Q&A with Heino Falcke, principal investigator of the Netherlands-China Low-Frequency Explorer (members only)

The next three-man crew to live on China’s Tiangong space station will launch Monday night on a Long March rocket, heading for a half-year expedition on the orbiting outpost to replace an outgoing team of astronauts set to return to Earth this weekend.

Speaking with Spaceflight Now on the sidelines of the International Astronautical Congress this week, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine offered his assessment on the status of a budget battle to secure funding for the agency’s Artemis program, which seeks to achieve the next human landing on the moon by the end of 2024.

A Chinese spacecraft ferrying rocks drilled from the moon’s surface is on course to land back on Earth Wednesday and deliver the first fresh lunar samples to scientists since the 1970s.