![This handout photo shows the core stage for the first flight of NASA's Space Launch System rocket in the B-2 Test Stand during a scheduled eight minute duration hot fire test, January 16, 2021, at NASA's Stennis Space Center near Bay St Louis, Mississippi [Robert Markowitz/ NASA/ AFP]](/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/000_8YX28H.jpg?resize=570%2C380)
The test is a vital step in NASA’s Artemis programme to put the first woman and the next man on the moon in 2024.
Space
The Colombia-born NASA aerospace engineer shares her journey as an immigrant and how it influences her work.
![A picture taken on December 21, 2020, in al-Salmi district, a desert area 120 kms west of Kuwait City, shows the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn [Yadder Al-Zayyat/AFP]](/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/000_8XK7AR-1.jpg?resize=570%2C380)
Solar system’s two biggest planets come within planetary kissing range, an intimacy that won’t occur...
![Saturn and Jupiter seen behind a church ahead of their conjunction that is being called The Christmas Star, on December 18, 2020 in Jersey City, US [Gary Hershorn/Getty Images]](/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/GettyImages-1292025385.jpg?resize=570%2C380)
The two largest planets will be one-tenth of a degree apart in what is being dubbed the ‘Great...
!['I know a lot of close cooperation is expected between the two nations, especially with the UK coming out of its EU restrictions, or shackles,' Indian billionaire Sunil Mittal told Bloomberg News [File: Patrick T Fallon/Bloomberg]](/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/330847763.jpg?resize=270%2C180)
The satellite launch is the first since the UK bailed out OneWeb with the help of Indian billionaire Sunil Mittal.
![The capsule carrying the samples collected by the Chang'e-5 space probe landed in northern China 's Inner Mongolia region, Xinhua said [CCTV Screenshot via Reuters]](/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Screen-Shot-2020-12-17-at-8.56.03-AM.png?resize=270%2C180)
China becomes only the third country to have retrieved samples from the Moon following the US and then-Soviet Union.
![A Canadian will join a NASA mission orbiting the moon in 2023 [File: Rodolfo Buhrer/Reuters]](/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/2020-12-16T155603Z_87862955_RC2FOK98KCPI_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-USA-CANADA.jpg?resize=270%2C180)
The 2023 Artemis II mission will send a crewed test flight into lunar orbit but will not land on the moon.
![A patch for the China Lunar Exploration Program is displayed on the uniform of a worker at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in southern China's Hainan province [File: Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo]](/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/AP_20328411152218.jpg?resize=270%2C180)
The moon rocks would be the first brought back to Earth since the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 probe in 1976.
![Virgin Galactic's spaceship VSS Unity, tucked under the wing of its special carrier aircraft [File: Matt Hartman/AP]](/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/AP_20044853260795-1.jpg?resize=270%2C180)
The upcoming flight will be the first powered launch from Spaceport America, where Virgin Galactic is now headquartered.
![SpaceX's Starship SN8 rocket prototype crashing on landing at the company's Boca Chica, Texas facility during a launch test on December [AFP via SpaceX]](/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/000_8WT8JA.jpg?resize=270%2C180)
Elon Musk says SpaceX got all the data it needed for its programme to send people and cargo to the Moon and Mars.
![An image taken by Chang'e 5 spacecraft after its landing on the moon is seen in this handout provided by China National Space Administration [CNSA/Handout via Reuters]](/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/2020-12-02T030926Z_731765891_RC2REK9I0BLG_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-EXPLORATION-CHINA-MOON.jpg?resize=270%2C180)
Chang’e-5 transfers samples collected on the moon in first such manoeuvre to be carried out by a Chinese spacecraft.
![Project members celebrate as the success of trajectory control manoeuvre to withdraw from the Earth's sphere is confirmed, at a control room of JAXA's Sagamihara Campus in Sagamihara, near Tokyo [JAXA via AP]](/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/AP_20340354447390.jpg?resize=270%2C180)
Scientists retrieve a Japanese space capsule carrying cargo of asteroid dust in Australia’s Woomera desert.
![The four companies plan to carry out the collection during already scheduled unmanned missions to the Moon in 2022 and 2023 [Michael Probst/AP Photo]](/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/AP_20333631120989.jpg?resize=270%2C180)
US space agency announces contracts awarded to four companies to collect soil from the moon for $1 to $15,000.
![This file photo from June shows the Toronto skyline. Footage captured on Wednesday showed a white flash in the sky above the city [File: Mark Blinch/Getty Images]](/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/GettyImages-1253473712.jpg?resize=270%2C180)
Tracking organisation records 90 reports of the fireball seen across states including Michigan, New York and Virginia.