Houston TX (SPX) Aug 11, 2021
An 18-year-old high school graduate has developed an elegant new way to gauge the liver health of astronauts-and it could someday help solve an enduring medical mystery in space. Each year, the Genes in Space program, founded by Boeing and miniPCR bio and supported by the International Space Station (ISS) U.S. National Laboratory and New England Biolabs, holds an annual student research co

Paris (AFP) Aug 10, 2021
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are set to welcome a most unusual guest, as "the Blob" blasts off into orbit on Tuesday. An alien on its own planet, the Blob is an unclassifiable organism - neither fish nor fowl. Nor is it plant, animal or fungus. As such, Physarum polycephalum - a type of slime mould - has long fascinated scientists and will now be part of a unique

Herndon VA (SPX) Aug 11, 2021
BlackSky will add six satellites to its constellation through three dedicated missions via Rocket Lab and launch services provider, Spaceflight Inc. The first mission, called "Love at First Insight," is scheduled to occur in late-August and will be quickly followed by the next two missions. The series of missions planned to take place between late-August through September represent the company's

Lockheed Martin's LM 50 Smallsats
Littleton CO (SPX) Aug 11, 2021 Lockheed Martin's In-space Upgrade Satellite System (LINUSS) completed environmental testing and is ready for launch later this year, demonstrating how small CubeSats can regularly upgrade satellite constellations to add timely new capabilities and extend spacecraft design lives. LINUSS is a pair of LM 50 12U CubeSats - each about the size of a four-slice t

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Aug 11, 2021
NASA plans to implement three new ground stations that will provide near-continuous communications support to missions up to two million kilometers from Earth through NASA's Near Space Network. These Lunar Exploration Ground Sites (LEGS) will be critical to the success of NASA's Artemis program, providing needed and enhanced direct-to-Earth communications capabilities to lunar missions. "T

Ithaca NY (SPX) Aug 11, 2021
Among our solar system's many moons, Saturn's Titan stands out - it's the only moon with a substantial atmosphere and liquid on the surface. It even has a weather system like Earth's, though it rains methane instead of water. Might it also host some kind of life? NASA's Dragonfly mission, which will send a rotorcraft relocatable lander to Titan's surface in the mid-2030s, will be the first

Tucson AZ (SPX) Aug 11, 2021
New data analysis techniques allow evidence of recent volcanism to be found in old Magellan spacecraft data. It is unclear if this activity is occurring today, or if it occurred within tens of million years, but geologically speaking, either case is recent. This adds to the growing body of evidence that volcanoes on Venus didn't go extinct as long ago as many had thought. This work was conducted

Pasadena CA (JPL) Aug 11, 2021
The "little helicopter that could" has garnered attention, fans, and numerous accolades, with the latest coming from Aviation Week Network in the form of a 2021 Laureate Award. The Laureate Awards honor "extraordinary achievements in aerospace." When the 4-pound (1.8 kilogram) rotorcraft hovered on Mars for 39.1 seconds on April 19, 2021, it was the first instance of powered, controlled fl

Kourou, French Guiana (ESA) Aug 11, 2021
On Monday, August 16, 2021 at 10:47 pm local time (01:47 am (UTC) on Tuesday, August 17), Arianespace's second Vega mission of the year will lift off from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, with the optical observation satellite Pleiades Neo 4 and four auxiliary passengers. After liftoff from Europe's Spaceport, the Vega launcher will fly for a little over six minutes, powered by the fir