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Added on the 20/07/2021 18:16:35 - Copyright : AFPTV - First images
Boeing's beleaguered Starliner returns to Earth on without the astronauts who traveled in it to the International Space Station, after NASA deemed the risk too great. The gumdrop-shaped capsule landed gently at the White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico at approximately 0401 GMT Saturday, its descent slowed by parachutes and cushioned by airbags, having departed the ISS around six hours earlier. IMAGES
Two US astronauts who arrived at the International Space Station aboard Boeing's Starliner will have to return home with rival SpaceX, NASA says. "NASA has decided that Butch and Sunny will return with Crew 9 next February, and that Starliner will return uncrewed," NASA administrator Bill Nelson tells reporters. The return of Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Sunita "Suni" Williams has been delayed by thruster malfunctions of the Boeing spacecraft. SOUNDBITE
A space capsule carrying the International Space Station (ISS) crew of Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, lands on the Earth's surface in Kazakhstan. IMAGES
NASA says it has succeeded in deflecting an asteroid in a historic test of humanity's ability to stop an incoming cosmic object from devastating life on Earth. The fridge-sized Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) impactor deliberately smashed into the moonlet asteroid Dimorphos on September 26, pushing it into a smaller, faster orbit around its big brother Didymos, says NASA chief Bill Nelson in a press conference from Washington. SOUNDBITE
A record-breaking US astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts reach earth, with tensions between Moscow and the West soaring over Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Russia's space agency Roscosmos said. NASA's Mark Vande Hei is returning after setting a new record for the single longest spaceflight by a NASA astronaut, clocking 355 days aboard the International Space Station. IMAGES