China has launched its Shenzhou-23 mission in which an astronaut will spend a full year in orbit for the first time, a crucial step in Beijing’s ambition to send humans to the moon by 2030. The Long March 2-F rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan launch centre in north-western China on Sunday, carrying three astronauts to the Tiangong space station. The mission marks the first spaceflight ever undertaken by an astronaut from Hong Kong: Lai Ka-ying, 43, who previously worked for the territory’s police. The other crew members are the…
Tag: Mars
The Guardian view on the new space race: humanity risks exporting its old politics to the moon | Editorial
During the cold war’s space race, the Apollo moon missions were driven by the need to prove American superiority. Having made that political and technological point with the 1969 moon landing, the contest between Moscow and Washington petered out. A new dash across the skies kicks off in 2026, reigniting geopolitical competition under the guise of “peaceful exploration”. The moon’s south pole is emerging as the most valuable real estate in the solar system, offering “peaks of eternal light” for solar arrays and ice deposits in craters shielded from the sun. The…
Above and beyond: key events in 2022 that shaped space exploration
The year has been a blast in space exploration, from Nasa’s big step in returning to moon missions, to glimpses at the origins of the universe and hope that humanity could survive the doomsday scenario of an asteroid hurtling towards Earth. These are the events that shaped 2022 in space advances: Back to the moon Nasa hadn’t sent a crew-capable spacecraft to the moon for half a century when Artemis 1 blasted off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral in November. Atop the mighty Space Launch System (SLS), the most powerful rocket…