Week in images: 09-13 May 2022

Discover our week through the lens

Washington (AFP) May 13, 2022
That's one small pot of soil, one giant leap for man's knowledge of space agriculture: scientists have for the first time grown plants in lunar soil brought back by astronauts in the Apollo program. The ground-breaking experiment, detailed in the journal Communications Biology on Thursday, has given researchers hope that it may be possible to one day grow plants directly on the Moon. Tha

Boca Raton FL (SPX) May 12, 2022
Terran Orbital Corporation (NYSE: LLAP), a global leader in satellite solutions, primarily serving the United States aerospace and defense industry, has announced the successful delivery of the first of ten satellite buses to Lockheed Martin in support of the Space Development Agency's Tranche 0 Transport Layer. This foundation layer represents the initial step in building an interoperable, conn

Moscow (Sputnik) May 12, 2022
Beijing's concerns echo criticisms of the South African-born billionaire's satellite internet system by Russia. On Sunday, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin warned that Elon Musk would be held accountable for supplying Starlink internet terminals to neo-Nazi militants fighting in Ukraine. SpaceX's plans to increase the constellation of Starlink internet satellites from 12,000 to 42,000 "shoul

Washington DC (UPI) May 12, 2021
Scientists have managed to grow plants in lunar soil for the first time ever, setting the stage for astronauts to potentially grow their own food on the moon during future missions. University of Florida researchers were able to grow the plants in small samples of lunar soil - also known as lunar regolith - gathered during the Apollo 11, 12 and 17 missions in the 1960s and 1970s. But

Tucson AZ (SPX) May 11, 2022
World View, the leading stratospheric ballooning and space tourism company, has announced a partnership with Space Environment Technologies (SET) to include a suite of technologies aboard World View space capsules that will measure space radiation and other forms of data about Earth's atmosphere. SET's system, coined ARMAS (for "Automated Radiation Measurements for Aerospace Safety"), will accom

An orbital launch attempt by Chinese startup iSpace ended in failure early Friday, following on from two failures last year.

While operations of the International Space Station continue without “serious interruptions,” sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine are starting to have an effect on some activities, NASA’s safety advisers said.

Video: 00:01:00

ESA’s Gaia space telescope revolutionises our understanding of the Milky Way. It scans the sky to measure the position, movement, distance, and characteristics of billions of stars. It is creating the most precise map of our home galaxy yet, providing clues to its origin and evolution. Gaia not only studies the stars, but also what is in between them, as well as asteroids and planetary moons in our Solar System, binary stars and exoplanets, and quasars and galaxies outside of the Milky Way. Gaia provides us with a wealth of data, giving us a new sense of

This striking, high-resolution image of the Arc de Triomphe, in Paris, was captured by Planet SkySat – a fleet of satellites that have just joined ESA’s Third Party Mission Programme in April 2022.