SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft successfully completed an initial test Wednesday to demonstrate a new capability that helps maintain the International Space Station’s (ISS) orbital altitude.
The spacecraft used two Draco engines located in its trunk, which houses an independent propellant system, to perform a burn lasting five minutes and three seconds. The maneuver raised the station’s lowest orbital point, or perigee, by around one mile (1.6 kilometers), positioning the ISS in an orbit of 260.9 x 256.3 miles above Earth.
NASA said the new boost system will support the space station through a series of longer burns planned periodically throughout fall 2025. These altitude adjustments are critical because atmospheric drag gradually lowers the station’s orbit. Without regular reboosts, the ISS could naturally reenter Earth’s atmosphere within one to two years, depending on solar activity levels.
Dragon arrived at the ISS on August 25 as part of SpaceX’s 33rd commercial resupply mission. The spacecraft is scheduled to remain docked until late December or early January before returning to Earth with research materials and cargo, splashing down off the coast of California.
The ISS, an orbiting laboratory operational since 1998, has hosted a continuous human presence for more than 23 years and is scheduled to end operations around 2030-2031 with a controlled deorbit.
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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reached a staff-level agreement with Pakistan that would unlock $1.2 billion in funding once approved by the...
Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched on Tuesday through the northern Italian city of Udine ahead of Italy’s World Cup qualifier against Israel, ending their mostly peaceful rally with clashes involving police.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reached a staff-level agreement with Pakistan that would unlock $1.2 billion in funding once approved by the Fund’s Executive Board.
Google has joined forces with the World Bank Group to develop artificial intelligence-based public digital infrastructure aimed at supporting developing markets.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday awarded conservative commentator Charlie Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom, honouring him posthumously a month after his assassination in Utah.
Video from the USGS (United States Geological Survey) showed on Friday (19 September) the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii erupting and spewing lava.
At least 69 people have died and almost 150 injured following a powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Cebu City in the central Visayas region of the Philippines, officials said, making it one of the country’s deadliest disasters this year.
Authorities in California have identified the dismembered body discovered in a Tesla registered to singer D4vd as 15-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, who had been missing from Lake Elsinore since April 2024.
A tsunami threat was issued in Chile after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck the Drake Passage on Friday. The epicenter was located 135 miles south of Puerto Williams on the north coast of Navarino Island.
The war in Ukraine has reached a strategic impasse, and it seems that the conflict will not be solved by military means. This creates a path toward one of two alternatives: either a “frozen” phase that can last indefinitely or a quest for a durable political regulation.
SpaceX launched its 11th Starship from Texas on 13 October, landing in the Indian Ocean ahead of testing an upgraded version for future moon and Mars missions.
From Sunday, all non-EU citizens, including British visitors, will face new biometric checks when entering and exiting the European Union under its long-delayed Entry/Exit System (EES).
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Susumu Kitagawa of Kyoto University, Richard Robson of the University of Melbourne, and Omar Yaghi of the University of California.
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis for their groundbreaking discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in electric circuits.
United States chipmaker AMD will supply artificial intelligence chips to OpenAI in a multi-year agreement that could generate tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue and give the ChatGPT maker the option to acquire up to 10% of the company.
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