
Copernical Team
US 'strongly condemns' N. Korean space launch

Hydrogen detected in lunar samples, points to resource availability for space exploration

Cairt and Wivern Earth Explorer candidates go forward

ESA has reached a significant milestone in its commitment towards a deeper understanding of Earth's dynamic processes and addressing pressing environmental challenges with the selection of two new candidates – Cairt and Wivern – to progress to the next development phase as part of the process of realising the Agency’s eleventh Earth Explorer satellite mission.
SDI Announces New Tech Demo Competition for Government Modernization

University of Helsinki researchers solve cosmic conundrum

Investigating the contribution of gamma-ray blazar flares to neutrino flux

CAPSTONE marks one year in near rectilinear halo orbit

Earth bacteria could make lunar soil more habitable for plants

In 2024, Space Coast gears up for most astronaut launches since '09

The business of sending humans into space has not yet risen to the levels seen during the space shuttle program, but 2024 could see the most U.S.-based orbital launches in 15 years.
There are seven missions slated from either Kennedy Space Center or Cape Canaveral Space Force Station that look to place 26 humans into orbit. It's the highest number of crew launching from the Space Coast since 2009. That year saw five shuttle launches with 35 humans on board.
The seven planned launches would also be the most since the eight space shuttle launches in 1997.
The shuttle era finished with only three launches in 2010 and 2011 before its retirement, and U.S.-based launches did not happen again until the successful May 2020 liftoff of SpaceX's Demo-2 mission flying the Crew Dragon Endeavour to the International Space Station with humans on board for the first time.
Since then, SpaceX has been the only orbital U.S.-based launcher of humans in the game, mixing up a combination of missions under NASA's Commercial Crew Program to the ISS as well as private missions to both the station and standalone orbital flights.
NASA's 'flawless' heat shield demo passes the test

A little more than a year ago, a NASA flight test article came screaming back from space at more than 18,000 mph, reaching temperatures of nearly 2,700°F before gently splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. At that moment, it became the largest blunt body—a type of reentry vehicle that creates a heat-deflecting shockwave—ever to reenter Earth's atmosphere.
The Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator (LOFTID) launched on Nov. 10, 2022, aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket and successfully demonstrated an inflatable heat shield. Also known as a Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (HIAD) aeroshell, this technology could allow larger spacecraft to safely descend through the atmospheres of celestial bodies like Mars, Venus, and even Saturn's moon, Titan.