Cosmic Kiss mission overview
Friday, 29 April 2022 07:00
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German ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer has almost completed his first stay aboard the International Space Station ISS.
Named Cosmic Kiss, the mission began with the third crewed launch of the SpaceX Crew Dragon on 11 November 2021 when Matthias flew to the ISS alongside @NASA astronauts Kayla Barron, Raja Chari and Tom Marshburn, collectively known as Crew-3.
Matthias has now spent around six months in orbit, working on over 35 European and many more international science experiments and taking part in operational procedures. He has also become the 12th ESA astronaut to conduct a spacewalk, or Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA).
Fireball spotted over southern Mississippi, NASA confirms
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A loud boom prefaced a streaking fireball spotted in three Southern states, scientists confirmed Thursday.
More than 30 people in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi reported seeing the exceptionally bright meteor in the sky around 8 a.m. Wednesday after hearing loud booms in Claiborne County, Mississippi, and surrounding areas, NASA reported. It was first spotted 54 miles (87 kilometers) above the Mississippi River, near Alcorn, Mississippi, officials said.
"This is one of the nicer events I have seen in the GLM (Geostationary Lightning Mappers) data," said Bill Cooke, lead of NASA's Meteoroid Environments Office at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
The object, which scientists called a bolide, moved southwest at a speed of 55,000 miles per hour (88,500 kilometers per hour), breaking into pieces as it descended deeper into Earth's atmosphere. It disintegrated about 34 miles (55 kilometers) above a swampy area north of the unincorporated Concordia Parish community of Minorca in Louisiana.
One witness told the Vicksburg Post that she heard a loud noise and then looked up and saw an "orange fireball the size of a basketball, with a white tail behind it," heading west toward the Mississippi River.
The Claiborne County Emergency Management Agency posted a statement on Facebook confirming the reports and noting that Grand Gulf Nuclear Station was not involved.
Webb Telescope fully focused for the job ahead
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Alignment of the James Webb Space Telescope is now complete. After full review, the observatory has been confirmed to be capable of capturing crisp, well-focused images with each of its four powerful onboard science instruments.
Upon completing the seventh and final stage of telescope alignment, the team held a set of key decision meetings and unanimously agreed that Webb is ready to move NASA selects USNC for ultra-high temperature component testing facility
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USNC Advanced Technologies, a division of Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC), announces it has been selected by NASA to receive a Phase II SBIR contract to develop a proposed ultra-high temperature material testing facility. The specialized equipment could provide an essential terrestrial environment for testing the performance of materials planned for use in space-based nuclear thermal propu AFRL is developing green power for satellites
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The Air Force Research Laboratory, or AFRL, Space Vehicles Directorate is developing a new "green energy" fuel cell technology, that will allow thruster equipped spacecraft to convert chemical energy in its bipropellant into electrical power.
This technology, called BEEPS for Bipropellant Enabled Electrical Power Supply, is being developed by a three-year Seedlings for Disruptive Capabilit Satellogic and Geollect to provide geospatial insights for the maritime domain
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Satellogic Inc. (NASDAQ: SATL), a leader in sub-meter resolution satellite imagery collection, has entered into a teaming agreement with Geollect, a world leading geospatial intelligence and data analysis company, to offer unrivalled maritime domain awareness capabilities.
Satellogic will contribute its maritime imagery collection and processing capabilities to Geollect, which will lead th NASA mentors students to achieve high performance in supercomputing competition
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Talented students from communities around the U.S. recently gained hands-on experience in high-performance computing, NASA style. With help from experts in the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) division at the agency's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley, the students took part in a supercomputing competition. Twelve teams of undergraduate and graduate students from six Historic Advanced Air Mobility Plans for Vertiports
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Looking forward to catching an air taxi? NASA is working to answer where Advanced Air Mobility or AAM vehicles will take off and land. Many AAM aircraft will be electric vertical takeoff and landing, or eVTOLs, so they will have the ability to take off and land vertically like helicopters on helipads. AAM vehicle types could also include other power and operating concepts.
NASA's Advanced Nanoavionics builds first nanosatellite for Promethee's EO constellation
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Satellite operator Promethee has contracted mission integrator NanoAvionics to build the first nanosatellite for the French company's planned constellation of Earth observation nanosatellites and image analysis platform. "ProtoMethee-1" will be based on NanoAvionics' flight-proven 16U nanosatellite bus M16P.
In addition to the satellite with onboard camera and propulsion, NanoAvionics will HyPrSpace raises 1M euro in seed funding to develop reusable hybrid micro-launcher
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HyPrSpace, a startup specializing in the design of space launchers, has announced that it has raised euro 1.1 million from the Geodesic fund, the French Tech Seed fund managed on behalf of the French government by Bpifrance as part of France 2030, and private investors. This funding will allow the startup to strengthen its teams to accelerate the development of its OB-1 reusable launcher, and t AST SpaceMobile announces collaboration with Globe Telecom
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AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (NASDAQ: ASTS), the company building the first and only space-based cellular broadband network designed to be accessible directly by standard mobile phones, has announced a Memorandum of Understanding ("MoU") with Globe Telecom, Inc. ("Globe") (NASDAQ: GTMEF).
Globe is a leading digital platform in the Philippines, serving consumers and businesses' telecommunications Discovery of 30 exocomets in a young planetary system
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For the past thirty years, the star ss Pictoris has fascinated astronomers because it enables them to observe a planetary system in the process of formation. It is made up of at least two young planets, and also contains comets, which were detected as early as 1987.
These were the first comets ever observed around a star other than the Sun. Now, an international research team headed by Ala Revenge of the Wheels Sol 3458
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While angular, pointy rocks have damaged the rover's wheels since early in the MSL mission, sometimes the wheels damage rocks as the rover drives over them. As seen especially at the upper left side of this image, the bedrock was scraped and fractured by the rover during the Sol 3456 drive.
Unfortunately, that drive did not complete as planned, but the tactical team took advantage of the s Enigmatic Rock Layer in Mars' Gale Crater Awaits Measurements by the Curiosity Rover
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Scientists have been studying the sediments within Mars' Gale crater for many years using orbital data sets, but thanks to the Curiosity rover driving across these deposits we can also obtain up-close observations and detailed measurements of the rocks, similar to field work done by geologists on Earth.
A new paper led by Planetary Science Institute Senior Scientist Catherine Weitz takes a Origin of complex cells started without oxygen
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Since the 1960s, many experts have argued that the emergence of eukaryotes (cells containing a clearly defined nucleus) happened in response to the oxygenation of Earth's surface environment.
But a team led by the universities of Stanford and Exeter say recent advances in the Earth and life sciences challenge this view.
Their review says these breakthroughs "decouple" the emergence o