
Copernical Team
Former NASA official starts company to put robotic spacecraft in orbit

New Center for Satellite Constellation Interference

Satellogic Announces Strategic Partnership With Palantir Technologies

Satellites Offer New Capabilities and Complexities for 5G Networks

Webb team begins aligning the telescope

UK cutting-edge space defence backed by 1.4 billion pounds

ESA tests marine plastic detection in ocean wave facility

Could satellites be able to help track and map the marine plastic waste befouling our oceans? Research teams from across Europe returned to a Netherlands-based ocean wave test facility to try and detect floating plastic. Using a suite of microwave and optical instruments, the researchers are assessing if orbital monitoring of plastic might be practical in the future.
Earth from Space: Batura Glacier

The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over Batura Glacier – one of the largest and longest glaciers in the world, outside of the polar regions.
Webb Quest: Mind-blowing mission to the early Universe

Embark on a mission with ESA astronomers Mark McCaughrean and Giovanna Giardino to learn more about the James Webb Space Telescope and the early Universe. This programme is suitable for primary and secondary students. Join the quest!
Find more educational resources, videos and links about astronomy on ESA Education's Teach with Astronomy webpage.
Leftover SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage will impact the lunar surface in early March

The moon is set to gain one more crater. A leftover SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage will impact the lunar surface in early March, marking the first time that a human-made debris item unintentionally reaches our natural satellite.
In 2015 the Falcon 9 placed NOAA's DSCOVR climate observatory around the L1 Lagrange point, one of five such gravitationally-stable points between Earth and the Sun. Having reached L1, around 1.5 million km from Earth, the mission's upper stage ended up pointed away from Earth into interplanetary space.
This rendered a deorbit burn to dispose of it in our planet's atmosphere impractical, and the upper stage also lacked sufficient velocity to escape the Earth-moon system. Instead it was left in a chaotic Sun-orbiting orbit near the two bodies.
Now credible public estimates forecast its impact with the moon on 4 March at 12:25:39 UTC at a point on the lunar far side near the equator.