On the front lines of space innovation
Monday, 22 August 2022 09:11
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George Lordos is not your typical graduate student. A degree in economics from Oxford University, an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, and a 20-year professional career were not the end of his learning journey. His longtime passion for space, particularly the prospect of making a sustainable society on Mars a reality, drew him back to school yet again, this time to study aeronautics a 45 years after launch, NASA's Voyager probes still blazing trails billions of miles away
Monday, 22 August 2022 09:11 Write a comment
Forty-five years ago, NASA launched the first part of its most ambitious deep space mission in its history - a spacecraft called Voyager 2, which is still communicating with scientists on Earth at a distance of more than 12 billion miles away.
Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are both in interstellar space. In fact, they are one of only five space probes from Earth that have left the solar syst SpaceVPX (VITA 78) and the World of Interconnect
Monday, 22 August 2022 00:00 Write a comment
SpaceVPX is a set of standards for interconnects between space system components with a goal to cost-effectively remove bandwidth as a constraint.
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NASA cautions planetary science funding falls short of decadal projections
Sunday, 21 August 2022 21:52 Write a comment
As NASA takes the first steps to implement recommendations of the planetary science decadal survey, the agency is warning that projected funding for at least the near term will fall short of that’s report’s projections.
Five companies win $4.8 billion in contracts from the National Air and Space Intelligence Center
Sunday, 21 August 2022 19:46 Write a comment
The U.S. Air Force selected five companies for a $4.8 billion multi-award contract to provide research, development and software services over 10 years for the National Air and Space Intelligence Center.
Space Force wargame challenges satellite operators to think critically
Sunday, 21 August 2022 17:00 Write a comment
At the Space Flag exercise, Space Force guardians conduct simulated operations that mimic a real-world conflict
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Hawaii seeks end to strife over astronomy on sacred mountain
Saturday, 20 August 2022 15:55 Write a comment
NASA asks industry for input on ISS deorbit capabilities
Saturday, 20 August 2022 15:20 Write a comment
NASA is requesting information from industry on its capabilities and interest in developing a spacecraft that would deorbit the International Space Station at the end of its life.
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50 years ago, NASA's Copernicus set the bar for space astronomy
Saturday, 20 August 2022 05:23 Write a comment
At 6:28 a.m. EDT on Aug. 21, 1972, NASA's Copernicus satellite, the heaviest and most complex space telescope of its time, lit up the sky as it ascended into orbit from Launch Complex 36B at what is now Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.
Initially known as Orbiting Astronomical Observatory (OAO) C, it became OAO 3 once in orbit in the fashion of the time. But it was also renamed to honor the 500th anniversary of the birth of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543). The Polish astronomer formulated a model of the solar system with the Sun in the central position instead of Earth, breaking with 1,300 years of tradition and triggering a scientific revolution.
Fitted with the largest ultraviolet telescope ever orbited at the time as well as four co-aligned X-ray instruments, Copernicus was arguably NASA's first dedicated multiwavelength astronomy observatory. This makes it a forebear of operating satellites like NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, which watches the sky in visible, ultraviolet, and X-ray light.
Intelsat working to regain control of Galaxy 15 satellite
Friday, 19 August 2022 21:35 Write a comment
Intelsat said Aug. 19 it has lost control of its Galaxy 15 satellite after it was likely hit by a geomagnetic storm.
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Big plans for mini-launchers
Friday, 19 August 2022 20:42 Write a comment
Industry’s attention is shifting to a larger class of rockets, sometimes called ”mini-launchers” capable of placing about a metric ton into orbit.
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NASA selects potential lunar landing sites for Artemis 3
Friday, 19 August 2022 20:17 Write a comment
NASA has selected 13 regions around the south pole of the moon that it is considering for the first crewed landing of the Artemis program later this decade.
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After 45 years, the 5-billion-year legacy of the Voyager 2 interstellar probe is just beginning
Friday, 19 August 2022 17:11 Write a comment
On August 20 1977, 45 years ago, an extraordinary spacecraft left this planet on a journey like no other. Voyager 2 was going to show us, for the first time, what the outer solar system planets looked like close-up. It was like sending a fly to New York City and asking it to report back.
Voyager 1 was launched after Voyager 2, on September 5. Attached to the flank of each Voyager was a Golden Record carrying greetings, sounds, images and music from Earth.
The spacecraft were more or less twins, but they had different trajectories and scientific instruments. While both flew by Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 1 then sped onwards to interstellar space. Voyager 2 tarried to make the only visit ever to the ice giants, Uranus and Neptune.
Where exactly will astronauts land on the moon? NASA is going to tell us
Friday, 19 August 2022 16:11 Write a comment
With NASA's first Artemis mission to the moon set to launch before the end of the month, teams are gearing up for future missions with astronauts including just exactly where the next people to set foot on the moon will be leaving their footprints.
NASA has announced a news conference for 2 p.m. Friday to reveal potential landing locations for the Artemis III mission, which is still targeting a launch in 2025, but not before the uncrewed Artemis I flight slated to launch on Aug. 29 and a crewed Artemis II flight in 2024 that will send humans back to the moon, but not only to orbit it.
Artemis III would mark humans' return to the surface for the first time since Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmidt left the surface on Dec. 14, 1972.
The Apollo program managed six landings with two humans each for a total of 12 to walk on the moon between 1969-1972.
Op-ed | Satellite industry consolidation: is the tail wagging the dog?
Friday, 19 August 2022 15:28 Write a comment
Recent weeks and months have seen growing activity among satellite network operators keen to integrate the soon-to-be-available LEO-derived bandwidth with existing GEO services.
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