By Mari Yamaguchi
The liftoff of the United Arab Emirates' Mars orbiter was postponed until Friday due to bad weather at the Japanese launch site.
The orbiter named Amal, or Hope, is the Arab world's first interplanetary mission. The launch was scheduled for Wednesday from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan, but the UAE mission team announced the rescheduled date on Twitter.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' H-IIA rocket will carry UAE's craft into space. Mitsubishi launch official Keiji Suzuki had said on Monday a postponement was possible as intermittent lightning and rain were forecast over the next few days.
Heavy rain has fallen for more than a week in large areas of Japan, triggering mudslides and floods and killing more than 70 people, most of them on the southern main island of Kyushu.
Hope is set to reach Mars in February 2021, the year the UAE celebrates 50 years since its formation. A successful Hope mission would be a major step for the oil-dependent economy seeking a future in space.
Hope carries three instruments to study the upper atmosphere and monitor climate change and is scheduled to circle the red planet for at least two years.
Emirates Mars Mission Project Director Omran Sharaf, who joined Monday’s briefing from Dubai, said the mission will provide a complete view of the Martian atmosphere during different seasons for the first time.
Two other Mars missions are planned in the coming days by the U.S. and China. Japan has its own Martian moon mission planned in 2024.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, along with three civilians, launched into space aboard a rocket and capsule developed by his private spaceflight company, Blue Origin. The highly-anticipated, historic flight lasted for about 11 minutes. This comes after Sir Richard Branson flight with Virgin Galatic nine days ago. Senior national correspondent from POLITICO Bryan Bender joined Cheddar News to discuss what the launch means for the future of space tourism.
The Canada goose isn't native to Long Island, New York but now flocks of them are permanent residents. While most are migratory, some have made their homes in the area especially as more wild areas turn into green spaces for parks, housing developments, and businesses. Long Island Geese Control has found a solution to get rid of the birds without using chemicals or harming them: They send in specially trained border collies to chase them away. President and CEO Bill Alemaghides joined Cheddar News to tell us more.
Smoke and ash from massive wildfires in the American West shrouded the sky and led to air quality alerts on parts of the East Coast.
U.S. life expectancy fell by a year and a half in 2020, the largest one-year decline since World War II. The decrease for both Black Americans and Hispanic Americans was even worse: three years.
Health officials say the delta variant of the coronavirus continues to surge and accounts for an estimated 83% of U.S. COVID-19 cases.
Canada will begin letting fully vaccinated U.S. citizens into Canada on Aug. 9, and those from the rest of the world on Sept. 7.
Pacific Gas & Electric says its equipment may have been involved in the start of the big Dixie Fire burning in the Sierra Nevada.
German officials defended their actions ahead of last week’s devastating floods that caught many towns by surprise and left 196 people dead in Western Europe, but they conceded that lessons still need to be learned from the disaster.
Smoke and heat from the massive wildfire in southeastern Oregon are creating so-called fire clouds over the blaze.
Emergency workers in western German and Belgium are rushing to rescue hundreds of people in danger or still unaccounted for as the death toll from devastating floods rose to more than 125 people.
