William Shatner, the actor who portrayed Captain Kirk on the original “Star Trek” TV series and films will launch into space on Oct. 12, 2021 aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft. Liftoff is set for 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT) from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in West Texas with Shatner and three others aboard. 

Two astronauts expected to fly on early missions of Boeing’s crew capsule will instead ride to orbit with SpaceX, NASA announced on October 6, 2021. The agency has reassigned astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada to SpaceX’s Crew-5 mission, which is expected to launch toward the International Space Station no earlier than the fall of 2022. 

A Soyuz spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station Oct. 5 carrying a cosmonaut as well as an actress and director who will film scenes for a Russian movie. A Soyuz-2 rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 4:55 a.m. Eastern and placed the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft into orbit. The Soyuz docked with the Rassvet module of the ISS at 8:22 a.m. Eastern after a two-orbit approach. The spacecraft’s commander, Anton Shkaplerov, had to perform a manual docking after a problem with the automated Kurs docking system.

SEOUL, South Korea — Japanese carmaker Honda is developing a partially reusable launch vehicle for small satellites with a test launch to be conducted by 2030.  The company unveiled the plan Sept. 30, saying its core automotive technologies for combustion, fluid, remote control and guidance will be applied to the rocket.

Robotics and automation are playing a huge role across the rapidly evolving new space economy and value chains adjacent to space. The new space economy is being driven by more than billionaires and tourists wishing to go to the great beyond, or governments seeking to commercialize space missions. 

Japan’s space agency (JAXA) is gearing up for its Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission, with plans to have a sample from Mars’ moon Phobos return to Earth by 2029.

In November (or early December) of this year, after many excruciating delays, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will finally launch to space.

It’s no secret that a new Space Race has been brewing over the past few years. This time, rather than being a competition between two federal space agencies, the race has more competitors and is more complicated. In addition to more state competitors, there are also commercial space entities vying for positions and lucrative contracts. Add to that a network of public-private partnerships, and you have Space Race 2.0!

FM radio waves reveal a side of the universe invisible to the human eye.

Warmer temperatures near the sun can make sodium on asteroid Phaethon “fizz,” giving it comet-like tail.

Gravity isn’t just a force that keeps things glued together. Through our understanding of general relativity, we know that gravity can make gravitational waves, or ripples in the fabric of space-time. 

NASA has called off plans for a spacewalk outside the International Space Station this week due a medical issue with one of the astronauts due to join the excursion, agency officials said Monday (Aug. 23). 

Two Chinese astronauts conducted their second spacewalk outside of the country’s new space station on Friday (Aug. 20), installing a range of equipment including a backup air-conditioning unit.

The mission, called OneWeb 9, is scheduled to lift off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, at 6:13 p.m. EDT (2213 GMT; 3:13 a.m. on Aug. 22 Baikonur time). You can watch it live in the window above, courtesy of Arianespace, or directly via the company’s YouTube page.