Copernical Team
CubeSat propulsion technologies are taking off
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CubeSats are becoming ever more popular, with about 2,400 total launched so far. However, the small size limits their options for fundamental space exploration technologies, including propulsion. They become even more critical when mission planners design missions that require them to travel to other planets or even asteroids.
A team from Khalifa University of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi recently released a review in Aerospace of the different CubeSat propulsion technologies currently available—let's look at their advantages and disadvantages.
The paper breaks propulsion systems into four categories: Chemical, Kinetic, Electrical, and "Propellant-less." Chemical systems are the traditional rockets most people think of when launching satellites—they burn chemicals together and expel gas created by the fire to produce thrust. Kinetic systems use things like cold gas, where instead of reacting two chemicals together, they simply push gas molecules out to propel themselves in the opposite direction.
Swarms of orbiting sensors could map an asteroid's surface
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It seems like every month a new story appears announcing the discovery of thousands of new asteroids. Tracking these small body objects from ground and even space-based telescopes helps follow their overall trajectory. But understanding what they're made of is much more difficult using such "remote sensing" techniques.
To do so, plenty of projects get more up close and personal with the asteroid itself, including one from Dr. Sigrid Elschot and her colleagues from Stanford, which was supported by NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts back in 2018. It uses an advanced suite of plasma sensors to detect an asteroid's surface composition by utilizing a unique phenomenon—meteoroid impacts.
The project, known as the Meteroid Impact Detection for Exploration of Asteroids (MIDEA), has an architecture that has become more prominent as of late—a swarm of smallsats coordinated around a mothership. In this case, the smallsats are plasma sensors with one specific purpose: to detect characteristics of the plume of debris from the asteroid after a meteoroid hits it.
A handy attachment could make lunar construction a breeze
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Moving large amounts of regolith is a requirement for any long-term mission to the moon or Mars. But so far, humanity has only sent systems capable of moving small amounts of soil at a time—primarily for sample collection. Sending a large, dedicated excavator to perform such work might be cost-prohibitive due to its weight, so why not send a bulldozer attachment to a mobility unit already planned for use on the surface?
That was the thought process of an interdisciplinary team of engineers from NASA and the Colorado School of Mines. They came up with the Lunar Attachment Node for Construction and Excavation—or LANCE.
LANCE is an attachment to NASA's Chariot rover prototype, which was originally designed to be the primary mobility system for astronauts returning to the moon. However, it was designed in 2007, when the original NASA Lunar Architecture plan was to establish a permanent lunar base in 2019.
NASA astronauts spend unexpected July 4 on the International Space Station
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Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore spent an unexpected Fourth of July aboard the International Space Station—but it was hardly a patriotic display of engineering prowess.
The two NASA astronauts docked with the orbiting lab June 6 for what was supposed to be an eight-day mission, but their return home may be delayed for months in what has become a star-crossed test flight for Boeing's new Starliner capsule.
Not only was the launch of the spacecraft with astronauts aboard for the first time repeatedly delayed because of multiple problems, but NASA and Boeing are taking a cautious approach in returning the pair to Earth largely because of five thrusters that malfunctioned during docking.
Four of the tiny engines that direct the craft in space are now working properly, but engineers don't have a clear understanding of what caused the shutdown, so they have decided to conduct ground tests at NASA's White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico, NASA officials said. The tests will put a Starliner thruster through its paces in a replicated space environment.
The delay also will allow engineers to further study a helium leak in the capsule's propulsion system that was first detected before launch and worsened as Starliner made its way up to the space station roughly 250 miles above Earth.
Juice's lunar-Earth flyby link to blog
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Blog: Juice's lunar-Earth flyby
Follow for the latest updates as ESA's Jupiter mission swings through the Earth system this summer
Highlights from ESA’s first open day in the UK
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00:02:54
On Saturday 29 June, thousands of visitors made their way to ESA’s European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications (ECSAT), as part of the very first ESA open day to be held in the UK.
ECSAT is located at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire and the ESA open day formed part of the campus-wide Harwell open week.
The open day, hosted by ESA’s Magali Vaissiere Conference Centre, featured fascinating talks and activities that enabled people to experience first-hand how ESA is pushing the boundaries of exploration and using space to improve life on Earth. It also showcased the many career
The Young Professional Satellite - From Theory to Reality (episode 2)
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Video:
00:14:53
In the second episode of this docu series, we take a closer look into what it took to build ESA’s Young Professional Satellite (YPSat). YPSat’s mission objectives are to capture the key moments of Ariane 6’s inaugural flight and take in-orbit pictures of Earth and space. To achieve this, the satellite requires the multiple sub-systems to work in harmony and adhere to a pre-defined mission sequence.
This episode zooms in four of the sub-systems: the Wake-Up System (WUS), Battery, On-Board Computer (OBC) and Telecommunications.
Running at ultra low power, the WUS circuit board was designed, tested and manufactured specifically
Ariane 6 first passengers
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Ariane 6 first passengers Space Team Europe for Ariane 6: Alexis Van Lysebeth
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00:07:35
They say it takes a village to raise a child. To launch a rocket, we have the combined expertise and passion of Space Team Europe. Alexis Van Lysebeth is one of many making the first Ariane 6 launch possible and has been interviewed as part of a series highlighting some of the people that make up this dream team.
Working for Belgian company SABCA, Alexis is part of the team supplying the actuation systems for Ariane 6. The actuators have been upgraded for Ariane 6 and will be electromechanical – meaning electiricy is used to turn them on
Sidus Space and Stennis complete key objectives of in-space payload mission
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Sidus Space, Inc. (NASDAQ: SIDU) has announced that in partnership with the space agency Stennis Space Center, the primary objectives of the the space agency Autonomous Satellite Technology for Resilient Applications (ASTRA) payload mission were successfully met on July 1, 2024.
Collaborating closely with the the space agency Stennis Autonomous Systems Laboratory (ASL) team, Sidus Space co 
