Russia successfully launched its inaugural moon-landing spacecraft on Friday in 47 years. The mission aims to achieve the distinction of being the first country to achieve a gentle landing on the lunar south pole, an area thought to contain valuable reservoirs of water ice.

As per a report by Reuters, Russia’s recent lunar mission, it’s inaugural one since 1976, is in a competitive race with India, which sent its Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander to space last month.

Moreover, it’s part of a larger competition involving the United States and China, both of whom have well-developed lunar exploration initiatives that focus on the southern region of the Moon.

The private space firm, Interstellar Technologies, aims for an orbital launch by 2025.

Interstellar Technologies, a Japanese startup that has successfully launched three suborbital rockets, is now gearing up for its first orbital mission. The company plans to conduct a static fire test of its Zero rocket later this year, which will be a crucial step towards launching it into orbit by 2025.

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Credits: Interstellar Technologies.

Biomethane as rocket-fuel.

Over the last several months, we’ve been enjoying a front-row seat as [Jay Bowles] of Plasma Channel has been developing and perfecting his design for a high voltage multi-stage ionic thruster. With each installment, the unit has become smaller, lighter, and more powerful. Which is important, as the ultimate goal is to power an RC aircraft with them.

There’s still plenty of work to be done before [Jay] will be able to take his creation skyward, but he’s making all the right moves. As a step towards his goal, he recently teamed up with [RcTestFlight] to attach a pair of his thrusters — which have again been further tweaked and refined since we last saw them — to a custom catamaran hull. The result is a futuristic craft that skims across the water with no moving parts and no noise…if you don’t count the occasional stray arc from the 40,000 volts screaming through its experimental thrusters, anyway.

We were particularly impressed to see the boat doesn’t use rudders, and instead relies on differential thrust between the two ion engines to turn. It was the more difficult approach to be sure, but as [Jay] explained it to us, the goal from the very start was to completely eliminate any moving components from the powertrain.

The immense power of SpaceX’s Starship Super Heavy booster is on glorious display in newly released photos of a recent engine test.

That test occurred on Sunday (Aug. 6), when SpaceX briefly ignited the 33 Raptor engines of a Super Heavy prototype known as Booster 9 at the company’s Starbase site in South Texas.

The company aims to launch New Glenn, a huge rocket with a reusable booster, on its first flight next year.

SpaceX next-generation Starship rocket took a major step forward on August 6, when it conducted a successful static fire test. The test involved firing all 33 Raptor engines on the Booster 9 prototype, which is the first stage of the Starship rocket.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) shared some spectacular images from its Chandrayann-3 mission, showcasing the monumental moment in India’s space history. This marks the country’s third lunar exploration mission which will also include a lunar landing of a rover.

Chandrayann-3 launched on July 14, 2023, from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India, and is made up of a lunar lander, propulsion module, and a rover. If the Indian spacecraft is able to successfully land on the moon, it would make India only the fourth country to land a spacecraft on the surface of the moon, with the other three being the United States, Russia, and China. However, before the lunar landing is attempted, Chandrayann-3 has sent back some stunning images of the lunar surface.

SpaceX performed a static fire test of a Super Heavy booster on Sunday to evaluate changes to the vehicle and launchpad following April’s maiden flight.