Spaceflight

Turkey is to open its first satellite assembly and test center on May 21, according to a statement from the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI).

The Spacecraft Assembly, Integration and Test Center, located northwest of Ankara, in Kazan, will initially test the Göktürk-1 satellite, a civil and military observation satellite to be launched in November.

This is what Europe looks like from space, utterly beautiful.

We have astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, of the European Space Agency, to thank for the  photos of Earth from the International Space Station.

The series begin with the Canary islands and continue on towards Italy.

Russia's space agency said May 18 it had managed to restart the engines of the Progress spacecraft and correct the orbit of the International Space Station (ISS) which it is attached to, after a failed first attempt.

Russia on May 17 began investigating the loss of a commercial satellite and a separate glitch on the International Space Station, sparking fears over the industry's safety.

Russia's space agency Roscosmos has confirmed that its crippled unmanned cargo spacecraft Progress will disintegrate Thursday night or early Friday morning, RIA Novosti reported.

According to Roscosmos, the stricken spacecraft was expected to burn up on re-entry in the Earth's atmosphere with just a few small pieces likely to survive the heat to hit planet's surface.

Curiosity Mars rover is currently exploring Gale crater on Mars, since 2012. The NASA space vehicle recently sent over some amazingly beautiful pictures of a “blue sunset” from the planet.

The photos were received on the 15th of April and depict the sun being lost over the horizon of the red planet.

An unmanned NASA spacecraft has crashed on the surface of the planet Mercury, after it ran out of fuel following a successful 11-year mission, the US space agency said April 30.

An unmanned Russian cargo spacecraft ferrying supplies to the International Space Station is plunging back to Earth and apparently out of control, an official said on April 29.

Russian flight control has lost the ability to rein in unmanned space vehicle “Progress” according to a Russian Space Agency official.

According to the statement, “Progress” was meant to resupply the ISS, but control was lost and the spacecraft is heading towards earth in an uncontrolled fashion.

The Japanese Space Agency “JAXA” announced the first steps in planning to visit Mars. Said plans include an unmanned mission to the Moon.

According to PhysOrg, these plans were announced during the Japanese cabinet meeting.