technical updates

The next International Space Station (ISS) spacewalk will have more maple-leaf flavor than usual, as a Canadian astronaut will become the first to go outside the orbiting complex in seven years. Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Joshua Kutryk, who's also a colonel in the Royal Canadian Air Force, will help the ISS boost its power supply during his first-ever spacewalk on Thursday (Oct. 29). Kutryk will be joined by NASA astronaut Anil Menon, who has done three spacewalks already and also serves as a colonel with the U.S. Space Force . The duo are scheduled to venture outside the orbiting lab at 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT), kicking off a spacewalk that will last roughly 6 hours and 45 minutes. You can watch it live here at Space.com , courtesy of NASA, beginning at 6:30 a.m. EDT (1030 GMT). Official photo of Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk. (Image credit: Canadian Space Agency) I...

Virgin Galactic has officially unveiled the first space plane in its next-gen "Delta" line, and announced the results of the worldwide vote to choose its name. Spaceship Apeiron will be the first Delta-class vehicle, Virgin Galactic revealed on Wednesday (Oct. 28). Apeiron (pronounced "A'-per-on," according to the announcement) takes its name from the ancient Greek word meaning "boundless," and was selected through a public poll that drew votes from thousands of people across 83 countries and six continents. The reveal comes on the same day that the space plane is scheduled to be flown from its manufacturing facility in Mesa, Arizona, to Spaceport America in New Mexico, where the vehicle will undergo final preparations before beginning flight tests. Apeiron was one of four finalist names that Virgin Galactic narrowed down from a list of 276 employee-submitted ...

I was breathing just fine through my life support systems, but I kept feeling an urge to double check that everything was ok with my "spacesuit" before heading out on this "spacewalk." I have worn many different types of spacesuits on Earth during my career, but for the first time in my life, I knew that I couldn’t just stop to breathe the air outside if there were an emergency. That's because I was underwater. On this excursion, I was leading a simulated space mission underwater called SEA STAR. My " spacesuit " was actually scuba diving gear, and the simulated spacewalks , or EVAs (Extra-Vehicular Activities), included outings where we explored underwater environments. Being underwater, if we encountered a major problem with our gear, we would have had to treat it as seriously as if we were astronauts on the International Space Station . There was no immediate ...

Scientists are still learning about a cosmic "string of pearls," a unique celestial relic left by a supernova explosion that humanity witnessed around 850 years ago. That is thanks to the most detailed observation of the dandelion-shaped chains of gas and supernova debris that comprise Pa 30, the only supernova remnant of its type observed in the Milky Way . What makes Pa 30 even more unique is that it has a rare "zombie star" at its heart. Supernovas like the one that created Pa 30 are called Type Ia supernovas; they happen when a dead star called a white dwarf overfeeds on a companion star like a cosmic vampire. This overfeeding triggers a runaway nuclear explosion that usually destroys the white dwarf. But on rare occasions, the supernova doesn't completely destroy the star, and a shattered stellar body remains, called a zombie star. These events are called Type Iax su...

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Cowboy Space just showed us how it plans to become a big player in the final frontier. The California-based company, which is run by Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt, intends to operate a constellation of 20,000 AI data centers in low Earth orbit (LEO). It will build those satellites in house and launch them on a homegrown rocket — a vehicle Cowboy Space unveiled here on Monday night (Oct. 26), at an event it called "Big Sky Rising." "It's a fundamentally novel approach to rocketry in the modern era, in our opinion," Bhatt said during the event. "The idea is that you have a two-stage rocket where the upper stage of the rocket itself transforms into the satellite." Big Iron's first stage will be reusable. The upper stage will serve as a data-center satellite after reaching orbit. (Image credit: Cowboy Space) That rocket is called Big Ir...

NASA has officially ended the mission of its Swift space telescope, after a private satellite failed in its bold bid to rescue the aging spacecraft. That rescue mission was led by the Arizona company Katalyst Space Technologies, whose LINK spacecraft tried to meet up with Swift this summer to boost its orbit. That didn't work out, however, so Swift continues its fall back toward Earth. The telescope is expected to reenter Earth's atmosphere "in the next few weeks," NASA said in a statement on Friday (Oct. 23). That statement served primarily to announce the end of the Swift mission after more than 20 very productive years. The telescope launched to Earth orbit in November 2004, tasked with studying gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) — the most powerful explosions in the cosmos. Swift was designed to operate for two years, but it continued studying the high-energy universe for more than...