In a shot in the arm for Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, founded by high-tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, the California-based company scripted history when its Falcon-9 rocket booster successfully landed at Cape Canaveral after despatching 11 communications satellites to orbit.
The mission's findings will help researchers improve their forecasts of space weather events, which have the potential to damage satellites and harm astronauts on orbit, disrupt radio communications and, at their most severe, overwhelm power grids, NASA said.
Commercial flights may also help Boeing's bottom line on a rare, fixed-price, government-backed development program.
The much-awaited launch of Nasa's most powerful rocket Artemis 1, which is to go on a voyage around the moon, has been deferred and teams are working on "an issue with an engine bleed."
Here's a glimpse of all that happened around the world last week, in 16 images.
NASA says SpaceX was conducting a test firing of its unmanned rocket when the blast occurred.
A series of defining photographs from across the globe.
Known as one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists since Albert Einstein, here are a few glimpses of Stephen Hawking's life.
Rediff.com takes a look at spacecraft that have successfully made it to Mars.
ISRO hopes to put a crew on the moon, but it has to learn how to keep people alive and healthy in space first.
Started in August 2013 as a technology development project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Mars Helicopter had to prove that big things could come in small packages.
Cernan, a captain in the United States Navy, left his mark on the history of exploration by flying three times in space, twice to the moon.
He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country's highest civilian honour, in 2012.
Solar Orbiter is on a unique trajectory that will allow its comprehensive set of instruments to provide humanity with the first-ever images of the Sun's poles, the US space agency said. This trajectory includes 22 close approaches to the Sun, bringing the spacecraft within the orbit of Mercury to study the Sun, and its influence on space, it said.
Packed with groundbreaking technology, the Mars 2020 mission launched July 30, 2020, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The Perseverance rover mission marks an ambitious first step in the effort to collect Mars samples and return them to Earth, according to an official statement.
Images that capture what it was like living through 2021.
The rocket is the first step in Musk's ambitious dream to send humans to Mars and establish a colony on the planet.
The spacecraft is the first to take the American astronauts to orbit from American soil in nearly a decade.
Chandrayaan-3's success is a must for India's space ambitions; we can't afford to lose out. And for realising our space dreams, the Indian private sector must be encouraged because if we lose this race, the moon, Mars, and mineral-rich asteroids will already be crowded before we reach there.
What goes up must come down. In the science of rocketry, it always comes down with a thud. But that equation may change somewhat on Tuesday when the SpaceX rocket Falcon 9 blasts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station with goodies for the International Space Station.
The solar-powered spacecraft which left Earth five years ago finally reached its destination and entered into Jupiter's orbit.
The eight active NASA astronauts and one former astronaut-turned-corporate crew member will launch on Boeing CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX Dragoncapsules to the International Space Station beginning in 2019.
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