...the who's who,
and the what's what 
of the space industry

Copernical Team

Copernical Team

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Soon to launch: NASA rocket carrying solar X-ray scanner
Patrick Champey, an optical engineer in the Engineering Directorate at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, grabs a selfie with the Marshall Grazing Incidence X-ray Spectrometer, or MaGIXS, during integrated payload testing at Marshall’s world-class X-ray & Cryogenic Facility. Credit: NASA

The Marshall Grazing Incidence X-ray Spectrometer, or MaGIXS, mission is about to take flight. The launch window opens at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico on July 30.

Led by Dr. Amy Winebarger at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, MaGIXS will fly aboard a sounding rocket, a launch vehicle that lifts scientific instruments above Earth's atmosphere for a few minutes in space before falling back to Earth for recovery.

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NASA performs field test of 3D imaging system for descent and landing
A team member drove the truck around and the system successfully and quickly collected numerous high-resolution 3D images of the nearby buildings. Credit: NASA

Producing rapid and accurate images on missions to the Moon, Mars and other terrestrial destinations is crucial for a safe descent and landing. A NASA project called Safe and Precise Landing—Integrated Capabilities Evolution, or SPLICE, includes a key element that will help ensure a clearer touchdown site.

The SPLICE team recently performed a dynamic test of the hazard detection lidar (HDL) engineering development unit, a prototype specifically built for testing, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. HDL—an element of SPLICE—is a laser-based 3D imaging system that can quickly and accurately scan a planetary surface to create a map of the landing field. It's designed to help a avoid hazardous obstacles and land in a safe area.

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Oxygen and metal from lunar regolith

ESA is challenging companies in its Member States to design a compact plant to demonstrate the manufacture of oxygen on the Moon. Industrial teams are competing this summer to propose and prove designs through testing, with the winner set to be declared in September. This small piece of technology will evaluate the prospect of building larger plants to produce propellant for spacecraft, air for astronauts and metallic raw materials for equipment.

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Oxygen and metal from lunar regolith

ESA is challenging companies in its Member States to design a compact plant to demonstrate the manufacture of oxygen on the Moon. Industrial teams are competing this summer to propose and prove designs through testing, with the winner set to be declared in September. This small piece of technology will evaluate the prospect of building larger plants to produce propellant for spacecraft, air for astronauts and metallic raw materials for equipment.

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Paris (AFP) July 28, 2021
The global economy's business-as-usual approach to climate change has seen Earth's "vital signs" deteriorate to record levels, an influential group of scientists said Wednesday, warning that several climate tipping points were now imminent. The researchers, part of a group of more than 14,000 scientists who have signed on to an initiative declaring a worldwide climate emergency, said that go
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Atlanta GA (SPX) Jul 27, 2021
A new wearable brain-machine interface (BMI) system could improve the quality of life for people with motor dysfunction or paralysis, even those struggling with locked-in syndrome - when a person is fully conscious but unable to move or communicate. A multi-institutional, international team of researchers led by the lab of Woon-Hong Yeo at the Georgia Institute of Technology combined wirel
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Woods Hole MA (SPX) Jul 28, 2021
In September of 2017, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution postdoctoral scholar Maggie Johnson was conducting an experiment with a colleague in Bocas del Toro off the Caribbean coast of Panama. After sitting on a quiet, warm open ocean, they snorkeled down to find a peculiar layer of murky, foul-smelling water about 10 feet below the surface, with brittle stars and sea urchins, which are usually
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Washington DC (AFNS) Jul 28, 2021
Frank Kendall won confirmation from the Senate July 26 to be the 26th Secretary of the Air Force, placing an official with decades-long service in defense issues in the top civilian job at a time when the department is navigating new global challenges and wide-reaching modernization efforts. The vote reflected both Kendall's well-known record in previous active duty and policy jobs and his
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New York (AFP) July 26, 2021
US electric carmaker Tesla reported its first-ever quarterly profit above $1 billion Monday as it reiterated its 2021 production targets despite supply chain upheaval. Record deliveries of electric cars during the period allowed Elon Musk's company to garner earnings of $1.1 billion in the quarter, up from $104 million in the year-ago period as revenues nearly doubled to $12.0 billion.
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Paris (AFP) July 28, 2021
Imagine a world where you could sit on the same couch as a friend who lives thousands of miles away, or conjure up a virtual version of your workplace while at the beach. Welcome to the metaverse: a vision of the future that sounds fantastical, but which tech titans like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg are betting on as the next great leap in the evolution of the internet. The metavers
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