
Copernical Team
Astronomers offer possible explanation for elusive dark-matter-free galaxies

Ball Aerospace to build spacecraft for NASA Heliophysics Science Mission

Ozmens' SNC delivers prototype lunar crew module to DYNETICS

Solar system's most distant planetoid confirmed

China's Tianwen-1 probe enters Mars orbit: state media

Pollution could be one way to find an extraterrestrial civilization

A new method to search for potentially habitable planets

NASA Study: To Find an Extraterrestrial Civilization, Pollution Could Be the Solution

ExoMars discovers new gas and traces water loss on Mars

Sea salt embedded in the dusty surface of Mars and lofted into the planet’s atmosphere has led to the discovery of hydrogen chloride – the first time the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter has detected a new gas. The spacecraft is also providing new information about how Mars is losing its water.
Image: Proba-V's plus one

This satellite mockup, seen during antenna testing, shows the shape of ESA's new Proba-V Companion CubeSat, which is due for launch at the end of this year.
The mission is a 12-unit CubeSat—a small, low-cost satellite built up from standardized 10-cm boxes. It will fly a cut-down version of the vegetation-monitoring instrument aboard the Earth-observing Proba-V to perform experimental combined observations with its predecessor.
A pair of antennas for the CubeSat, mounted in this 'structural and thermal model' underwent testing at ESA's Compact Antenna Test Range at the ESTEC technical center in the Netherlands.
"The white patch is a directional high-data rate antenna, needed to downlink large amounts of imagery to users," explains Xavier Collaud of Aerospacelab in Belgium, developing the mission for ESA. "Then the brown patch is an omnidirectional antenna, that—combined with a similar antenna on the other side—allows the reception and transmission of lower-data rate signals in any direction, enabling the control of the mission.
"These antennnas are commercial off the shelf equipment, allowing the building up of small satellites in an affordable, modular manner.