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Astronauts aboard the International Space Station farewelled over 2000 kg of scientific experiments and hardware on Sunday 23 January as a cargo Dragon spacecraft began its return to Earth. 

ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer captured the  resupply vehicle in all its glory as it departed the orbital outpost at 15:40 GMT/16:40 CET. It splashed down approximately 29 hours later off the coast of Florida, USA.  

The SpaceX spacecraft arrived at the Space Station just before Christmas, bringing new experiments alongside Christmas treats. It returned with a bellyful of science, including several European experiments that were quickly transported to NASA’s Space Station

Image: An unusual snowstorm has blanketed parts of Turkey and Greece, causing power cuts and chaos on the roads and flight cancellations. Two images from Copernicus Sentinel-2 show Athens before and after the snowstorm.

Volcanoes, impact craters, tectonic faults, river channels and a lava sea: a vast amount of information is captured in a relatively small area in this geologically rich new image from ESA’s Mars Express. 

Antennas are among the most complex systems aboard a satellite – making them demanding to produce and often unpredictable to test. Tiny variables in their building, mounting or operation may impact their working performance in a big way. So ESA teamed up with Danish company TICRA to develop a method of forecasting such discrepancies well before an antenna construction even starts.

Cape Town, South Africa (VOA) Jan 14, 2022
SpaceX rocket launch Thursday carried three small South African-made satellites that will help with policing South African waters against illegal fishing operations. Produced at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, the satellites could also be used to help other African countries to protect their coastal waters. SpaceX's billionaire boss Elon Musk has given three nano satelli

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jan 25, 2022
When a volcano in the South Pacific Kingdom of Tonga began erupting in late-December 2021 and then violently exploded in mid-January 2022, NASA scientist Jim Garvin and colleagues were unusually well positioned to study the events. Ever since new land rose above the water surface in 2015 and joined two existing islands, Garvin and an international team of researchers have been monitoring changes

Washington DC (SPX) Jan 21, 2022
Synchronizing time in modern warfare - down to billionths and trillionths of a second - is critical for mission success. High-tech missiles, sensors, aircraft, ships, and artillery all rely on atomic clocks on GPS satellites for nanosecond timing accuracy. A timing error of just a few billionths of a second can translate to positioning being off by a meter or more. If GPS were jammed by an adver

Herndon VA (SPX) Jan 20, 2022
Eclipse Global Connectivity, Smiths Interconnect and ST Engineering iDirect (iDirect) has announced their collaboration to deliver an integrated airborne Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (A-ISR) satellite communications (SATCOM) capability for military and government aircraft. The solution, drawing on the extensive expertise of the three companies, will initially address the be

Washington DC (UPI) Jan 21, 2021
United Launch Alliance sent two space tracking satellites into orbit for the U.S. Space Force from Florida on Friday afternoon. The Atlas V rocket lifted off as planned at 2 p.m. EST into a mostly cloudy sky from Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station near Kennedy Space Center. The single solid rocket booster strapped to the rocket also ignited, contributing to the rocket's fi

Moscow (Sputnik) Jan 19, 2022
The Arrow-3 is one of several missile and drone defence systems in Israel's arsenal, and is meant to counter threats including long-range ballistic and cruise missiles. Unlike the Iron Dome air defence system - which has seen plenty of testing against simple Hamas rockets, the Arrow-3's capabilities have yet to be proven in a real-life conflict. The Israeli military completed a test of the