Buoyed by success … Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has charged the Indian house company to fly an astronaut to the Moon by 2040. Engineers are solely now outlining the structure for a way India may obtain this purpose. On January 16, India achieved its first profitable docking between two satellites in orbit. This made India the fourth nation, after the US, Russia, and China, to display an unbiased docking functionality in orbit.

A brand new automobile joins China’s rocket fleet. China carried out the primary launch of the Lengthy March 8A rocket on February 11, carrying a second batch of satellites into orbit for the nationwide Guowang venture, Space News reports. The launcher took off from the Wenchang launch base in southern China and deployed no less than eight satellites for the Guowang broadband megaconstellation, China’s reply to Starlink. China has revealed scant details about the design, measurement, or capabilities of the Guowang satellites, elevating questions in regards to the nature of the satellites and issues about transparency.

Solely kinda new … The Lengthy March 8A is an upgraded variant of the usual Lengthy March 8, which debuted in December 2020. It options the identical first stage and facet boosters as the unique however features a newly designed 3.35-meter-diameter (11-foot) hydrogen-oxygen second stage, permitting a wider, 5.2-meter-diameter (17-foot) payload fairing. The rocket can carry about 7,000 kilograms (15,400 kilos) into Solar-synchronous orbit. China plans to make use of the expendable Lengthy March 8 and 8A rockets for quite a few launches. They may probably change into workhorses for deploying China’s Guowang and Thousand Sails megaconstellations. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Here is the newest on Starship Flight 8. A bit of over a month after SpaceX’s massive Starship launch ended in an explosion over a number of Caribbean islands, the corporate is making ready its subsequent rocket for a check flight, Ars reports. Based on a notice posted by the Federal Aviation Administration, the eighth check flight of the Starship automobile may happen as early as February 26 from the Starbase launch web site in South Texas. Firm sources confirmed that this launch date is believable, however it’s additionally attainable that the launch may slip a day or two to Thursday or Friday of subsequent week.