Euroconsult predicts highest government space budgets in decades despite Covid
Friday, 07 January 2022 06:30
Paris, France (SPX) Jan 07, 2022
Leading space consulting and market intelligence firm Euroconsult has released its highly anticipated "Government Space Programs" report for 2021. The highlight of this year's findings is a continued, even accelerated, volume of governmental investment in the space sector, driven by two major drivers: ambitious space exploration programmes by leading space countries, and rivalries driving the mi

NASA to host coverage for Webb Telescope's final unfolding
Friday, 07 January 2022 06:30
Washington DC (SPX) Jan 07, 2022
NASA will provide live coverage and host a media briefing Saturday, Jan. 8, for the conclusion of the James Webb Space Telescope's major spacecraft deployments. Beginning no earlier than 9 a.m. EST, NASA will air live coverage of the final hours of Webb's major deployments. After the live broadcast concludes, at approximately 1:30 p.m., NASA will hold a media briefing. Both the broadcast and med

Life could be thriving in the clouds of Venus
Friday, 07 January 2022 06:30
Madison WI (SPX) Jan 07, 2022
by Eric Verbeten for WISC News
Is there life on Venus? For more than a century, scientists have pondered this question. Now, there is renewed interest in Venus as a place that could support living organisms. "We are trying to make the case for exploring Venus and to inspire and inform future missions to collect in situ data with satellites," says Sanjay Limaye, a University of Wisconsin-Madison

FAU scientist aims to ensure microbe-free Mars samples
Friday, 07 January 2022 06:30
Boca Raton FL (SPX) Jan 07, 2022
The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover is collecting samples in search of signs of ancient microbial life, which would advance NASA's quest to explore the past habitability of Mars. The samples are set to return to Earth no earlier than 2031, as part of the Mars Sample Return campaign being planned by NASA and the European Space Agency. Before the rover went to space, NASA and its engineers worked har

Loft Orbital extends production agreement with LeoStella
Friday, 07 January 2022 06:30
San Francisco CA (SPX) Jan 07, 2022
Loft Orbital Solutions, Inc. (Loft Orbital), a leading space infrastructure-as-a-service provider, and LeoStella, Inc., a specialized satellite constellation design and manufacturing company, have extended their production agreement to secure multiple additional LEO-100 buses from LeoStella. These satellite buses are the latest in a series Loft Orbital has secured from LeoStella.
The satel

SpaceX successfully completes first launch of 2022 from Florida
Friday, 07 January 2022 06:30
Washington DC (UPI) Jan 6, 2021
SpaceX kicked off a surge in launch activity Thursday with the successful launch of 49 of the company's Starlink communications satellites from Florida, heading south along the state's coastline.
Five SpaceX missions may launch in the next month on the southern polar trajectory, flying closer to the Florida coast toward Miami than most launches, according to the U.S. Space Force.

Why the Webb Telescope doesn't have deployment cameras
Friday, 07 January 2022 06:30
Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jan 07, 2022
As NASA's James Webb Space Telescope makes its way out to its intended orbit, ground teams monitor its vitals using a comprehensive set of sensors located throughout the entire spacecraft. Mechanical, thermal, and electrical sensors provide a wide array of critical information on the current state and performance of Webb while it is in space.
A system of surveillance cameras to watch deplo

Debris from failed Russian rocket falls into sea near French Polynesia
Friday, 07 January 2022 06:30
Washington DC (UPI) Jan 6, 2021
The upper stage of a failed Russian Angara A5 rocket plummeted uncontrolled to Earth, crashing into open sea near French Polynesia.
The U.S. 18th Space Control Squadron confirmed the 4 p.m. Wednesday re-entry
The Persei upper stage was part of a heavy-lift rocket. The debris weighed an estimated 3.5 tons. Astronomer Jonathon McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophy

New research questions 'whiff of oxygen' in Earth's early history
Friday, 07 January 2022 06:30
Hanover NH (SPX) Jan 06, 2022
Evidence arguing for a "whiff of oxygen" before the Earth's Great Oxygenation Event 2.3 billion years ago are chemical signatures that were probably introduced at a much later time, according to research published in Science Advances.
The result rewinds previous research findings that atmospheric oxygen existed prior to the so-called Great Oxygenation Event-known to researchers as "GOE"- a

Japan space tourist eyes Mariana Trench trip after ISS
Friday, 07 January 2022 06:30
Tokyo (AFP) Jan 7, 2022
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa said Friday his trip into space had given him a new appreciation for Earth, and he now hopes to plunge into the ocean's forbidding Mariana Trench.
Maezawa and his assistant Yozo Hirano spent 12 days on the International Space Station last month, where they documented life in space for one million YouTube subscribers.
Speaking Friday for the first time

North Korea says it tested hypersonic missile
Friday, 07 January 2022 06:30
Seoul (AFP) Jan 6, 2022
North Korea has successfully tested a hypersonic missile, state media reported Thursday, in the first major weapons test by the nuclear-armed nation this year.
This was the second reported test of what Pyongyang claimed were hypersonic gliding missiles, as it pursues the sophisticated technology despite international sanctions and condemnation.
Hypersonic missiles move far faster and are

Tiangong's robotic arm performs well in test
Friday, 07 January 2022 06:30
Beijing (XNA) Jan 07, 2022
China's Tiangong space station conducted a test using its robotic arm to reposition the Tianzhou 2 cargo spaceship on Thursday morning, according to the China Manned Space Agency.
In a statement, the agency said that the arm secured the robotic cargo craft early on Thursday morning and began to move it to a new position at 6:12 am. Tianzhou 2 had been connected to the station's Tianhe core

Metaverse gets touch of reality at CES
Friday, 07 January 2022 06:30
Las Vegas (AFP) Jan 7, 2022
A jacket equipped with sensors that let wearers feel hugs or even punches in virtual reality was among the innovations giving the metaverse a more realistic edge at the Consumer Electronics Show.
"What is the metaverse if you can't feel it?" asked Jose Fuertes, founder of the Spain-based startup Owo, which made the jacket. "It's just avatars."
The "metaverse" - a parallel universe where

FAST detects coherent interstellar magnetic field with a technique conceived at Arecibo
Friday, 07 January 2022 06:30
Beijing, China (SPX) Jan 06, 2022
Magnetic fields are the essential, but often "secret" ingredients of the interstellar medium and the process of making stars. The secrecy shrouding interstellar magnetic fields can be attributed to the lack of experimental probes.
While Michael Faraday was already probing the link between magnetism and electricity with coils in the early 19th century in the basement of the Royal Institutio

SwRI scientist helps simulate how our solar system formed from rings
Friday, 07 January 2022 06:30
San Antonio TX (SPX) Jan 06, 2022
A Southwest Research Institute scientist contributed to a new solar system formation model that explains the existing inner planetary distribution and the asteroid belt between the inner and outer solar system. SwRI's Dr. Rogerio Deienno, who specializes in celestial mechanics and dynamical astronomy, and his colleagues developed a model where three rings of planetesimals, the building blocks fo
