Trouble in space as Boeing's not going, and China's back from the Moon

The Register Kettle

It's been a busy week in space, with Boeing's test pilots still stuck on the International Space Station thanks to their faulty capsule, and then being forced to take shelter from space debris. The debris came from RESURS-P1, a decommissioned Russian satellite launched in 2013, which broke up this week into over 100 observable pieces, all traveling at around 17,000mph. As the debris field approached the ISS astronauts were forced to take cover in a hardened safety chamber. Not that the station has long left, as NASA awarded a contract this week to deorbit the platform in 2030. By then there may be a replacement, and there'll almost certainly be a rival in the form of China, which is building its own space station. It's also been a good week for the Middle Kingdom, with the Chang'e-6 re-entry capsule bringing back the first samples from the far side of the Moon. You can see the full discussion below.