Copernical Team
Debris from failed Russian rocket falls into sea near French Polynesia
The upper stage of a failed Russian Angara A5 rocket plummeted uncontrolled to Earth, crashing into open sea near French Polynesia.
The U.S. 18th Space Control Squadron confirmed the 4 p.m. Wednesday re-entry
The Persei upper stage was part of a heavy-lift rocket. The debris weighed an estimated 3.5 tons. Astronomer Jonathon McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophy Why the Webb Telescope doesn't have deployment cameras
As NASA's James Webb Space Telescope makes its way out to its intended orbit, ground teams monitor its vitals using a comprehensive set of sensors located throughout the entire spacecraft. Mechanical, thermal, and electrical sensors provide a wide array of critical information on the current state and performance of Webb while it is in space.
A system of surveillance cameras to watch deplo SpaceX successfully completes first launch of 2022 from Florida
SpaceX kicked off a surge in launch activity Thursday with the successful launch of 49 of the company's Starlink communications satellites from Florida, heading south along the state's coastline.
Five SpaceX missions may launch in the next month on the southern polar trajectory, flying closer to the Florida coast toward Miami than most launches, according to the U.S. Space Force. Loft Orbital extends production agreement with LeoStella
Loft Orbital Solutions, Inc. (Loft Orbital), a leading space infrastructure-as-a-service provider, and LeoStella, Inc., a specialized satellite constellation design and manufacturing company, have extended their production agreement to secure multiple additional LEO-100 buses from LeoStella. These satellite buses are the latest in a series Loft Orbital has secured from LeoStella.
The satel FAU scientist aims to ensure microbe-free Mars samples
The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover is collecting samples in search of signs of ancient microbial life, which would advance NASA's quest to explore the past habitability of Mars. The samples are set to return to Earth no earlier than 2031, as part of the Mars Sample Return campaign being planned by NASA and the European Space Agency. Before the rover went to space, NASA and its engineers worked har Life could be thriving in the clouds of Venus
by Eric Verbeten for WISC News
Is there life on Venus? For more than a century, scientists have pondered this question. Now, there is renewed interest in Venus as a place that could support living organisms. "We are trying to make the case for exploring Venus and to inspire and inform future missions to collect in situ data with satellites," says Sanjay Limaye, a University of Wisconsin-Madison NASA to host coverage for Webb Telescope's final unfolding
NASA will provide live coverage and host a media briefing Saturday, Jan. 8, for the conclusion of the James Webb Space Telescope's major spacecraft deployments. Beginning no earlier than 9 a.m. EST, NASA will air live coverage of the final hours of Webb's major deployments. After the live broadcast concludes, at approximately 1:30 p.m., NASA will hold a media briefing. Both the broadcast and med Euroconsult predicts highest government space budgets in decades despite Covid
Leading space consulting and market intelligence firm Euroconsult has released its highly anticipated "Government Space Programs" report for 2021. The highlight of this year's findings is a continued, even accelerated, volume of governmental investment in the space sector, driven by two major drivers: ambitious space exploration programmes by leading space countries, and rivalries driving the mi NASA to Host Coverage, Briefing for Webb Telescope’s Final Unfolding
NASA will provide live coverage and host a media briefing Saturday, Jan. 8, for the conclusion of the James Webb Space Telescope’s major spacecraft deployments. Sending tardigrades to the stars
No longer solely in the realm of science fiction, the possibility of interstellar travel has appeared, tantalizingly, on the horizon. Although we may not see it in our lifetimes—at least not some real version of the fictional warp-speeding, hyperdriving, space-folding sort—we are having early conversations of how life could escape the tether of our solar system, using technology that is within reach.
For UC Santa Barbara professors Philip Lubin and Joel Rothman, it's a great time to be alive. Born of a generation that saw breathtaking advances in space exploration, they carry the unbridled optimism and creative spark of the early Space Age, when humans first found they could leave the Earth.
"The Apollo moon voyages were among the most momentous events in my life and contemplating them still blows my mind," said Rothman, a distinguished professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, and a self-admitted "space geek."
A mere 50 years have passed since that pivotal era, but humanity's knowledge of space and the technology to explore it have improved immensely, enough for Rothman to join experimental cosmologist Lubin in considering what it would take for living beings to embark on a journey across the vast distance separating us from our nearest neighbor in the galaxy.