
Copernical Team
Lavrov calls for talks on binding treaty to prohibit weapons in space

China sets up expert advisory committee for lunar samples

NASA will continue working with Russia on space despite China plan

NASA delays Mars helicopter flight again for software update

Drone test of Hera mission's asteroid radar

Video: How to clear Earth's orbit of space debris

On 20 April 2021, ESA will host the 8th European Conference on Space Debris from Darmstadt, in Germany. Scientists, engineers, industry experts and policy makers will spend the virtual four-day conference discussing the latest issues surrounding space debris. They will exchange the latest research, try to come up with solutions for potential problems and define the future direction of any necessary action.
There are currently over 129 million objects larger than a millimeter in orbits around Earth. These range from inactive satellites to flakes of paint. But no matter how small the item of debris, anything traveling up to 56,000 km/h in an orbit is dangerous if it comes into contact with the many satellites that connect us around the world, be it for GPS, mobile phone data or internet connectivity. The solution is to take action before it's too late. This is why ESA has commissioned ClearSpace-1—the world's first mission to remove space debris—for launch in 2025.
This film contains interviews with ESA Head of Space Debris Office Tim Flohrer; ESA Head of Clean Space Office Luisa Innocenti; and Xanthi Oikonomidou, ESA Space Debris Office.
Researchers study collective behavior of nanosatellites

Scientists from the Skoltech Space Center (SSC) have developed nanosatellite interaction algorithms for scientific measurements using a tetrahedral orbital formation of CubeSats that exchange data and apply interpolation algorithms to create local maps of physical measurements in real time. The study presents an example of geomagnetic field measurement, which shows that these data can be used by other satellites for attitude control and, therefore, provided on a data-as-a-service basis. The research was published in the journal Advances in Space Research.
SSC is the research lead within the Nanosatellites Swarm project ("Roy MKA") performed by a consortium of several Russian universities and included in the ISS experimental program led by RSC Energia. "Roy MKA" aims to deploy autonomous groups of CubeSats and verify their swarm behavior.
For one of the "Roy MKA" experiments, SSC researchers suggested a tetrahedral formation, which provides an ability to measure the geomagnetic field at any point on orbit. The system is fully autonomous, which means that satellites can process and update measurement data on board and predict magnetic field values by interpolation.
"We use the Kriging interpolation which helps to select the magnetic field values in accordance with its characteristics (autocorrelation).
Roscosmos has lost several contracts for satellite launches due to 'mean' US sanctions

First results from Fermilab's Muon g-2 experiment strengthen evidence of new physics

Space Debris

On 20 April 2021, ESA will host the 8th European Conference on Space Debris from Darmstadt, in Germany. Scientists, engineers, industry experts and policy makers will spend the virtual four day conference discussing the latest issues surrounding space debris. They will exchange the latest research, try to come up with solutions for potential problems and define the future direction of any necessary action.
There are currently over 129 million objects larger than a millimetre in orbits around Earth. These range from inactive satellites to flakes of paint. But no matter how small the item of debris, anything travelling up