Copernical Team
FAA seeks public input on SpaceX Starship's environmental impact in Florida
Write a comment
Officials with the Federal Aviation Administration are preparing an environmental impact statement regarding licensing for the SpaceX Starship and its super-heavy launch vehicle and want public input.
SpaceX wants a commercial launch vehicle operator license to use Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the FAA says.
SpaceX also wants to build launch and landing s Satellite megaconstellations could impact ozone hole recovery
Write a comment
When old satellites fall into Earth's atmosphere and burn up, they leave behind tiny particles of aluminum oxide, which eat away at Earth's protective ozone layer. A new study finds these oxides have increased 8-fold between 2016 and 2022 and will continue to accumulate as the number of low-Earth-orbit satellites increases.
The 1987 Montreal Protocol successfully regulated ozone-damaging C Skyband chooses Hughes JUPITER for digital transformation of Saudi Arabia
Write a comment
Hughes Network Systems, LLC (HUGHES), an EchoStar company (Nasdaq: SATS), announced that Luna Space Telecommunications Co. Ltd., a leading Saudi Arabia service provider under the Skyband Holding company, has purchased a JUPITER System Gateway and 1,200 Hughes JUPITER Terminals to transform its VSAT network. With the latest JUPITER technology, Skyband can provide higher speeds and throughput, rea Blue Canyon to supply spacecraft buses for NASA's PolSIR mission
Write a comment
RTX's (NYSE: RTX) small satellite manufacturer and mission services provider, Blue Canyon Technologies, has been chosen to construct two 12U CubeSat buses for NASA's PolSIR mission. This mission aims to study ice clouds that form at high altitudes in tropical and sub-tropical regions.
Blue Canyon will design and manufacture the bus platforms and provide mission operations services.
T Green light for Galileo 2nd Generation satellite design
Write a comment
Production of Galileo Second Generation satellites advances as two independent Satellite Critical Design Review boards confirm the satellite designs meet all mission and performance requirements. This milestone is part of the schedule to develop the first 12 satellites of the Galileo Second Generation fleet.
The European Galileo navigation system, known for its precision, is preparing for NASA and ESA explore habitability of exoplanets with Chandra and XMM-Newton
Write a comment
Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton are investigating nearby stars to determine if they could host habitable exoplanets. This research will aid future telescopes in making the first images of Earth-like planets.
Researchers examined stars close enough to Earth for future telescopes to capture images of planets in their habitable zones, where liquid water ESA prepares for its first open day in the UK
Write a comment
ESA is getting ready to show thousands of visitors how space improves life on Earth at its very first open day to be held in the UK.
Quirky circling behavior in mice informs research on humans in space
Write a comment
This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:
fact-checked
peer-reviewed publication
trusted source
proofread
Video: Eclipse-making double-satellite Proba-3
Write a comment
Proba-3 is ESA's—and the world's—first precision formation flying mission. A pair of satellites will fly together relative to the sun so that one casts a precisely-controlled shadow onto the other, to create a prolonged solar eclipse in orbit.
In the process, the mission will open up the sun's faint surrounding coronal atmosphere for sustained study. Normally, this corona is rendered invisible by the brilliant face of the sun, like a firefly next to a bonfire.
Due for launch together this autumn, the two Proba-3 satellites will fly 144-m apart for up to six hours at a time to create these eclipses. Beside its scientific interest, this experiment will be a perfect method to demonstrate the precise positioning of the two platforms. It will be enabled using a novel combination of guidance technologies. In this video, the Proba-3 team details the mission concept.
Provided by European Space Agency
A mission to find 10 million near-Earth asteroids every year
Write a comment
So far, scientists have found around 34,000 near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) that could serve as humanity's stepping stone to the stars. These balls of rock and ice hold valuable resources as we expand throughout the solar system, making them valuable real estate in any future space economy. But the 34,000 we know of only make up a small percentage of the total number of asteroids in our vicinity—some estimates theorize that up to 1 billion asteroids larger than a modern car exist near Earth.
A project from the Trans Astronautics Corp (TransAstra), an asteroid-hunting start-up based in California, hopes to find the missing billion: the Sutter Ultra project. Before we get into what Sutter Ultra is, it's best to understand why we have such a hard time finding the hundreds of millions of small asteroids in our vicinity.
To put it bluntly, the problem is two-fold—brightness and speed.