Copernical Team
Revil, enabling the next generation of reentry vehicle research
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The Air Force Research Laboratory, or AFRL, hosted a groundbreaking ceremony July 29, 2024, to mark the commencement of construction for the Re-Entry Vehicle Integration Laboratory, or REVIL, that will serve AFRL's Nuclear Mission branch and provide a state-of-the-art lab space for integrating test units for next-generation re-entry vehicle research and technology here.
Military personnel, Algorithm from Mars Rover assists data analysis for Earth Sciences
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A new algorithm called Nested Fusion, developed by Georgia Tech Ph.D. student Austin P. Wright, is enhancing scientists' ability to search for evidence of life on Mars while also providing broader applications for data analysis on Earth. Nested Fusion, which was introduced in a paper by Wright, supports NASA's Mars 2020 mission and can also assist researchers from various fields who work with co China advances space medicine to support future space exploration
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China's space station has achieved early successes in space medicine that are expected to play a key role in upcoming manned lunar landings and other deep space missions, as highlighted at the Second Frontier Forum of Space Medicine held this weekend in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province.
The two-day forum brought together leading experts and scholars to exchange insights on new theories and expl Eutelsat partners with Mitsubishi Heavy for multiple satellite launches
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Eutelsat Group has entered into a new agreement with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (MHI) for multiple satellite launches starting in 2027. MHI will provide launch services using its H3 launch vehicle, marking the first time Eutelsat has partnered with MHI.
This new partnership enhances Eutelsat's launch options, offering greater flexibility and diversity for future satellite deployments What happens to a person when they're stuck in space?
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What was supposed to be a weeklong test flight in space has turned into a months-long stay for astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. While the unexpected delays from their mission may not have any negative side effects on the future of space exploration, it could affect their physical and mental health.
What happens to your body when you're in outer space?
Jacqueline McCleary, assistant physics professor at Northeastern University, says the term for the effects of being in space are summed up by the acronym RIDGE, which stands for radiation, isolation and confinement, distance from Earth, gravity fields, and hostile/closed environments.
All those factors can affect a person, McCleary says.
"All space flight involves being in a microgravity environment," she says. "Astronauts essentially … are perpetually falling in an elevator."
'Motion sickness on steroids'
The longest space mission on record was about 476 days, McCleary says, so knowledge on the long-term effects are limited and research is still ongoing.
Wilmore and Williams blasted off from Florida on June 5. So, as of Sept. 20, they have been in space 107 days.
A Soyuz capsule with 2 Russians and 1 American from the International Space Station returns to Earth
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Low gravity in space travel found to weaken and disrupt normal rhythm in heart muscle cells
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Johns Hopkins Medicine scientists who arranged for 48 human bioengineered heart tissue samples to spend 30 days at the International Space Station report evidence that the low gravity conditions in space weakened the tissues and disrupted their normal rhythmic beats when compared to Earth-bound samples from the same source.
The scientists said the heart tissues "really don't fare well in space," and over time, the tissues aboard the space station beat about half as strongly as tissues from the same source kept on Earth.
The findings, they say, expand scientists' knowledge of low gravity's potential effects on astronauts' survival and health during long space missions, and they may serve as models for studying heart muscle aging and therapeutics on Earth.
A report of the scientists' analysis of the tissues is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Previous studies showed that some astronauts return to Earth from outer space with age-related conditions, including reduced heart muscle function and arrythmias (irregular heartbeats), and that some—but not all—effects dissipate over time after their return.
Florida company's space balloon takes big step toward 1st human flight
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The weekend trip was a success for Space Perspective, the company that already has more than 1,800 people waiting for their chance to take balloon rides in a posh capsule up to the edge of space.
The Spaceship Neptune-Excelsior performed its first uncrewed test flight, soaring to an altitude of 100,000 feet, marking a big step toward the Brevard County space tourism company's march toward its first trip with humans on board next year.
"I could have been in it," Space Perspective cofounder Jane Poynter said Thursday while climbing aboard the company vessel MS Voyager that hauled the capsule back into port. "It worked that well. Everything went so well."
The MS in the ship name stands for "marine spaceport." It set out last week from Port Canaveral, traveling down the coast and into the Gulf of Mexico for the eventual test flight off the coast of St. Petersburg on Sunday.
Many of the company's 130 employees and their families were on hand to welcome the ship back at port as it docked alongside the likes of SpaceX's recovery vessels at North Cargo Berth 8 while a lone Carnival cruise ship was docked across the turning basin at the port.
Hera planetary defence mission: solving asteroid mysteries
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Video:
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There’s a mystery out there in deep space – and solving it will make Earth safer. That’s why the European Space Agency’s Hera mission is taking shape – to go where one particular spacecraft has gone before.
On 26 September 2022, moving at 6.1 km/s, NASA’s DART spacecraft crashed into the Dimorphos asteroid. Part of our Solar System changed. The impact shrunk the orbit of the Great Pyramid-sized Dimorphos around its parent asteroid, the mountain-sized Didymos.
This grand experiment was performed to prove we could defend Earth against an incoming asteroid, by striking it with a spacecraft to deflect
Sentinel-1B journeys back to Earth
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The Sentinel-1B satellite, the second satellite of the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission, completed its disposal process – which included lowering its orbit and passivating its systems to ensure re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere within 25 years.
This careful operation highlights the European Union’s and ESA’s commitment to space safety and sustainability and provides valuable experience for the disposal of current and future spacecraft.