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Making Tracks up Marker Band Valley: Sols 3803-3804

Thursday, 20 April 2023 02:37

Pasadena CA (JPL) Apr 20, 2023

Curiosity is carefully and patiently driving up a local canyon, named Marker Band valley, across a variably tilting surface that is scattered with horizontally banded bedrock and patches of sand. Can you imagine how fun and challenging it would be to scramble up the pass over this bumpy, uneven, and sandy terrain? As the rover continues her ascent up Marker Band valley, the rocks continue

TESS celebrates fifth year scanning the sky for new worlds

Thursday, 20 April 2023 02:37

Paris (ESA) Apr 20, 2023

Now in its fifth year in space, NASA's TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) remains a rousing success. TESS's cameras have mapped more than 93% of the entire sky, discovered 329 new worlds and thousands more candidates, and provided new insights into a wide array of cosmic phenomena, from stellar pulsations and exploding stars to supermassive black holes. Using its four cameras, TE

Goddard team builds, tests calibrator for NASA's Roman Telescope in record time

Thursday, 20 April 2023 02:37

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Apr 20, 2023

A vital subsystem for NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope was recently delivered to Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colorado, and installed in the spacecraft's Wide Field Instrument (WFI). Called the Simplified Relative Calibration System (sRCS), this component will allow astronomers to measure the total light output of cosmic objects like galaxies and supernovae with extreme accuracy. When Roma

Metal-poor stars are more life-friendly

Thursday, 20 April 2023 02:37

Gottingen, Germany (SPX) Apr 20, 2023

Stars that contain comparatively large amounts of heavy elements provide less favourable conditions for the emergence of complex life than metal-poor stars, as scientists from the Max Planck Institutes for Solar System Research and for Chemistry as well as from the University of Gottingen have now found. The team showed how the metallicity of a star is connected to the ability of its planets to

Building telescopes on the Moon would transform astronomy

Thursday, 20 April 2023 02:37

London, UK (SPX) Apr 20, 2023

Lunar exploration is undergoing a renaissance. Dozens of missions, organised by multiple space agencies - and increasingly by commercial companies - are set to visit the Moon by the end of this decade. Most of these will involve small robotic spacecraft, but NASA's ambitious Artemis programme, aims to return humans to the lunar surface by the middle of the decade. There are various reasons

DISH TV adding to fleet with new Maxar satellite order

Thursday, 20 April 2023 02:37

Westminster CO (SPX) Apr 20, 2023

Maxar Technologies (NYSE: MAXR) (TSX: MAXR), provider of comprehensive space solutions and secure, precise, geospatial intelligence, received an order for a direct broadcast satellite from DISH, designated ES XXV. This geostationary (GEO) communications satellite will be operated by DISH and deliver content across North America. ES XXV will be built on the proven Maxar 1300 series platform

With a new medium rocket, Firefly plans to compete for national security launches

Thursday, 20 April 2023 01:51

Rendering of Firefly’s Next Generation Medium-Lift Vehicle. Credit: Firefly Aerospace

Space investors see a return in industry growth capital

Wednesday, 19 April 2023 20:05

Investment activity is picking up again for young space companies as growth-stage capital returns following market uncertainty in 2022, according to investors on an April 18 Space Symposium panel.

Rocket Lab to refly Electron engine

Wednesday, 19 April 2023 18:35

Rocket Lab will use a previously flown engine on an upcoming Electron launch as the company moves closer to reusing the rocket’s entire first stage.

European Space Agency chief eyes tapping private industry partners

Wednesday, 19 April 2023 18:29

Josef Aschbacher, director general of the European Space Agency, speaks in Paris, November 23, 2022.

European Space Agency director Josef Aschbacher promised a "transformation" of the continent's space sector in the coming years during an interview with AFP, including more collaboration between government and private industry.

Private firms will be "encouraged to be a partner and not only a contractor," Aschbacher said, answering questions on the sidelines of an aerospace industry conference taking place this week in Colorado Springs, in the United States.

US space agency NASA has long incorporated private firms into its space exploration, planning to send its astronauts to commercial orbiting outposts once the International Space Station is retired.

But any major reorientation of the European space program will need to be discussed at the second European space summit, to be held in Seville, Spain, in November.