China’s first lunar satellite lands on moon

September 28th, 2009 BEIJING - Chinese experts Monday announced that the country's space scientists have completed the world's highest-resolution three-dimensional map of the moon. The map, covering the whole surface of the moon, is based on image data obtained by a charge-coupled device (CCD) stereo camera carried by Chang'e-1, China's first lunar probe vehicle, launched Oct 2007.

September 19th, 2009 LUCKNOW - Asserting that Eid-ul-Fitr should not be dependent on the visibility of the moon, renowned Shia cleric and senior vice president of All India Muslim Personal Law Board Maulana Kalbe Sadiq Saturday declared Sep 21 as the date of the festival. "It is because of the variation of timing in the visibility at different places that Eid-ul-Fitr was often celebrated at two or more dates in different parts of the country," Sadiq said at a press conference here.

September 14th, 2009 China breaks ground on space launch centerBEIJING — China broke ground on its fourth space center Monday, highlighting the country's soaring space ambitions six years after it sent its first man into orbit. The space port on the southern island province of Hainan incorporates a launch site and mission control center for slinging the country's massive new rockets into space carrying satellites and components for a future space station and deep space exploration.

July 21st, 2009 Named for lunar lander, Module McGhee rockets onThe day Apollo 11 landed on the moon 40 years ago, it inspired Eddie Lee McGhee to name his newborn daughter after the lunar lander. But he didn't name her Eagle.

May 22nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - US space agency NASA has said it is ready to send two missions to the moon in a launch next month that will set the course for the resumption of human lunar exploration. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) are to launch aboard a single rocket June 17.

May 20th, 2009 BANGALORE - The Indian space agency has raised the orbit of its first unmanned lunar spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 to 200km from the lunar surface for further studies on orbit perturbations and gravitational field variations of the Moon. 'With the successful completion of all the mission objectives from 100 km above the moon since November 2008, we have raised the height of the spacecraft to 200 km Tuesday to enable imaging lunar surface with a wider swath,' the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a statement here Wednesday.

May 12th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Textile engineering students have thought up of an answer to one of the prime threats bedevilling NASA space missions: radiation. The students of North Carolina State University (NCSU) have designed a 'blanket' that could shield lunar outposts and astronauts' living quarters from radiation, while generating and storing power.

April 20th, 2009 SRIHARIKOTA - The radar imaging satellite (RISAT-2) launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) from here Monday is owned and operated by ISRO, its chief said, dismissing reports labelling RISAT-2 a 'spy satellite'. 'This is an imaging satellite that can identify features on ground.

April 18th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Forty years after Apollo's moon mission, a scientist has figured out why moon dust is so sticky, ruining scientific equipment and endangering astronauts' health. He concluded that its stickiness changes as the sun moves higher in the sky, eventually allowing the very weak lunar gravity to pull the dust off.

April 6th, 2009 LONDON - Researchers are readying a robot with the help of an artist to place a little red cottage on the moon, as a symbol of what humankind can achieve. The goal is for the robot named Roony, to be able to place the cabin on the moon in 2012, under the project 'House on the Moon', a collaboration between Malardalen University and versatile artist Mikael Genberg.

February 22nd, 2009 NEW DELHI - India should undertake a strategic and comprehensive review of its space programmes as quickly as possible given 'the military character and military functions' of China's space programme, a senior US expert in Asian military affairs said Saturday. Painting a 'horror picture' of China's rapidly expanding global military reach, Richard Fischer Jr., a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center in the US, said Indian private universities should begin satellite or space development programmes as has been done in the United States.

January 30th, 2009 MOSCOW - Russia's Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) will propose to the government the building of a low-orbit space station to support future exploration of the Moon and Mars, an agency official has said. 'We will soon propose to our government a project to construct a low-orbit complex, which could serve as a foundation for the implementation of the lunar programme and later on the Mars programme,' Alexei Krasnov, director of manned flight programmes at Roscosmos, has told a news conference in Moscow.

January 22nd, 2009 BANGALORE - The sophisticated camera on board India's first lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 detected the first X-ray signal from the moon, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said here Friday. 'The first X-ray signature was detected from a region near the Apollo landing sites Dec 12 at 02:36 universal time.

December 29th, 2008 NEW DELHI - It is a set of pictures that is among the most anticipated in India - around 3,200 frames tracking the descent of the first-ever Indian-built device to the moon's surface. But the Indian public may have to wait for some more time to take a peek at that journey.

December 24th, 2008 BANGALORE - The moon mineralogy mapper (M3), a scientific instrument of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) onboard India's first lunar mission Chandrayaan-1, found iron-bearing minerals on the lunar surface, the US space agency said Thursday. 'The mapper spectrometer has beamed images of the Orientale Basin region of the moon, indicating abundance of iron-bearing minerals such as pyroxene.