Hong Kong’s first astronaut may have travelled into space, but the significance of the moment extends far beyond the mission itself. Lai Ka-ying became our first home-grown astronaut to reach space, as part of China’s Shenzhou-23 mission to the Tiangong space station, marking a historic milestone for the city and its role within the country’s…
Artemis II ventured farther into space than any manned craft had gone before. Human eyes saw the far side of the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. The U.S. seemed to have captured an early lead in the new lunar race with China. A Chinese Long March-2F carrier rocket lifts off….
Florida’s Space Coast hosted a record-shattering 109 orbital rocket launches during 2025, soaring beyond all previous annual records. Will this year’s final total surpass that lofty sum from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center? By February’s end, 14 rockets had taken flight from the Sunshine State. Looking ahead, the Cape’s March…
Engineers ran into problems repressurizing the Artemis II moon rocket’s upper stage helium tanks overnight Friday, a problem that will require rolling the huge rocket off the launch pad and back to its processing hangar for troubleshooting. The work will push the already delayed mission from March into early April, NASA officials said Saturday. Pressurized…
NASA has been practically synonymous with advanced computing for nearly 70 years. To this day, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration continues to accomplish the impossible with computers. For example, NASA’s EMIT sensor detected ocean trash from space and studied how some minerals affect Earth’s climate. So, what kind of computers does NASA use to accomplish…
China’s commercial space sector has entered a new frontier. In January, a private Chinese aerospace company unveiled the test capsule of what is set to become the country’s first commercially developed crewed spacecraft, with plans for crewed flights by 2028 and bookings already taken from private space tourists. The project reflects a decisive shift in…
The length of a night on Mars isn’t too different from here on Earth, lasting just over 12 hours on average. Thanks to its similar axial tilt, it also experiences longer nights in winter and shorter nights during summer — but the gloom is eerie, with temperatures plummeting to as low as -100 degrees Fahrenheit…
When four astronauts begin a historic trip around the moon as soon as February 6, they’ll climb aboard NASA’s 16.5-foot-wide Orion spacecraft with the understanding that it has a known flaw — one that has some experts urging the space agency not to fly the mission with humans on board. But NASA remains confident it…
Cloud-9 was first discovered about three years ago by a telescope located in Guizhou, China. However, the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) wasn’t able to exactly identify it for what it really was. The Chinese astronomers classified it as yet another hydrogen gas cloud near the spiral galaxy Messier 94, roughly 14 million light-years from Earth….
Like many long-time reporters in Hong Kong, I had occasional dealings with David Webb, the market transparency and shareholder rights crusader who died this week of prostate cancer at the relatively young age of 60. Almost all of my encounters with him over the years were annoying and slightly unpleasant. But they made me respect…