Science News Roundup: SpaceX launches first Falcon Heavy mission since 2019 from Florida; Tongan volcano eruption unleashed highest plume on record and more

The long-awaited Starliner mission carrying a crew of NASA astronauts to the International Space Station is the last step before the spacecraft can be certified for routine flights, and will mark a pivotal moment for Boeing's space unit as it struggles to compete with Elon Musk's SpaceX. In Spain's La Rioja, old vines could future-proof wine against climate change When Spanish genetics researcher Pablo Carbonell spots a green rectangle among the endless grey rows on his computer's screen, it could be good news for winemakers struggling with the impact of a warmer climate.

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

Boeing's first crewed Starliner spaceflight slips to April 2023

Boeing's first Starliner capsule mission carrying humans has slipped from February to April 2023 as the company works with NASA to fix lingering technical issues from the spacecraft's last uncrewed test flight, the U.S. space agency said Thursday. The long-awaited Starliner mission carrying a crew of NASA astronauts to the International Space Station is the last step before the spacecraft can be certified for routine flights, and will mark a pivotal moment for Boeing's space unit as it struggles to compete with Elon Musk's SpaceX.

In Spain's La Rioja, old vines could future-proof wine against climate change

When Spanish genetics researcher Pablo Carbonell spots a green rectangle among the endless grey rows on his computer's screen, it could be good news for winemakers struggling with the impact of a warmer climate. The green reveals a change from the local grapevine genome's archetype that indicates a longer ripeness cycle, increasingly coveted by winemakers in Spain and worldwide.

SpaceX launches first Falcon Heavy mission since 2019 from Florida

SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, the world's most-powerful active rocket, lifted off on Tuesday for the first time in more than three years through dense fog at Florida's Cape Canaveral, with Elon Musk's company sending satellites into orbit for the U.S. Space Force. The rocket system, consisting of three Falcon 9 boosters strapped side-by-side, took off from a SpaceX launch pad, with two satellites from the Space Force and a group of smaller satellites bound for orbit. The Space Force did not provide details of its satellites and requested that SpaceX end its launch live stream early without showing their deployment.

Tongan volcano eruption unleashed highest plume on record

The powerful Jan. 15 underwater eruption of Tonga's Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano in the South Pacific produced a plume that soared higher into Earth's atmosphere than any other on record - about 35 miles (57 km) - as it extended more than halfway to space, researchers said on Thursday. The white-grayish plume unleashed by the eruption in the Polynesian archipelago became the first one documented to have penetrated a frigid layer of the atmosphere called the mesosphere, according to scientists who employed a novel technique using multiple satellite images to measure its height.