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Thursday, 04 November 2021 13:00
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Glaciers across the globe have lost over nine trillion tonnes of ice in half a century. How will glaciers look over the coming decades? “It all depends on what humans are doing now in terms of greenhouse gas emissions:” this is the message one scientist delivered during an ESA-led expedition to the Gorner Glacier in Switzerland – one of the biggest ice masses in the Alps.
As world leaders gather for the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of Parties, watch the exclusive premiere of the documentary that follows ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano, along with a team of glaciologists
Quantum technologies' journey to space seen in patent survey
Thursday, 04 November 2021 12:50 Write a comment
Tipped to change the world, quantum technologies – employing special properties of matter that manifest at the very tiniest of scales – are heading to space too. To highlight the space applications of this emerging sector, ESA has supported the European Patent Office and the European Space Policy Institute in a survey of the past two decades of related patent filings.
China is planning a complex Mars sample return mission
Thursday, 04 November 2021 11:55 Write a comment
China is working on a complex mission to collect Mars rock samples and deliver them to Earth by building on the successes of recent moon and Mars missions.
Video: Best of Alpha mission timelapse
Thursday, 04 November 2021 11:26 Write a comment
A collection of the best timelapse videos made during ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet's second mission to the International Space Station, "Alpha" in 2021. The camera is setup to take pictures at intervals of two a second, and the pictures are then edited into this video that plays at 25 pictures a second. Most videos around 12 times faster than real speed.
Thomas shared this video on social media with the caption:
"Probably the last the timelapse from space, and fittingly here is a special edition "best of" montage: aurora, lightning, spacewalks, day views and spacecraft reentry in less than five minutes. Get comfy, cast it to your largest screen in the house and enjoy!"
Over 200 experiments are planned during Thomas' time in space, with 40 European ones and 12 new experiments led by the French space agency CNES.
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Space Station call with French President Emmanuel Macron
Thursday, 04 November 2021 09:00 Write a comment
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ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet had a call with the French President Emmanuel Macron on 4 November 2021 from the International Space Station. The call came at the end of Thomas’s second mission to space called Alpha.
Over 200 experiments are planned during Thomas’ time in space, with 40 European ones and 12 new experiments led by the French space agency CNES.
Latest updates on the Alpha mission can be found via @esaspaceflight on Twitter, with more details on ESA’s exploration blog via thomaspesquet.esa.int.
Background information on the Alpha mission is available at www.esa.int/MissionAlpha with a brochure at www.esa.int/AlphaBrochure.
Explore ESA’s interactive Climate Change Kit
Thursday, 04 November 2021 08:10 Write a comment
Arguably, humankind has never been more aware of the jeopardy we and the planet face because of climate change. As world leaders at COP26 work to accelerate action towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions to keep the goal of 1.5°C temperature rise within reach, we bring you a new easy-to-use guide on what ESA is doing to understand and monitor climate change from space – data that are essential for policy-makers.
Space Force launches ‘Orbital Prime’ program to spur market for on-orbit services
Thursday, 04 November 2021 06:00 Write a comment
The U.S. Space Force is kicking off a new initiative, called Orbital Prime, to fund commercial technologies for in-space operations
Boeing gets OK for satellite grid to provide internet from space
Thursday, 04 November 2021 04:36 Write a comment
Boeing on Wednesday gained US authorization for a project to launch satellites that will provide internet services from space.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said in a statement it had approved a license for the aerospace giant "to construct, deploy, and operate a satellite constellation" that will "provide broadband and communications services for residential, commercial, inst NASA, Intuitive Machines announce landing site location for Lunar drill
Thursday, 04 November 2021 04:36 Write a comment
In late 2022, NASA will send an ice-mining experiment attached to a robotic lander to the lunar South Pole on a ridge not far from Shackleton crater - a location engineers and scientists have assessed for months. NASA and Intuitive Machines, an agency partner for commercial Moon deliveries, announced the location selection Nov. 3.
NASA data from spacecraft orbiting the Moon indicate this l Laboratory will illuminate formation, composition, activity of comets
Thursday, 04 November 2021 04:36 Write a comment
Comets are icy and dusty snowballs of material that have remained relatively unchanged since they first formed billions of years ago. Studying the small bodies provides clues about the formation of the solar system.
In Review of Scientific Instruments, by AIP Publishing, researchers from the Technische Universitat Braunschweig, the Austrian Academy of Science, the University of Bern, the G SpaceFund Invests in Rhea Space Activity
Thursday, 04 November 2021 04:36 Write a comment
SpaceFund Inc has invested in the rapidly growing astrophysics start-up company Rhea Space Activity (RSA). SpaceFund's capital injection into RSA will energize the company's ongoing development of scientific and engineering infrastructure needed to create a holistic, world-leading Lunar Intelligence (LUNINT) capability as soon as 2024.
This capability will yield a vital product for the com Hypersonix to use Siemens' software in design of its hydrogen fuelled launchers
Thursday, 04 November 2021 04:36 Write a comment
Brisbane-based aerospace engineering start-up Hypersonix Launch Systems has chosen Siemens' Xcelerator portfolio of software to help design its sustainable and reusable hypersonic launch vehicle, Delta-Velos.
Hypersonix plans to implement advanced aerodynamic and thermal modelling software from Siemens' Simcenter portfolio, which will play a key role in building certainty and reliability o Sol 3285: Oh So Close
Thursday, 04 November 2021 04:36 Write a comment
The drive over the weekend was successful, gaining us more than 6 m in elevation - not bad for a weekend hike! Looking at this terrain, it is probably not surprising to you that looking uphill into the tilted bedrock slabs and thin resistant veins jutting up in all directions makes it hard to plan our next move.
Indeed, today's drive will take us close to the area where we want to drill ne New Curtin study pinpoints likely home of Martian meteorites
Thursday, 04 November 2021 04:36 Write a comment
Curtin University researchers have pinpointed the likely origin of a group of meteorites ejected from Mars, using a machine learning algorithm that analyses high-resolution planetary images.
The new research, published in Nature Communications, identified meteorites that landed on Earth likely originated from Mars' Tooting crater, located in the Tharsis region, which is the largest volcani UNI Bremen involved in AMADEE-20 Mars Simulation
Thursday, 04 November 2021 04:36 Write a comment
AMADEE-20: That is the name of the simulated Mars mission of the Austrian Space Forum, which was carried out in the Israeli Negev Desert. More than 25 experiments were carried out there. Two projects from the University of Bremen, namely INTERTEAM and MarsLock, were also involved in the research.
b>What are team processes like when the crew is on Mars? br> /b>
The INTERTEAM project addre