Copernical Team
As first Vulcan flight nears, new space plane Dream Chaser preps for launch No. 2
The Sierra Space Dream Chaser looks like a mini space shuttle, and it's gearing up for its first trip to space atop United Launch Alliance's new Vulcan Centaur rocket in 2024.
The uncrewed spacecraft is designed for now to take cargo to the International Space Station, having won a NASA contract to join SpaceX and Northrop Grumman for commercial resupply missions.
The first nearly complete version of Dream Chaser is named Tenacity, and is set to leave Sierra Space's Louisville, Colorado, production facility to begin its journey to the Space Coast. Its first stop, though, will be to NASA's Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Sandusky, Ohio, for a battery of environmental shakedown tests in the coming weeks.
"Today we have arrived at a profound milestone in both our company's journey and our industry's future—one that has been years in the making and is shaped by audacious dreaming and tenacious doing," said Sierra Space CEO Tom Vice during an event heralding the completion of what is planned to be a fleet of Dream Chasers.
Just like the space shuttle, it will launch from Florida and land in Florida.
Ancient planet Thiea that collided with Earth may lie deep within Earth
Researchers at Caltech have presented a compelling narrative that potentially resolves a longstanding enigma in planetary science. According to a recent study published in Nature, massive structures deep within Earth's mantle may be the long-lost remnants of Theia, an ancient planetesimal whose cataclysmic collision with Earth is hypothesized to have given birth to the Moon.
These structur Dust's Pivotal Role in Dinosaur Extinction Highlighted by Study
A groundbreaking study recently published in Nature Geoscience introduces new evidence on the cataclysmic events following the infamous Chicxulub impact, suggesting that the fine dust from pulverized rock played a more significant role than previously thought in the mass extinction event that eliminated the dinosaurs and approximately 75% of species 66 million years ago.
Scientists from th NASA discovers record-breaking black hole 13.2 billion light-years from Earth
NASA has discovered a record-breaking colossal black hole, formed after the big bang, using the space agency's "cosmic magnifying glass."
"Our NASAWebb and Chandra Xray space telescopes have discovered the most distant black hole ever seen in X-rays. Webb data shows the black hole's host galaxy is 13.2 billion light-years from Earth, when the universe was only 3% of its current age," NA NASA seeks input for future lunar surface resource utilization demo
As NASA ushers in an exciting era of long-term exploration on the Moon with Artemis, new strategies are being formulated to determine how technology, infrastructure, and operations will function together as a cohesive and cross-cutting system.
As a sustained presence grows at the Moon, opportunities to harvest lunar resources could lead to safer, more efficient operations with less depende Curiosity rover clocks 4,000 sols on Mars
Four thousand Martian days after setting its wheels in Gale Crater on Aug. 5, 2012, NASA's Curiosity rover remains busy conducting exciting science. The rover recently drilled its 39th sample then dropped the pulverized rock into its belly for detailed analysis.
To study whether ancient Mars had the conditions to support microbial life, the rover has been gradually ascending the base of 3- CNES, Pasteur Inst and SupBiotech sending "Cerebral Ageing" experiment to ISS
Scheduled for early November, the Cerebral Ageing experiment will depart for the International Space Station (ISS) from Cape Canaveral, Florida, inside a Dragon spacecraft atop a Falcon 9 launcher. The experiment aims firstly to create the conditions for studying complex human cellular structures in vitro over long periods in space. It subsequently seeks to analyse the effects of long-term space Early production continues on advanced upper stage for NASA moon rocket
Technicians at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans have completed a major portion of a weld confidence article for the advanced upper stage of NASA's SLS (Space Launch System) rocket. The hardware was rotated to a horizontal position and moved to another part of the facility Oct. 24.
The weld confidence article forms part of the liquid oxygen tank for the SLS rocket's exploration upper stage and is the fifth of seven weld confidence articles engineers are manufacturing for the evolved SLS Block 1B configuration of the SLS rocket. Beginning with Artemis IV, SLS will evolve to its more powerful Block 1B configuration with the advanced upper stage that gives the rocket the capability to launch 40% more to the moon along with Artemis astronauts inside NASA's Orion spacecraft.
Teams use weld confidence articles to verify welding procedures, interfaces between the tooling and hardware, and structural integrity of the welds. The dome of the liquid oxygen tank weld confidence article was first welded to its structural ring at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, using friction stir welding tooling.
Europe to hold competition to build space cargo ship
The European Space Agency announced Monday it would hold a competition between firms to build a ship to deliver cargo to the International Space Station, in a potential first step towards independent missions carrying astronauts.
The ESA's 22 member states, whose space ministers were meeting at a two-day summit in the Spanish city of Seville, also agreed to provide financial support for Euro ESA Council at ministerial level - Part 1
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Government ministers representing ESA’s Member States, Associate States and Cooperating States met for a Council meeting on 6 November 2023 during the Space Summit in Seville, Spain. They resolved together to strengthen Europe’s space ambitions to better serve European citizens. At the same time, ESA will open a new era of modernising the implementation of its programmes, responding to growing commercialisation and privatisation of space activities, in particular in the fields of space transportation and space exploration. The opening of the meeting was followed by an introduction by ESA Director General and statements by Member, Associate and