Copernical Team
GEM 63XL rocket motors will help launch ULA's Vulcan Centaur rocket
Northrop Grumman has conducted a validation ground test of an extended length 63-inch-diameter Graphite Epoxy Motor (GEM 63XL) in Promontory. This variation of the company's GEM 63 strap-on booster was developed in partnership with United Launch Alliance (ULA) to provide additional lift capability to the Vulcan Centaur rocket.
"This new motor optimizes our best-in-class technologies and le Satellite-powered app to spot loneliness in hotspots in UK cities
The satellite-enabled Care View application tackles social isolation and loneliness in urban areas by enlisting the help of an army of professional volunteers across a city, including police officers, postal workers and charity workers, who register on the app when they see signs people may be experiencing social isolation. The app provides a digital tool to help volunteers find people in need o Six things to know about NASA's Mars helicopter on its way to Mars
Ingenuity, a technology experiment, is preparing to attempt the first powered, controlled flight on the Red Planet.
When NASA's Perseverance rover lands on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021, it will be carrying a small but mighty passenger: Ingenuity, the Mars Helicopter.
The helicopter, which weighs about 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms) on Earth and has a fuselage about the size of a tissue box, start Framework agreement facilitates future slot bookings by ESA
The European Space Agency (ESA) and Airbus have agreed on service orders for two independent payload missions to be launched to the Bartolomeo payload hosting facility on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2022 and 2024, respectively.
The first payload mission is ESA's Exobiology Platform (EXPO). This facility carries a set of radiation experiments aimed at better understanding the e NASA may limit its presence in Russia over shrinking cooperation on ISS
NASA may cut its presence in Russia over the shrinking cooperation on the International Space Station, sources in the space and rocket industry told Sputnik.
NASA currently has a central office in Moscow as well as its missions in the Gagarin Research and Test Cosmonaut Training Center in Zvyozdny Gorodok, in the Mission Control Center in the Moscow Region and in the Institute of Medical a Nanosatellite thruster emits pure ions
A 3D-printed thruster that emits a stream of pure ions could be a low-cost, extremely efficient propulsion source for miniature satellites.
The nanosatellite thruster created by MIT researchers is the first of its kind to be entirely additively manufactured, using a combination of 3D printing and hydrothermal growth of zinc oxide nanowires. It is also the first thruster of this type to pro Astronomers estimate Titan's largest sea is 1,000-feet deep
Far below the gaseous atmospheric shroud on Saturn's largest moon, Titan, lies Kraken Mare, a sea of liquid methane. Cornell University astronomers have estimated that sea to be at least 1,000-feet deep near its center—enough room for a potential robotic submarine to explore.
After sifting through data from one of the final Titan flybys of the Cassini mission, the researchers detailed their findings in "The Bathymetry of Moray Sinus at Titan's Kraken Mare," which published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
"The depth and composition of each of Titan's seas had already been measured, except for Titan's largest sea, Kraken Mare—which not only has a great name, but also contains about 80% of the moon's surface liquids," said lead author Valerio Poggiali, research associate at the Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science (CCAPS).
NASA mission to test technology for satellite swarms
A NASA mission slated for launch on Friday will place three tiny satellites into low-Earth orbit, where they will demonstrate how satellites might track and communicate with each other, setting the stage for swarms of thousands of small satellites that can work cooperatively and autonomously.
Zac Manchester, an assistant professor in Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute and the mission's principal investigator, said small satellites have grown in popularity over the last 10 years, as some companies already are launching hundreds into orbit to perform tasks such as Earth imaging and weather forecasting.
These satellites now are individually controlled from the ground. As swarms grow bigger and more sophisticated, Manchester noted, they will need to respond to commands almost as a single entity.
Juno maps water ice across northern Ganymede
Jupiter's moon Ganymede is the largest planetary satellite in the solar system. It's also one of the most intriguing: Ganymede is the only moon with its own magnetic field, it is the most differentiated of all moons, and it likely possesses a subsurface ocean of liquid water. It was studied by the early Jupiter flybys made by the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft, but our understanding today rests largely on observations made by NASA's Galileo orbiter from 1995 to 2003.
Mura et al. now report some of the first in situ observations of Ganymede since the end of the Galileo mission. They used the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) on board NASA's Juno spacecraft to take images and spectra of the moon's north polar region.
Oldest carbonates in the solar system
A meteorite that fell in northern Germany in 2019 contains carbonates which are among the oldest in the solar system; it also evidences the earliest presence of liquid water on a minor planet. The high-resolution Ion Probe—a research instrument at the Institute of Earth Sciences at Heidelberg University—provided the measurements. The investigation by the Cosmochemistry Research Group led by Prof. Dr. Mario Trieloff was part of a consortium study coordinated by the University of Münster with participating scientists from Europe, Australia and the U.S.