Beijing (XNA) Apr 21, 2022
China's cargo spacecraft Tianzhou-3 separated from the country's space station core module Tianhe and redocked with the module on Wednesday. Tianzhou-3 detached from the rear docking port of Tianhe at 5:02 a.m. (Beijing Time), moved to the module's front port and completed a computer-orchestrated rendezvous and docking at 9:06 a.m., according to the China Manned Space Agency. It also

Washington DC (UPI) Apr 21, 2021
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Thursday, carrying another 53 Starlink Internet satellites into space. The rocket lifted off at 1:51 p.m. from Launch Complex 40 after a 3-hour delay due to strong winds. It was the 43rd launch related to the Starlink project. SpaceX said the first-stage booster of the Falcon 9 rocket landed o

London, Canada (SPX) Apr 22, 2022
A bright fireball was observed by a network of all-sky cameras across southern Ontario at 11:37pm on Sunday, April 17, 2022. Analysis of the video data suggests that fragments of the meteor are likely to have made it to the ground near the eastern shore of Lake Simcoe, just north of the town of Argyle. Western University's physics and astronomy department runs an all-sky camera network tha

Paris (ESA) Apr 22, 2022
The test version of a unique satellite navigation receiver has been delivered for integration testing on the Lunar Pathfinder spacecraft. The NaviMoon satnav receiver is designed to perform the farthest ever positioning fix from Earth, employing signals that will be millions of times fainter than those used by our smartphones or cars. "This engineering model of our NaviMoon receiver is the

Redmond WA (SPX) Apr 22, 2022
Kymeta and OneWeb Technologies announced an agreement to distribute reliable, secure, and cost-effective broadband connectivity services to the U.S. government. The new managed satellite service offering enables Kymeta to provide government customers with hardware solutions that are packaged with secure and resilient network access from OneWeb Technologies, a wholly owned subsidiary of low

Cleveland OH (SPX) Apr 22, 2022
NASA selected six American satellite communications (SATCOM) providers on April 20 to begin developing and demonstrating near-Earth space communication services that may support future agency missions. For more than a year, the agency has been evaluating the feasibility of employing commercial SATCOM networks for near-Earth operations as it works to decommission its near-Earth satellite fl

Darmstadt, Germany (SPX) Apr 22, 2022
The European Commission has contracted IT service provider CGI as part of a consortium to contribute its expertise in the fields of space and cybersecurity for helping to build the independent European satellite constellation dubbed UN:IO. It is expected to begin operating commercial and institutional communication channels by 2025. ? The European Union's top priority is a secure, extremel

Pasadena CA (JPL) Apr 22, 2022
Not that it matters, but exactly 100 sols ago, on January 7th, we were planning sols 3351 and 3352, and it was this blogger's turn to report on what was happening. Apparently, we were marvelling at the landscape - and dealing with a rock under the foot, well, the wheel. Tosol, we were again dealing with a rock right under the rover, but this time, we were excited about it as the rover was

Pasadena CA (JPL) Apr 22, 2022
NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has captured dramatic footage of Phobos, Mars' potato-shaped moon, crossing the face of the Sun. These observations can help scientists better understand the moon's orbit and how its gravity pulls on the Martian surface, ultimately shaping the Red Planet's crust and mantle. Captured with Perseverance's next-generation Mastcam-Z camera on April 2, the 397th Ma

Washington DC (UPI) Apr 21, 2021
The first private astronaut crew aboard the International Space Station is set to return to Earth on Sunday after weather delays and NASA's Crew-4 mission will look to launch on Tuesday. "The decision [to delay landing] was made based on the best weather for splashdown of the first private astronaut mission to visit the International Space Station and the return trajectory required to b