San Antonio TX (SPX) Jul 20, 2021
NASA has funded Southwest Research Institute's Environmental Analysis of the Bounded Lunar Exosphere (ENABLE) project, which aims to return mass spectrometry to the lunar surface. The three-year, $2.18 million program seeks to adapt a commercial off-the-shelf mass spectrometer into a design to identify materials present on the Moon. Mass spectrometry is an analytic technique that identifie

Washington (AFP) July 20, 2021
The wealthiest man on the planet Jeff Bezos will ride his own rocket to outer space on Tuesday, a key moment for a fledgling industry seeking to make the final frontier accessible to elite tourists. Blue Origin has planned its first crewed mission, an 11-minute hop from west Texas to beyond the Karman line and back again, to coincide with the 52nd anniversary of the first Moon landing. V

Xichang (XNA) Jul 20, 2021
China launched a Long March 2C carrier rocket on Monday morning at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province to place four satellites into space. The rocket blasted off at 8:19 am and deployed three Yaogan 30-series remote-sensing satellites as well as a micro communication satellite into their orbits, said the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, the country's leadin

Beijing (XNA) Jul 20, 2021
China's reusable aerospace plane, which was tested on Friday, offers great potential in a wide range of businesses, according to industry observers. "It will be able to do many different things: space tourism, transporting astronauts, satellite deployment, cargo transportation and emergency rescues," said Wang Yanan, editor-in-chief of Aerospace Knowledge magazine. "Compared to rocke

Boston MA (SPX) Jul 20, 2021
When the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft launched in 1977, they each carried a Golden Record, a special project spearheaded by astrophysicist Carl Sagan, in addition to the scientific instruments necessary for their mission to explore the outer reaches of our solar system. Part time capsule, part symbolic ambassador of goodwill, the Golden Record comprises sounds, images, music, and greetings

Washington DC (UPI) Jul 19, 2021
Jeff Bezos, the man who made e-commerce the "economy's new frontier," plans to fly into space Tuesday in an effort to make tourism far above the Earth the new frontier. Time magazine recognized Bezos as "Person of the Year" in 1999 for his founding of the Amazon retail website, saying, "Some people must be genetically predisposed to explore the frontiers." Bezos has grown into on

Santa Barbara CA (SPX) Jul 20, 2021
Umbra has been awarded a $950,000,000 ceiling indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract for the maturation, demonstration, and proliferation of capability across platforms and domains, leveraging open systems design, modern software, and algorithm development to enable Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2). This contract is part of a multi-award, multi-level security e

Washington DC (SPX) Jul 20, 2021
As U.S. operations in space steadily move further away from Earth orbit, the rapidly growing 'New Space' company Rhea Space Activity (RSA) is pleased to announce that it has been selected by the United States Air Force (USAF) for a Phase I, Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) 2021 Space Force Pitch Day award to investigate a bi-modal, solar-thermal propulsion system that would provide rapi

ESA Highlights 2020: interactive format now available!

The ESA-Roscosmos Trace Gas Orbiter has set new upper limits on how much methane, ethane, ethylene and phosphine is in the martian atmosphere – four so-called ‘biomarker’ gases that are potential signs of life.