While exploring two exoplanets in a bright nearby star system, ESA’s exoplanet-hunting Cheops satellite has unexpectedly spotted the system’s third known planet crossing the face of the star. This transit reveals exciting details about a rare planet “with no known equivalent”, say the researchers.

Beijing (XNA) Jun 28, 2021
China has started building a monitoring station as part of a network to study space weather, according to China's National Space Science Center (NSSC). The NSSC, which is affiliated to Chinese Academy of Sciences, said the station is being built in Siziwang Banner, North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region. Spread over 400 mu (about 26.67 hectares), it is expected to be completed in 2

St. Louis MO (SPX) Jun 24, 2021
Early in the pandemic, it was expected that satellite imagery around the world would show cleaner air as a result of COVID-19 lockdowns. But not all pollutants were taken out of circulation. For tiny airborne-particle pollution, known as PM 2.5, researchers using NASA data found that variability from meteorology obscured the lockdown signals when observed from space. "Intuitively you would

Boston MA (SPX) Jun 25, 2021
"I'm going back. It's almost like a cycle in your life," muses physicist Abhay Ram. Ram, a principal research scientist at the Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) at MIT, is returning to a field he first embraced as a graduate student at the Institute 50 years ago: quantum mechanics. Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, he is exploring different pathways for using the power and speed of

Long Beach CA (SPX) Jun 28, 2021
Virgin Orbit has selected Tyler Grinnell to serve as the team's new Vice President of Flight and Launch. As Virgin Orbit works to further evolve its commercial launch services, Tyler will play a key role in enabling the Flight and Launch teams to achieve the operating pace and efficiencies required to serve the company's growing customer manifest. Tyler brings with him a decade and a half

McLean, VA (SPX) Jun 25, 2021
Iridium Communications has announced it has been awarded a research and development contract worth up to $30 million by the United States Army (Army) to develop a payload to be hosted on small satellites that supports navigation systems, guidance and control for the global positioning system (GPS) and GPS-denied precision systems. The new experimental Iridium payload is intended to be host

Hong Kong (XNA) Jun 25, 2021
The success rate of the launch of China's Long March carrier rockets is the highest in the world, a space scientist said here Thursday. Long Lehao, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a chief designer of Long March rockets, said the rocket series have completed 375 launches and stressed that the accuracy of putting satellites into orbit and the number of launch times a

Beijing (XNA) Jun 28, 2021
China made public on Sunday several video clips captured by the country's Tianwen 1 Mars mission, including one with an audio recording that is the first to be released from this historic interplanetary expedition. The clips, released by the China National Space Administration, recorded the processes of the Mars touchdown by Tianwen 1's landing capsule, the Zhurong rover's departure from t

Louisville CO (SPX) Jun 28, 2021
Sierra Space, the new commercial space subsidiary of global aerospace and national security leader Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), will supply the propulsion components and integration services for a Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) system under a recent contract with General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS). GA-EMS and Sierra Space will develop and demonstrate an on-orbit NTP system fo

Washington DC (UPI) Jun 25, 2021
Two astronauts concluded a spacewalk Friday outside the International Space Station and installed a second of six new solar arrays that will boost the orbiting laboratory's electrical power supply. Shane Kimbrough and Thomas Pesquet exited the space station about 8 a.m. EDT. They successfully mounted and rolled out a 60-foot-long solar array, known as iROSA or International Space Statio