NASA enters the Solar atmosphere for the first time
Wednesday, 15 December 2021 06:42
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For the first time in history, a spacecraft has touched the Sun. NASA's Parker Solar Probe has now flown through the Sun's upper atmosphere - the corona - and sampled particles and magnetic fields there.
The new milestone marks one major step for Parker Solar Probe and one giant leap for solar science. Just as landing on the Moon allowed scientists to understand how it was formed, touching No decision yet on where to build OneWeb second-generation satellites
Wednesday, 15 December 2021 04:41 Write a comment
A week after a OneWeb executive told British officials that the company would move production of its second generation of satellites to the United Kingdom, another executive said the company has yet to decide where it will build those satellites.
Viasat-Inmarsat deal remains on track
Wednesday, 15 December 2021 03:49 Write a comment
Viasat’s acquisition of Inmarsat is moving ahead, company executives said, despite ongoing work to secure approval from the British government as well as a drop in share price that has cut a billion dollars from the value of the deal.
SPAC activity may pause but it will be back
Wednesday, 15 December 2021 02:36 Write a comment
The rate of space company mergers with special purpose acquisition corporations may be slowing, but the trend isn’t over, according to investors speaking at TechCrunch Space Sessions 2021.
U.S. military looking to build lasting relationships with commercial space industry
Tuesday, 14 December 2021 23:26 Write a comment
Government buyers are still trying to figure out how to work with private firms and attract suppliers that have not traditionally sought government contracts, officials said Dec. 14 at a TechCrunch conference.
Op-ed | How the U.S. can quickly build greater resiliency in space
Tuesday, 14 December 2021 21:00 Write a comment
The National Space Council directs the Department of Defense to “accelerate its transition to a more resilient national security space posture.”
Astranis unveils insurance package for Falcon Heavy launch
Tuesday, 14 December 2021 20:59 Write a comment
Startup Astranis unveiled more details Dec. 14 of the insurance package covering its first commercial small satellite, which SpaceX is slated to launch to geostationary orbit (GEO) as a secondary payload on a Falcon Heavy rocket next spring.
NASA enters the solar atmosphere for the first time, bringing new discoveries
Tuesday, 14 December 2021 20:50 Write a comment
For the first time in history, a spacecraft has touched the Sun. NASA's Parker Solar Probe has now flown through the Sun's upper atmosphere—the corona—and sampled particles and magnetic fields there.
The new milestone marks one major step for Parker Solar Probe and one giant leap for solar science. Just as landing on the Moon allowed scientists to understand how it was formed, touching the very stuff the Sun is made of will help scientists uncover critical information about our closest star and its influence on the solar system.
HyspecIQ selects advisors, offering clues to early applications
Tuesday, 14 December 2021 18:48 Write a comment
HyspecIQ is beginning to fill out its advisory board, a move that offers clues to the hyperspectral imagery applications the startup plans to address.
HyspecIQ selects advisers, offering clues to early applications
Tuesday, 14 December 2021 18:48 Write a comment
HyspecIQ is beginning to fill out its advisory board, a move that offers clues to the hyperspectral imagery applications the startup plans to address.
Parker Solar Probe: A spacecraft has 'touched' the sun for the first time
Tuesday, 14 December 2021 17:05 Write a comment
On April 28, 2021, at 0933 UT (3:33 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time), NASA's Parker Solar Probe reached the sun's extended solar atmosphere, known as the corona, and spent five hours there. The spacecraft is the first to enter the outer boundaries of our sun.
The results, published in Physical Review Letters, were announced in a press conference at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting 2021 on December 14. The manuscript is open-access and freely available to download.
"This marks the achievement of the primary objective of the Parker mission and a new era for understanding the physics of the corona," said Justin C. Kasper, the first author, Deputy Chief Technology Officer at BWX Technologies, and a professor at the University of Michigan. The mission is led by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL).
NASA's Webb telescope will have the coolest camera in space
Tuesday, 14 December 2021 16:55 Write a comment
Set to launch on Dec. 22, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is the largest space observatory in history, and it has an equally gargantuan task: to collect infrared light from the distant corners of the cosmos, enabling scientists to probe the structures and origins of our universe and our place in it.
Many cosmic objects – including stars and planets, as well as the gas and dust from where they form – emit infrared light, sometimes called heat radiation. But so do most other warm objects, like toasters, humans, and electronics. That means Webb's four infrared instruments can detect their own infrared glow.
Experiments riding 24th SpaceX cargo mission to space station study bioprinting, crystallization, laundry
Tuesday, 14 December 2021 16:51 Write a comment
The 24th SpaceX cargo resupply services mission, targeted to launch in late December from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, carries scientific research and technology demonstrations to the International Space Station. The experiments aboard include studies of bioprinting, crystallization of monoclonal antibodies, changes in immune function, plant gene expression changes, laundering clothes in space, processing alloys, and student citizen science projects.
Learn more about these scientific experiments riding aboard the Dragon spacecraft to the orbiting lab:
Bioprinting bandages
Bioprinting, a subcategory of 3D printing, uses viable cells and biological molecules to print tissue structures. A study from the German Space Agency, Bioprint FirstAid, demonstrates a portable, handheld bioprinter that uses a patient's own skin cells to create a tissue-forming patch to cover a wound and accelerate the healing process.
Webb placed on top of Ariane 5
Tuesday, 14 December 2021 15:00 Write a comment
On Saturday 11 December, the James Webb Space Telescope was placed on top of the Ariane 5 rocket that will launch it to space from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.
Locked in stone: Mars' missing water might be stored in clay mineral
Tuesday, 14 December 2021 14:46 Write a comment
A clay mineral known as smectite could hold a substantial portion of the water missing from Mars, according to new research from Binghamton University, State University of New York.
Rivers and streams once flowed across the surface of Mars, etching channels still evident on the planet's surface today. Water in lakes once lapped ancient shores. But today, Mars' red sands appear bone-dry. Where did all that water go?
Some of that water is trapped in the planet's polar ice caps, which behave like stone due to Mars' frigid temperatures. The rest may have gone underground, locked inside clay minerals such as smectite.
New research from Binghamton University Geological Sciences and Environmental Studies Professor David Jenkins and former graduate student Brittany DePasquale provides information on how deep smectite could occur in the surface rocks of Mars. They found that iron-rich smectite, the least-stable form of smectite, can form to depths up to 30 km, much deeper than others might have predicted. In view of this rather robust stability for smectite, it appears that clay minerals are able to receive and store the missing water on Mars.