the main conditions for any exoplanet to support life.

China’s recently launched X-ray space telescope will enable scientists to observe and learning about pulsars, gamma-ray bursts and black holes.

The Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope was launched using a Long March-4B rocket from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, which is located in the northwest the Gobi Desert, at 11 a.m. on Thursday.

The cutting-edge space telescope is expected to help scientists better understand the evolution of black holes, gamma-ray bursts and the interiors of pulsars.

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is all set to launch a communications satellite for Inmarsat of London from the Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on coming Monday, 15th of May.

The private-sector space firm is targeting a fifty-minute launch window that will open at 7:20 p.m. EDT or 23:20 GMT tomorrow.

Putting a crew on board the first flight of the Orion capsule atop the super-massive Space Launch System (SLS) rocket would not be feasible because of immense safety costs, a NASA working group has concluded.

The first flight of the super-massive rocket, which is being seen as the first step in the United States’ return to human space exploration, has been scheduled to take place sometime in 2019.

NASA usually tests new rockets first without a crew, given numerous safety risks associated with such space vehicles.

NASA has revealed a new plan in which a group of astronauts may spend around a year in orbit around the Moon in the late 2020s as part of its broader plan to send humans to Mars a decade later.

Greg Williams, deputy associate administrator for policy & plans in NASA’s Human Exploration & Operations Mission Directorate, revealed the plan at the Humans to Mars Summit in Washington D.C.

An unmanned military space plane launched in May 2015 touched down at the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday, 7th of May.

The U.S. Air Force’s robotic X-37B space plane landed at around 8 a.m. after circling Earth for a whopping 718 days, marking the first landing at the facility since the final space shuttle mission made landing there in July 2011.

The plane is question is a compact, delta-wing craft with a payload bay, a solar power boom and a highly-sophisticated computer control systems.