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: Chang'e-6 has landed at Apollo crater within the South Pole-Aitken basin on the far side of the moon. The China National Space Administration probe has the goal of sampling and returning the first lunar rocks and regolith from the moon's hemisphere that always faces away from Earth. The lander also carries instruments from the European Space Agency, France and Italy. Should all go to plan, the samples will be on Earth by month's end.
: David Hilmers and Marsha Ivins, who both flew multiple flights as space shuttle mission specialists, entered the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame on Saturday (June 1). Standing under one of their rides to orbit, the orbiter Atlantis, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, the two were hailed in front of a "full house" of fellow astronauts, space agency officials and the public. Hilmers and Ivins were the 25th inductee class.
: An Artemis Moon Tree that was grown from a seed flown on NASA's 2022 Artemis I mission, was planted at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday (June 4). The sweetgum sapling was dedicated by the four astronauts who will be next to fly around to the moon, the Artemis II crew, who were joined by members of Congress and NASA and Canadian officials. The Artemis Moon Tree is now among the 4,800 trees on the U.S. Capitol grounds.
: Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are now in Earth orbit, having become the first crew to launch on board Boeing's CST-100 Starliner commercial spacecraft. Lifting off on a ULA Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, Wilmore and Williams are now only the sixth U.S. crew to test fly a new type of American spacecraft. Their mission to and from the International Space Station will test the Starliner's systems.
: SpaceX achieved its first full flight of its Starship launch vehicle on Thursday (June 6), surviving reentry from space to splashing down in the ocean. Flying on its fourth test flight, Starship and its Super Heavy booster each had issues, including losing heatshield tiles and failed engines, but both made it back to land intact in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, respectively. In the future, Starship will land at its launch pad to fly again.
: Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders was killed Friday (June 7) when the vintage aircraft he was piloting crashed into the waters off the coast of the San Juan Islands in Washington State. One of the first people to fly to the moon, Anders' greatest legacy may be the now-iconic photograph he took of "Earthrise," inspiring the environment movement. The T-34 Mentor Anders was flying belonged to the Heritage Flight Museum he founded.
: Seattle's Museum of Flight on Saturday (June 8) opened its new temporary exhibition, "Home Beyond Earth." The gallery showcases scale models, digital projections and over 50 artifacts to immerse visitors in the past, present and future of space stations. As guests walk through "Home Beyond Earth" they collect digital tokens that guide their journey and personalize their imagined life on board a space station best fitted for them.
: The next collection in Swatch's popular crossover line with Omega is "Mission on Earth." The new watches still retain the classic Speedmaster "first watch worn on the moon" look, but add flourishes of color inspired by the hues from three sights that can be seen from space: lava, polar lights (aurora) and the desert. The three MoonSwatch models will be available beginning Saturday (June 15) for $270 each at select Swatch stores.
: After failing to dock to the Salyut 5 space station, Soyuz 23 commander Vyacheslav Zudov went from being stranded in space to sinking on Earth. Zudov survived the only Soyuz splashdown in history, landing in a frozen lake in 1976. On Wednesday (June 12), Zudov died at the age of 82. He logged a total of two days in space, serving only on backup crews before he retired from Russia's cosmonaut corps in September 1987.
: If you accidentally step on a Lego brick in the one-sixth gravity of the moon, does it still hurt? The world may some day know, now that the European Space Agency (ESA) has shown that future Artemis lunar structures could be built from bricks of similar design to the iconic toy. The "ESA Space Bricks," which for testing were 3D printed from meteorite dust, are going on display at select Lego Stores to help inspire kids around the world.
: The California Science Center is still a few years away from opening its Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center and with it, the towering display of space shuttle Endeavour in its launch configuration. Until then, the Los Angeles museum has "Work in Progress," a gallery to preview the expansion and some of the artifacts that will join Endeavour on exhibit. Leading off the displays is SpaceX's first three-time-flown Dragon cargo spacecraft.
