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Added on the 20/12/2019 13:07:48 - Copyright : AFPTV - First images
American aerospace giant Boeing launches its Starliner capsule for the International Space Station in a critical uncrewed test flight that follows years of failures and false starts. The Orbital Test Flight 2 (OFT-2) mission blasted off at 6:54 pm Eastern Time (2254 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with the spaceship fixed atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. IMAGES
Boeing's new Starliner spacecraft returned to Earth, six days early, after a clock problem prevented a rendezvous with the International Space Station. IMAGES
SpaceX carries out the third test launch of Starship, the world's most powerful rocket that is vital to NASA's plans for landing astronauts on the Moon and Elon Musk's hopes of eventually colonizing Mars. Lift-off from the company's base in southeast Texas came around 8:25 am local time (1325 GMT) and was carried on a webcast viewed by more than 1.5 million people. IMAGES
SpaceX's 'Starship' rocket, the largest ever built, takes off from the space company's Texas launch site. CEO Elon Musk hopes the ship will one day colonize Mars and NASA is awaiting a modified version to land humans on the Moon. The first test in April ended in a spectacular explosion over the Gulf of Mexico. IMAGES
China sends a fresh crew to its Tiangong space station in the latest mission for a growing space programme that plans to send people to the Moon by 2030. The Shenzhou-17 blasted off from the Jiuquan launch site in arid northwest China at 11:14 am (0314 GMT) Thursday, carrying a three-astronaut team with the youngest average age since the space station's construction. IMAGES