China offers its lunar samples to the world, a rideshare mission delivers satellite “firsts” for two nations, and all the other ways the space world showed there’s plenty to go around.
*Update 12/11/23: The global headline regarding Vega’s missing propellant tanks has been updated to clarify that while the rocket is operated by French company Arianespace, the rocket itself should not have been described as a “French” rocket, as it was developed by the Italian Space Agency and the European Space Agency, with manufacturing led by Italian company Avio.
Vega is Italian, not French 😉
*Update 12/11/23: The global headline regarding Vega’s missing propellant tanks has been updated to clarify that while the rocket is operated by French company Arianespace, the rocket itself should not have been described as a “French” rocket, as it was developed by the Italian Space Agency and the European Space Agency, with manufacturing led by Italian company Avio.