European Space Agency to launch two missions on Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets
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The European Space Agency announced Thursday it will use SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets to launch two scientific missions because of delays to its own Ariane 6 rocket and the cancellation of flights on Russia's Soyuz launchers. The ESA's Euclid space telescope had been planned to launch next year on a Soyuz rocket, but in February Russia pulled out in response to European sanctions over Moscow's war in Ukraine. Euclid, which aims to better understand the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter, will now instead catch a ride into space on the Falcon 9 rocket of billionaire Elon Musk's US company SpaceX. The ESA's Hera mission, which will probe the Didymos asteroid that NASA successfully knocked off course in September by smashing the DART spacecraft into it, will launch on a F...