May 2022

The Tianzhou 4 cargo spacecraft blastinf off (Photo courtesy Xinhua/Tian Dingyu)

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It was morning in Beijing when the Chinese Tianzhou 4 cargo spacecraft reached the Chinese space station’s Tianhe core module. It was launched about seven hours earlier on a Long March-7 Y5 rocket from the Wenchang base. This is the third space freighter launched to the new Chinese space station and carries propellant along with various types of supplies for the taikonauts, as the Chinese call their astronauts, who will arrive in June.

The Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft splashing down to conclude its Crew-3 mission (Image NASA)

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A few hours ago, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft concluded its Crew-3, or SpaceX Crew-3, mission on behalf of NASA by splashing down without problems. On board were astronauts Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn, Kayla Barron, and Matthias Maurer, who reached the International Space Station on November 11, 2021, and were part of Expedition 66 and 67. The four completed the second regular manned mission of SpaceX in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Tampa, Florida. The Crew Dragon departed the Station almost exactly one day ago.

The pulsar PSR J0523-7125 in the square seen by MeerKAT (Image courtesy Yuanming Wang)

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An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal” reports the discovery of a pulsar cataloged as PSR J0523-7125, the brightest pulsar discovered outside the Milky Way. A team of researchers led by Tara Murphy of the Australian University of Sydney used a new technique based on the analysis of the polarization of the light emitted by the pulsar to identify it among the observations conducted with the ASKAP radio telescope. The polarization was crucial in the identification because it made it possible to understand that the light came from a pulsar and not from an object of another type.

The Electron rocket starts "There And Back Again" mission (Image courtesy Rocket Lab)

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A few hours ago, Rocket Lab’s first attempt to use a Sikorsky S-92 helicopter to catch the first stage of its Electron rocket while it was returning to the ground during a mission called “There And Back Again” was successful. The goal is a controlled transport of the first stage to the ground in order to reuse it. After catching it, the pilot found that the load had different characteristics from those experienced during the tests and let go of the first stage, which splashed down and was recovered by Rocket Lab’s ship.