...the who's who,
and the what's what 
of the space industry

Space Careers

news Space News

Search News Archive

Title

Article text

Keyword

Copernical Team

Copernical Team

Washington DC (SPX) Jul 28, 2023
NASA is elevating its digital platforms for the benefit of all by revamping its flagship and science websites, adding its first on-demand streaming service, and upgrading the NASA app. With these changes, everyone will have access to a new world of content from the space agency. "Our vision is to inspire humanity through a unified, world-class NASA web experience," said Jeff Seaton, chief
Washington DC (SPX) Jul 28, 2023
NASA is one of America's Best Employers for Women 2023, according to Forbes and Statista. Statista surveyed more than 60,000 United States employees - including a sample of more than 40,000 women - working for companies with a minimum of 1,000 employees. Participants were asked to rate their employer based on factors such as working conditions, representation of women in upper management, discri
Montville, NJ (SPX) Jul 28, 2023
Marotta Controls, a rapidly growing aerospace and defense supplier with a 65-year-plus heritage in spaceflight has celebrated another production milestone. The supplier delivered its 30,000th CoRe valve to SpaceX at its rocket development site in McGregor, Texas. The milestone marks a 50 percent increase in demand for the high performance, reusable solenoid valves in less than 18 months, unders
Xichang (XNA) Jul 28, 2023
China launched a Long March-2D carrier rocket on Thursday to place a remote sensing satellite group composed of three satellites in space. The three satellites of the Yaogan-36 family were launched at 04:02 a.m. (Beijing Time) from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the southwestern province of Sichuan and entered the preset orbit. This mission is the 480th flight of the Long Mar
Cape Canaveral FL (UPI) Jul 28, 2023
SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket with a payload of 22 Starlink satellites into space early Friday from Florida's famed Cape Canaveral, after having scrubbed the launch of a separate mission Thursday night. The rocket launched at 12:01 a.m. EDT Friday from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Up to four backup launch opportunities were available to SpaceX to laun
Washington DC (UPI) Jul 27, 2023
SpaceX on Thursday again scrubbed the launch of its Falcon Heavy rocket and EchoStar's Jupiter 3 satellite, missing an opportunity for a record-setting "double launch." The company was scheduled to launch the Falcon Heavy rocket within 44 minutes of launching a Falcon 9 rocket carrying Starlink satellites which, according to a report in Space Flight Now, would break a record for the sho
Meteor showers—it's worth looking out for 'shooting stars' all year round
Meteor shower during the 2015 Perseids. Credit: Shutterstock / Belish

If you have ever seen a shooting star on a clear night, surely someone has invited you to make a wish. Nevertheless, this is a natural phenomenon without any magical connotation—beyond its great beauty, of course.

What is a shooting star, really? Where do these glowing, moving bodies come from? How and when can we observe this astronomical phenomenon?

Meteor shower or shooting stars?

Although we popularly call them shooting stars, they are not really stars but glowing . To understand why, it is a good idea to first distinguish between a meteoroid, meteor, and meteorite.

The word "meteor" refers to the astronomical phenomenon that occurs when one or more (meteoroids) enter the atmosphere at high speed. These meteoroids, which are usually very small (between a tenth of a millimeter and a few centimeters in size), are fragments of dust, ice, or rock that wander through space.

Need to image an asteroid close up? There's an AMIGO for that.
Artist’s depiction of a fully inflated AMIGO. Credit: Schwatz et al.

There are so many asteroids. Just in our own backyard, we've found over 30,000 Near Earth asteroids. Exploring them using traditional methods and launching a custom-made mission, like Hayabusa or OSIRIS-REx, would almost certainly be cost-prohibitive. So how can we assess whether they would make good targets for early asteroid mining missions? Ground imaging can help, but there's nothing like being on-site on one of these asteroids to get a sense of what they are made of. Those visits would be much easier if we mass-produced the Asteroid Mobile Imager and Geologic Observer (AMIGO).

AMIGO is a concept developed at the University of Arizona. It is a standard design that fits into a 1U CubeSat package of 10 x 10 x 10 cm and carries an array of scientific equipment with it. These include a magnetometer, an electric field sensor, a microscope, a , an inertial measurement unit (IMU), and, of course, a camera.

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft adjusts course to get closer to Earth
Team members from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission rehearse moving the sample capsule into a clean room at Lockheed Martin designed to closely resemble the one that will be used at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range on Sept. 24, 2023. Credit: Lockheed Martin Space.

On July 26, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft fired its engines for about 63 seconds to slightly thrust itself onto a course closer to Earth.

 

Preliminary tracking data indicates OSIRIS-REx changed its velocity, which includes speed and direction, by 1.3 miles, or 2 kilometers, per hour.

Thursday, 27 July 2023 11:30

Keeping your underwear clean on the Moon

Future Moonwalk

When astronauts return to the Moon they will be bringing along a new generation of spacesuits, designed to withstand the harsh conditions of the lunar surface. But in keeping their human occupants safe and comfortable, these suits might also become a fertile environment for harmful microbial life – especially as astronauts will potentially be sharing suits with one another.

Page 836 of 2295