Free Republic

Founder Mateus Chipa wants the Black community to be more involved in space exploration. According to a Scripps News report of the 360 astronauts enlisted with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), just 18 had been Black astronauts as of Feb 5, 2024. For Chipa, he believed that to increase representation and empowerment it would be necessary for an influential Black entrepreneur to launch a company to break down barriers. According to his website, he waited eight years for Black leaders to step forward. In frustration after that time had passed, he decided to take matters into his own...

Californians received a shock in the early hours of Tuesday morning when golden streaks from an apparent explosion appeared over Los Angeles . Locals had believed it was the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that launched six hours prior or a giant meteor that combusted as it shot through Earth's atmosphere. Aerospace researchers have determined that the fiery object was the orbital object of China 's Shenzhou-15 rocket that launched in 2022. The China-owned space junk comes just months after the nation infiltrated the US by flying a spy balloon over an Air Force base in Montana . The 3,300-pound orbital...

Police in Washington sent a bomb squad to a local house after its owner tried donating a rocket built to carry nuclear warheads to the National Museum of the United States Air Force. The Dayton, Ohio, museum called the Bellevue Police Department Wednesday after a local resident, unnamed by police, contacted the museum about donating a rocket part. The rocket had belonged to the man’s dead neighbor, who had acquired the piece from an estate sale, police said in a blog Friday. On Thursday, the department’s bomb squad went to the man’s house to examine the rocket. The piece was...

Social media accounts belonging to the State of Israel and the Israeli ambassador to the US appear to have deleted a video on posts claiming that a rocket fired from within Gaza caused the deadly explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City. The video showed a barrage of rockets being fired, with one appearing to go off-course in a downward trajectory, followed by the flash of an apparent explosion. Both accounts edited their posts after Aric Toler, a journalist with the New York Times visual investigations team, questioned the time stamps on the video. Those time stamps indicated that the...

Friday 3:17 p.m.: The IDF Spokesperson has confirmed that this afternoon, a missile launch was identified from the Gaza Strip toward northern Israel. According to the spokesperson's statement, air defense successfully intercepted the missile. Hamas took responsibility for the launch. Friday 3:00 p.m.: Missile sirens sounding in northern Israel. Friday 2:40 p.m.: The Deputy Secretary General of Hezbollah, Naim Qasem, stated: "When the time comes for us to act, we will act. Friday 1:35 p.m.: IDF soldiers eliminated a terrorist on Zikim beach. Friday 1:14 p.m.: Seven rockets struck Sderot in the latest barrage. No injuries were reported. Friday 1:04...

The militant group Hamas launched attacks on Jerusalem and Tel Aviv early Saturday morning, prompting the Israeli government to declare a "state of war." The situation is chaotic: (snip) In a statement posted on Telegram, Hamas called on 'the resistance fighters in the West Bank' as well as 'our Arab and Islamic nations' to join the battle. Following the first attacks, Hamas commander Deif has urged Palestinians to engage in a civil uprising. In remarks reported by CNN, he said: 'If you have a gun, get it out. This is the time to use it – get out with trucks,...

Japan put its ballistic missile defences on alert on Monday and vowed to shoot down any projectile that threatens its territory, after North Korea notified it of a planned satellite launch between May 31 and June 11. The nuclear-armed North says it has completed its first military spy satellite and leader Kim Jong Un has approved final preparations for the launch. It would be the North's latest step in a series of missile launches and weapons tests in recent months, including one of a new, solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile. Tokyo expects North Korea to fire the rocket carrying its satellite...

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency on Friday formally declassified an image then-US President Donald Trump tweeted in 2019 of a highly classified satellite photograph depicting the site of a failed Iranian rocket launch. NPR reported that the NGA declassified the image after a “grueling Pentagon-wide review to determine whether the briefing slide it came from could be shared with the public” in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the radio network. Many details on the original image remain redacted – a clear sign that Trump was sharing some of the US government's most prized intelligence on social media,...

Little is known about the Yunhai 3 satellite. SAST and Chinese state media have said that it's designed to perform atmospheric and marine environment surveys, space environment surveys, disaster prevention and reduction work, and scientific experiments. Yunhai 3 is now orbiting at an altitude of around 520 miles (840 kilometers) above Earth in a sun-synchronous orbit, or SSO, which means it passes over the poles and particular spots on Earth at the same time every day. One part of the mission that did not go according to plan, however, is the performance of the rocket’s upper stage after it released...

A Chinese rocket booster plummeted to Earth on Friday morning, falling into the Pacific Ocean. The U.S. Space Command reported that the debris from the Long March 5B rocket re-entered Earth's atmosphere over the south-central Pacific Ocean at 4:01 a.m. MDT. Later, the agency said it could confirm a second atmospheric entry correlated with the rocket five minutes later as it exited the Space Command Area of Responsibility over the Northern Pacific Ocean region.

Falcon Heavy’s side boosters have landed – marking the 150th and 151st recovery of orbital class rockets VIDEO AT LINK........... Update — Successful landing.

Texas-based commercial rocket company Firefly launched a rocket into space Friday morning, about a year after a previous attempt ended in an explosion. The Alpha rocket launched at 12:01 a.m. Pacific time from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. It was the company’s second unmanned launch ever from Vandenberg.

Known as the Space Launch System (SLS), the vehicle was moved to Pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of the expected lift-off on 29 August. The debut outing is a test with no crew aboard, but future missions will send astronauts back to the lunar surface for the first time in over 50 years. The near 100m-tall (328ft) SLS rode an immense tractor to the pad. It started moving from its assembly building at Kennedy just before 22:00 on Tuesday, local time, and had completed the 6.7km (4.2 miles) journey by just after sunrise on Wednesday...

It is understood that this type of rocket adopts a special technical design and most components will be destroyed during reentry, foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a regular media briefing, when asked if China knew when and where the rocket debris could land. The probability of causing harm to aviation and the ground was very low, Zhao said. Scientists say the odds of a populated area on land being hit by such debris are low, with most of the Earth's surface covered by water. But, in 2020, pieces of the first Long March 5B fell over the Ivory...

So far, no space exploring nations have claimed responsibility for the rocket. NASA has discovered the crash site of a "mystery rocket body" that collided with the Moon's surface earlier this year. The impact left behind a widespread "double crater," meaning it wasn't the average rocket. However, since its crash landing, none of Earth's space-exploring nations have claimed responsibility for the mysterious projectile, leaving NASA scientists baffled as to who was behind its launch. New images shared on June 24 by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter show the unusual impact site. After a rocket body impacted the Moon last year, NASA's...

The agency said the double crater might indicate that the rocket had a large mass on each end of it. A rocket that has used up its fuel usually will just have its mass on the end with the motor, with the other side being an empty fuel tank. The rocket’s origin is uncertain, but the double crater that it produced might reveal its identity, according to the release. A rocket body hitting the moon has not created a double crater before, the release states.

The United States will not provide Ukraine with advanced missile systems that can hit targets inside Russia, President Biden revealed Monday – once again rejecting a request from the Kyiv government for vital military aid. “We are not going to send to Ukraine rocket systems that can strike into Russia,” the president said after arriving back at the White House from Delaware.

The Falcon 9 booster was launched in February 2015 as part of a mission to send a climate observation satellite 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth, but since running out of fuel, the 4.4-ton (4 metric tons) rocket has been hurtling around space in a chaotic orbit. The rocket's upper stage is now expected to hit the far side of the moon while traveling at a blistering speed of 5,771 mph (9,288 km/h) on March 4, 2022, according to Bill Gray, a developer of software that tracks near-Earth objects. In a Jan. 21 blog post, Gray noted that the...

A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket is scheduled to launch the Space Test Program-3 (STP-3) mission at 4:04 a.m. EST (0904 GMT) Tuesday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. You can watch the launch live here at Space.com, courtesy of ULA, or directly via the company. STP-3 was originally supposed to launch on Sunday (Dec. 5), but that plan was nixed after crews discovered a leak in the ground system that stores rocket propellant at Cape Canaveral. Fixing the leak and verifying that all is now well with the system resulted in a 48-hour delay... STP-3...

The launch window opens 10 p.m. EDT A livestream for the launch will begin at 9:45 p.m. EDT (0145 GMT or 10:45 a.m. local time Tuesday, Oct. 26). You can watch it live in the window above, courtesy of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which builds and operates H-2A rockets the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). You can also watch it directly via the company's YouTube. Launch is scheduled to take place at the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. EDT Monday (0200-0300 GMT; or 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. local time Tuesday).