Spaceflight offers lunar flyby rideshare mission
Monday, 27 September 2021 10:10
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Launch services provider Spaceflight sees a lunar flyby mission opportunity next year as a pathfinder for future opportunities to support customers going to both geostationary orbit and the moon.
Microgravity on demand with Earth return through ESA’s Boost!
Monday, 27 September 2021 09:30 Write a comment
A new round-trip commercial space transportation service from 2022, backed by ESA, will enable companies to manufacture in space very pure and more capable materials, discover new pharmaceutical drugs and bring them back for use on Earth.
ESA Open Day 2021
Monday, 27 September 2021 07:00 Write a comment
Video:
00:01:09
What’s coming next in space? Find out at our virtual ESA Open Day on Sunday 3 October, from 1300 – 1600 CEST (1200 – 1500 BST). Your chance to talk to the people behind future space missions, get close-up views of space hardware and hear from astronaut Alexander Gerst. The Open Day is open to anyone; all you have to do is register to attend.
Space physician training course: call for applications
Monday, 27 September 2021 06:15 Write a comment
Are you a qualified physician? Would you like to gain insight into the field of space medicine? ESA is once again seeking medical doctors for its out-of-this-world training course and this is your chance to apply.
Going hyperspectral for CHIME
Monday, 27 September 2021 06:15 Write a comment
With Covid restrictions a little more relaxed, scientists from Europe and the USA were finally able to team up for a long-awaited field experiment to ensure that a new Copernicus satellite called CHIME will deliver the best possible data products as soon as it is operational in orbit. This new mission is being developed to support EU policies on the management of natural resources, ultimately helping to address the global issue of food security.
China to Korea at night timelapse
Saturday, 25 September 2021 15:00 Write a comment
Video:
00:01:52
Timelapse video made during ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet’s second mission to the International Space Station, “Alpha”. 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. The video is around 12 times faster than real speed.
Thomas shared this video on social media with the caption:
“A night #timelapse over South-East Asia. Green lights of squid fishing, bright city lights of Hong Kong and Shanghai followed by Seoul until the border of the Korean peninsula closes on a pitch black
Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, SpaceX, ULA win Space Force contracts for rocket technology projects
Saturday, 25 September 2021 08:31 Write a comment
Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, SpaceX and United Launch Alliance were selected to participate in Space Force development projects to advance rocket engine testing and launch vehicle upper stages.
Op-ed | Can we backhaul our way to space?
Saturday, 25 September 2021 03:04 Write a comment
If the market grows large enough, a dedicated lunar-to-LEO tanker industry could evolve – which might never happen if the infrastructure for supplying space facilities with lunar water had to be paid for up front and from scratch, before any water was delivered.
UN secretary-general criticizes “billionaires joyriding to space”
Friday, 24 September 2021 15:54 Write a comment
The secretary-general of the United Nations lumped space tourism alongside corruption and loss of freedoms as part of a “malady of mistrust” facing the world, another sign of the backlash in some quarters to private human spaceflight.
Orbit Fab to launch propellant tanker to fuel satellites in geostationary orbit
Friday, 24 September 2021 14:52 Write a comment
Orbit Fab, a startup offering a refueling service in space, will launch a propellant tanker to geostationary orbit on a SpaceX Falcon 9 lunar lander mission projected for late 2022 or early 2023.
Exotic mix in China's delivery of moon rocks
Friday, 24 September 2021 14:36 Write a comment
On 16 December 2020 the Chang'e-5 mission, China's first sample return mission to the Moon, successfully delivered to Earth nearly two kilograms of rocky fragments and dust from our celestial companion. Chang'e-5 landed on an area of the Moon not sampled by the NASA Apollo or the Soviet Luna missions nearly 50 years ago, and retrieved fragments of the youngest lunar rocks ever brought back for analysis in laboratories on Earth.
Scientists use seasons to find water for future Mars astronauts
Friday, 24 September 2021 14:35 Write a comment
For reasons by Vivaldi
Friday, 24 September 2021 12:10 Write a comment
Image:
A female volunteer gets comfortable in her waterbed, as the dry immersion study to recreate some of the effects of spaceflight on the body kicks off this week in Toulouse, France. Called Vivaldi, or Validation of the Dry Immersion, the campaign features all female-participants in a European first.
Immersion begins when water covers the subject above the thorax, immobilised with legs and trunk covered with a cotton sheet. Only the arms and head remain free outside the tarp.
As a result, the body experiences ‘supportlessness’ – something close to what astronauts feel while floating on the International Space Station.
In weightlessness,
Week in images: 20 - 24 September 2021
Friday, 24 September 2021 12:00 Write a comment
Week in images: 20 - 24 September 2021
Discover our week through the lens
Wildfire Map wins top prize at App Camp
Friday, 24 September 2021 11:30 Write a comment
An app that uses satellite data to show the location and impact of wildfires took home the top prize at this year’s Space App Camp.