Cape Canaveral

The first Turkish astronaut, Alper Gezeravcı, and three other crew members blasted off on Thursday on a voyage to the International Space Station (ISS), in what President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said marked a "historic" milestone for Türkiye.

A fighter pilot poised to become Turkey's first person in orbit and three other astronauts representing Europe were set for launch on Thursday headed for the International Space Station in the latest commercially arranged mission from Texas startup Axiom Space.

Excitement builds across Turkiye as the nation eagerly anticipates the historic launch of its first astronaut, Alper Gezeravci, scheduled to take place on Thursday. The private spaceflight Axion Mission 3 is set to lift off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, just after midnight Bulgarian time or at 1:11 a.m. Turkish time.

A Turkish engineer, who worked at American space transportation company SpaceX's first rocket project Falcon-1, accused the company owner, billionaire tycoon Elon Musk of forcing them to work as "slaves."

"We were left alone on an island. He [Elon Musk] made us work like slaves," Bülent Altan said in a book called "Lift-off," describing his early days in the company.

SpaceX successfully launched its latest cluster of high-speed internet satellites into orbit on Feb. 17 but was unable to land its rocket booster on an autonomous ship, missing a key milestone.    

From 2017 Bulgarian Dr. Margarita Marinova is a senior aeronautical engineer on matters concerning Mars and development of propulsion systems in the company of Elon Musk of space technology SpaceX.

The first Bulgarian communication satellite by the Geostationary orbit BulgariaSat-1 finished all main procedures for montage and tests by the company Space Systems/Loral (SSL) in Palo Alto, California successfully, Dnevnik announced.

SpaceX successfully landed its powerful Falcon 9 rocket Dec. 21 for the first time, a major milestone in the drive to cut costs and waste by making rockets as reusable as airplanes.

There's a near-perfect heart shape on Pluto's rusty red surface. The dwarf planet is dotted with bright points which may be ice caps, and a mysterious dark shape nicknamed "The Whale."