NASA has announced astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are safely in orbit on the first crewed flight test of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft heading for the International Space Station.

As part of NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test, the astronauts launched a ULA (United Launch Alliance) Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 10:52 a.m. EDT Wednesday for an end-to-end test of the Starliner system.

“Two brave NASA astronauts are well on their way to this historic first test flight of a brand-new spacecraft,” stated NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “Boeing’s Starliner represents a new era of American exploration. Human spaceflight is a risky endeavor, but it is worth it. It is an exciting time for NASA, our commercial partners, and the future of space exploration. “Go Starliner, Butch, and Suni!”

The flight test is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program and will help validate the transportation system, launch pad, rocket, spacecraft, in-orbit operations capabilities, and return to Earth with astronauts aboard as the agency prepares to certify Starliner for rotational missions to the space station. Starliner has already completed two uncrewed orbital missions, including a test to and from the space station, as well as a pad abort demonstration.

Boeing Starliner Makes Orbit

“With Starliner’s launch, separation from the rocket, and arrival in orbit, Boeing’s Crew Flight Test is right on track,” said Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager for Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program. “Everyone is focused on giving Suni and Butch a safe, comfortable, ride and performing a successful test mission from start to finish.”

Boeing’s mission control center in Houston will supervise a sequence of autonomous spacecraft maneuvers while Starliner is in flight. NASA teams will supervise space station activities from the Mission Control Center at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

“Flying crew on Starliner represents over a decade of work by the Commercial Crew Program and our partners at Boeing and ULA,” said Steve Stich, Commercial Crew Program Manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “For many of us, this is a career-defining occasion, ushering in a new crew transportation capacity for our agency and our country. We will take it one step at a time, putting Starliner through its paces and remaining watchful until Butch and Suni safely land back on Earth at the end of this test journey.”

At about 12:15 p.m., Starliner will dock autonomously to the forward-facing port of the station’s Harmony module. Thursday, June 6, and will remain at the orbital laboratory for almost a week.

Wilmore and Williams will help ensure that the spacecraft is functioning properly by testing the environmental control system, the displays and control system, and moving the thrusters, among other things, during flight.

Wilmore and Williams will join the Expedition 71 crew, which includes NASA astronauts Michael Barratt, Matt Dominick, Tracy C. Dyson, and Jeanette Epps, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Nikolai Chub, Alexander Grebenkin, and Oleg Kononenko.

NASA’s arrival and in-flight event coverage is as follows (all times Eastern and subject to change depending on real-time operations):

NASA Television channels will continue to broadcast the Starliner’s mission.

Thursday, June 6
9:30 a.m. – Arrival coverage begins on NASA+, the NASA app, and YouTube, and continues on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

12:15 p.m. – Targeted docking

2 p.m. – Hatch opening

2:20 p.m. – Welcome remarks

3:30 p.m. – Post-docking news conference at NASA Johnson with the following participants:

• NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free
• Steve Stich, manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
• Jeff Arend, manager for systems engineering and integration, NASA’s International Space Station Office
• Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager, Commercial Crew Program, Boeing

Coverage of the post-docking news conference will air live on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.

To attend the post-docking briefing, U.S. media must contact the NASA Johnson newsroom at: [email protected] or 281-483-5111 by 1 p.m. Thursday, June 6. To join by phone, media must contact the NASA Johnson newsroom by 3 p.m. Thursday, June 6.

5:50 p.m. – NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy, Associate Administrator Jim Free, Associate Administrator for Space Operations Ken Bowersox, and Johnson Space Center Director Vanessa Wyche will speak with Wilmore and Williams about their launch aboard the Starliner spacecraft.

Coverage of the Earth to space call will air live on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.

Saturday, June 8

8:50 a.m. – NASA astronauts Wilmore and Williams will provide a tour of Starliner.

Coverage of the in-orbit event will stream live on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.

Monday, June 10

11 a.m. – Williams will speak to students from Sunita L. Williams Elementary School in Needham, Massachusetts, in an event aboard the space station.

Coverage of the Earth to space call will air live on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.

Tuesday, June 11

3:15 p.m. – Wilmore will speak to students from Tennessee Tech University in an event aboard the space station.

Coverage of the Earth to space call will air live on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.

(CTN News) – A team of palaeontologists believes they have discovered fossilized footprints of one of China’s largest raptors. The collection of five fossilized dinosaur footprints is half the length of a school bus.

The footprints were discovered in a dinosaur trackway in south-east China in 2020. Scientists believe dinosaurs walked over the muddy river during the Cretaceous period, leaving footprints. Some footprints have been preserved for tens of millions of years.

The dinosaur trackway was unearthed in Longxiang and is around the size of a hockey rink. Some of the footprints are unusually formed, with intact imprints of only two toes.

Fossilised footprint of megaraptor found in China

Giant fossil footprints lead to megaraptor dinosaur discovery in China

Raptors, or predatory birds, are often small and referred to as deinonychosaurs. For example, a Velociraptor is around the size of a turkey. Few raptors, such as the Utahraptor and Dakotaraptor, increased in size significantly, reaching lengths of 5 to 6 metres. The Triassic ichthyosaur was the largest raptor known until now.

According to the scientists, the predator would have attacked its prey with a pair of huge “killing claws” on each foot.

What scientists discovered recently in China is massive, far larger than the largest superpredator known to date.

Scott Persons of the College of Charleston in South Carolina, and his colleagues, added another large raptor to the list. They named it Fujianipus, and they believe it lived in East Asia some 96 million years ago.

Scott Persons at the College of Charleston in South Carolina and his colleagues added another giant raptor to the list. They named it Fujianipus, and they say it lived in East Asia about 96 million years ago. Photograph:(Twitter)

Persons and his colleagues are currently working on areas of Fujianipus’ skeleton, therefore little is known. The investigators only discovered a few of its 36-centimetre-long imprints.

“Preservation conditions were right for footprints but not so great for bones,” Persons said. However, scientists are certain that the footprints belong to a raptor because each one contains the imprint of only two toes, which corresponds to the foot anatomy of raptors. Raptors generally have three toes, but they keep one off the ground to preserve the big claw at the tip from wear and tear.

People believe Fujianipus demonstrates that raptors had the ability to grow much larger and compete with the largest predatory dinosaurs on the landscape at the time – allosauroids, some of which exceeded 10 metres or more in length.

According to Persons, raptors had an advantage over allosauroids in terms of speed. However, without fossilized leg bones, the researchers cannot correctly measure Fujianipus’ speed.

(CTN News) – The quest for extraterrestrial life beyond our solar system may be on the brink of a breakthrough.

The James Webb Space Telescope, heralded as the largest ever sent into space, is poised to peer into another solar system following the emergence of potential signs on one of its distant planets.

As per a report from The Times, scientists have detected a gas in the atmosphere of a planet that could possibly be “solely produced by life.

” This planet, named K2-18b, resides within the constellation Leo orbiting a star known as K2-18, estimated to be roughly half the size of our Sun.

K2-18b dwarfs Earth, measuring approximately 2.6 times its size. Researchers have identified dimethyl sulphide (DMS) gas in its atmosphere, suggesting a tantalizing possibility of its origin being linked to phytoplankton in marine environments.

Although scientists express over 50 percent confidence in the presence of DMS in the planet’s atmosphere, definitive proof linking it to biological activity remains elusive.

The inability to conclusively demonstrate that DMS can be generated in the absence of living organisms underscores the complexities of this ongoing investigation.

WEBB Space Telescope

Where is K2-18b located?

K2-18b resides 124 light years away from Earth, marking it as one of our relatively close celestial neighbors.

To reach this distant planet, a probe traveling at the velocity of the Voyager spacecraft, which moves at 38,000 mph, would require approximately 2,175.44 years in human terms.

James Webb Space Telescope’s quest for life

Launched from the Guiana Space Centre in 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) specializes in infrared astronomy. Since its deployment, it has unveiled a plethora of cosmic marvels, including the awe-inspiring imagery it routinely transmits to NASA.

Constructed at a staggering cost of $10 billion, JWST features a 6.5-meter, gold-plated mirror and a suite of sophisticated instruments cooled to temperatures just a few degrees above absolute zero.

Among its discoveries are Wasp-107b, situated 1,300 light years away from Earth, and GJ1214, a planet boasting a mass eight times that of our own.

Furthermore, JWST has identified the massive planets within the Orion Nebula, expanding our understanding of the universe’s vast diversity.