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Added on the 07/09/2023 08:06:01 - Copyright : AFP EN
A rocket carrying the Chang'e-6 lunar probe blasts off from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in southern China's Hainan province. The Chang'e-6 seeks to collect samples from the far side of the Moon, a world first as Beijing pushes ahead with an ambitious programme that aims to send a crewed lunar mission by 2030. IMAGES
A Japanese person will be the first non-American to walk on the Moon, US President Joe Biden announces during a state visit by Japan's prime minister. US-Japan "ties stretch up to the Moon where two Japanese astronauts will join future American missions, and one will become the first non-American ever to land on the Moon," Biden says during a press conference at the White House. SOUNDBITE
Images of a model depicting the trajectory of Japan's Moon craft, which has landed on the lunar surface, space agency JAXA announces. IMAGES
SpaceX's 'Starship' rocket, the largest ever built, takes off from the space company's Texas launch site. CEO Elon Musk hopes the ship will one day colonize Mars and NASA is awaiting a modified version to land humans on the Moon. The first test in April ended in a spectacular explosion over the Gulf of Mexico. IMAGES
China sends a fresh crew to its Tiangong space station in the latest mission for a growing space programme that plans to send people to the Moon by 2030. The Shenzhou-17 blasted off from the Jiuquan launch site in arid northwest China at 11:14 am (0314 GMT) Thursday, carrying a three-astronaut team with the youngest average age since the space station's construction. IMAGES
A NASA spacecraft blasts off from the Kennedy Space Center bound for Psyche, a metal-rich asteroid that could be the remnants of a small planet, or perhaps a new type of celestial body unknown to science. Trailing a blue glow from its next-generation electric propulsion system and flanked by two large solar arrays, the van-sized probe should arrive at its destination in the Asteroid Belt, between Mars and Jupiter, in July 2029. IMAGES