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The company behind America's latest mission to soft-land on the Moon is battling to save the project. Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic says its Peregrine spacecraft has a faulty propulsion system, which, unless fixed, will prevent a lunar touch-down. The problem has already made it difficult for the craft to point its solar panels at the Sun to generate electricity. Astrobotic is already talking about changing its mission goals. The 1.2-tonne lander was launched early on Monday from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a Vulcan rocket. It is aiming to become the first American mission in half a century to make a controlled landing...

MADISON, Wis. -- Monday morning, the first American spacecraft to land on the moon since the last Apollo mission in 1972 will launch from Cape Canaveral, and one longtime Madison resident will be on it. Paul Wertsch and his wife Kay Heggestad always loved space. "Kay especially was a Star Trek person," Paul said. "We went down to Cape Canaveral, watched a lot of rockets." In fact, Paul remembers watching the first ever moon landing with Kay by his side. "She and I were both medical students, and we were doing a rotation up in Rhinelander, Wisconsin," Paul said. "I...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.—The first U.S. lunar lander in more than 50 years rocketed toward the moon Monday, launching private companies on a space race to make deliveries for NASA and other customers. Astrobotic Technology’s lander caught a ride on a brand new rocket, United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan. The Vulcan streaked through the Florida predawn sky, putting the spacecraft on a roundabout route to the moon that should culminate with an attempted landing on Feb. 23. “So, so, so excited. We are on our way to the moon!” Astrobotic chief executive John Thornton said. The Pittsburgh company aims to be the...

The speaker is Eugene "Gene" Cernan an American astronaut who was the last person to walk on the Moon during NASA's Apollo 17 mission in December 1972. My team recorded this interview in 1994. Cernan's first spaceflight was as the pilot of the Gemini 9A mission in June 1966. He served as the lunar module pilot for Apollo 10 in May 1969, a mission that served as a dress rehearsal for the Apollo 11 lunar landing. Cernan and his fellow crew members flew to within 9.7 miles of the lunar surface but did not land. Cernan's most significant achievement came...

A recording of the Apollo 8 astronauts reading from the book of Genesis.

Explanation: What's happened to the Moon? Within the last day, part of the Moon moved through the Earth's shadow. This happens about once or twice a year, but not every month since the Moon's orbit around the Earth is slightly tilted. Pictured here, the face of a full Hunter's Moon is shown twice from Italy during this partial lunar eclipse. On the left, most of the Moon appears overexposed except for the eclipsed bottom right, which shows some familiar lunar surface details. In contrast, on the right, most of the (same) Moon appears normally exposed, with the exception of the...

Oct. 23 (UPI) -- Scientists now believe the moon could actually be around 40 million years older than initially believed, according to new research. The finding comes after a group of researchers reexamined a collection of dust collected from the lunar surface and brought back to Earth in 1972, the last time astronauts visited the moon. Scientists took an in-depth look at crystals embedded within the dust, which was returned to Earth as part of NASA's Apollo 17 mission. Researchers believe a massive collision of debris with Earth led to the creation of the moon. That impact took place around...

...The cost of the Chandrayaan-3 mission was about US$75 million, which, as John pointed out, is less than the cost of the Barbie movie. If you want to be nitpicky, you might quibble that that doesn't include the cost of the first two less successful Chandrayaan space missions. Okay, total expenditures on the Indian space programme since 2003 are approx $140 million - which is still less than the Barbie movie. Okay, I don't want to beat up on Barbie, because, as you know, our friend Andrew Lawton is a huge fan. So let's use instead the cinematic example the...

As humans here on planet Earth delighted themselves with the sight of the rare ‘super blue moon’ in the skies, the Indian Lunar Mission continued with the scientific experiments on the Moon’s South Pole. The Chandrayaan-3 mission now is divided between the Vikram Lander and the Pragyan Rover, each with a different task. The rover is circling around the touchdown area, analyzing the chemical elements present on the dusty surface of the moon, as it searches ice-water that would greatly benefit future human exploration in the area. Meanwhile, the lander and its probes record seismic activity on the satellite’s surface,...

1 of 4 | The last blue moon rises behind One World Trade Center and the Manhattan skyline shorty after sunset on October 31, 2020. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo The last full moon of summer will be the best of the entire season as stargazers witness a rare celestial sight -- one that hasn't been seen in nearly three years. A blue moon will appear Wednesday night with moonlight so bright that it may cast shadows. Despite its nickname, the moon will not emit a blue glow. Instead, the nickname means that it is the second...

India made history on Wednesday after their Chandrayaan-3 mission landed safely on the moon’s south pole, cementing itself as the first nation to successfully touch down on the largely unexplored region of the lunar surface. “All the people of the world, the people of every country and region: India’s successful moon mission is not just India’s alone,” said India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, reiterating that “this success belongs to all of humanity.” But even with Modi’s broad, pseudo-inspirational attribution, not everyone was excited to take credit for the scientific feat — namely, the conspiracy theorists of Reddit who were irked...

Chandrayaan-3, the latest iteration of India’s ambitious mission to the moon, has successfully landed on the lunar surface — making history after its predecessor failed in 2019. The landing, which took place at the targeted time of 5:34am PT (6:04pm IST) on Wednesday over a month after the spacecraft’s launch, has made India the fourth nation globally to make a soft landing on the moon, after the former Soviet Union, the U.S. and China, and the first country to land on the lunar south pole, which remains an unexplored area that is anticipated to aid in the understanding of the...

Chandrayaan-3 Lunar Landing Coverage LIVE! This site goes live in 40 minutes

This is live coverage, in English, of the Indian moon landing scheduled within the hour. If successful it will be the first touchdown on the Lunar South Pole.

Chandrayaan-3 has made a successful touchdown on the moon! This story is developing.

BENGALURU, Aug 23 (Reuters) - An Indian spacecraft landed on the moon on Wednesday, the space agency said, in a mission seen as crucial to lunar exploration and India's standing as a space power, just days after a similar Russian lander crashed. For India, the successful landing marks its emergence as a space power as the government looks to spur investment in private space launches and related satellite-based businesses.

India's space agency has released the first images of the Moon taken by the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft, which entered lunar orbit on Saturday. The images show craters on lunar surface getting larger and larger as the spacecraft draws closer. Chandrayaan-3's lander and rover are due to reach the surface on 23 August. If successful, India will be the first country to perform a controlled "soft landing" near the south pole. It will also become only the fourth to achieve a soft landing on the Moon after the US, the former Soviet Union and China. After the spacecraft orbited the Earth for...

It’s been touted as a race to the lunar south pole, but there's much more to India's and Russia’s moon shots than who lands first. India's Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander launched on July 14 and entered lunar orbit on Aug. 5. It is currently lowering its orbit in preparation for a landing attempt that's expected to occur on Aug. 23. Meanwhile, Russia is making its first visit to the moon since 1976, when its Soviet-era sample return mission dubbed Luna-24 took place. Luna-25 launched on Aug. 10 and, having taken a more direct route to the moon, could make a landing...

The space race was still a thing when I was a kid but it hasn’t been for much of the last 45 years. But that’s starting to change as Russia, India, China and the US all gear up for various missions to the moon. In fact, both Russia and India have lunar landers touching down next week. Russia’s Luna-25 lander could touch down as soon as Monday, August 21. It’s the country’s first lunar mission in nearly half a century, and the first in the post-Soviet era. Two days later, on August 23, Chandrayaan-3 could become India’s first successful lunar...

Russia’s first lunar mission in nearly half a century came to a violent end when its unmanned Luna-25 spacecraft spun out of control and crashed into the moon after encountering a problem when it began preparing for pre-landing orbit. Russian officials had hoped the prestige mission would show they can still compete in space despite their post-Soviet decline and the extreme loss suffered in the Ukraine war. Its failure highlighted the intense decline of Russia’s authority over space since the days of the Cold War, when Moscow was the first to launch a satellite — Sputnik 1 — to orbit...