Op-ed | Exiting space: New era, new options
Monday, 22 March 2021 17:51
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Overnight, or so it seems, space has become “red-hot,” facilitating new financing and exit options for space entrepreneurs and investors. A frequent question is whether this change in market sentiment is a flash in the pan or the beginning of a new, sustainable era? If the former, investors and executives would be well-advised to hastily run for the exit while the gates are still open.
NanoAvionics to take on larger microsatellite market
Monday, 22 March 2021 17:49 Write a comment
TAMPA, Fla. — Lithuanian nanosatellite maker NanoAvionics is moving into the heavier microsatellite market as it looks to grow fivefold by 2025.
Vytenis Buzas, CEO of NanoAvionics, claims its 50-kilogram-plus ‘MP42’ product will be the microsat industry’s first commercially available modular bus.
Op-ed | The next space race
Monday, 22 March 2021 15:52 Write a comment
Lockheed Martin signs agreement with Omnispace to explore 5G in space
Monday, 22 March 2021 15:13 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin announced March 23 it has signed an agreement with Omnispace to share business and technical information on the deployment of 5G networking technology in space.
Virginia-based Omnispace is developing a hybrid space and ground network to provide 5G and internet of things services.
Can you still spell space without SPAC?
Monday, 22 March 2021 14:26 Write a comment
For Bessemer Venture Partners, March 1 was a red-letter day. Specifically, the letters S, P, A and C. In separate announcements only minutes apart on that Monday morning, two space companies that Bessemer had invested in, Rocket Lab and Spire, announced deals to go public through mergers with special-purpose acquisition corporations, or SPACs.
Sure, you can spell SPAC. But what is it?
Monday, 22 March 2021 14:15 Write a comment
The wave of deals involving special-purpose acquisition corporations (SPACs) has grabbed the space industry’s interest in the last few months. It’s also prompted more than a few people to ask: what, exactly, is a SPAC?
SPACs are an alternative way for companies to go public.
Image: Mont Mercou on Mars
Monday, 22 March 2021 12:27 Write a comment
Here are a few stunning views of the Curiosity Rover's current location, Mont Mercou in Gale Crater on Mars. This towering outcrop provides a great look at layered sedimentary rock structures. On Earth, it's common to find layered rock like the ones within this cliff face, especially where there were once lakes. The pancake-like layers of sediment are compressed and cemented to form a rock record of the planet's history.
This color image is from one of our favorite image editors, Kevin Gill. He assembled 202 raw images taken by MSL's MastCam between sols 3057 and 3061. You can see Kevin's full mosaic on Flickr.
Gale Crater was specifically chosen as the destination for the Curiosity rover from approximately original 60 candidate sites, because data from orbiting spacecraft determined that Mount Sharp—the big mountain in the middle of the crater—is created from dozens of layers of sedimentary rock, perhaps built over millions of years. These layers are telling the story of Mars' geological and climate history, and planetary geologists are having a field day with Mont Mercou.
And the cadre of image editing enthusiasts around the world have been taking advantage of this amazing rock formation, too.
MDA files to go public
Monday, 22 March 2021 11:39 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — Canadian space technology company MDA Ltd. filed paperwork March 22 for an initial public offering of stock, raising funding to pay down its debt and invest in new projects.
In a filing with Canadian securities regulators, MDA announced its intent to raise $500 million Canadian ($397 million U.S.
NASA Joins White House National Climate Task Force
Monday, 22 March 2021 10:06 Write a comment
As a leading agency observing and understanding environmental changes to Earth, NASA has joined the National Climate Task Force. President Joe Biden issued an executive order Jan. 27, which initially outlined details of the task force.
The administration's climate agenda outlines putting climate at the center of the country's foreign policy and national security and encourages a government Astronomers see a 'space jellyfish'
Monday, 22 March 2021 10:06 Write a comment
A radio telescope located in outback Western Australia has observed a cosmic phenomenon with a striking resemblance to a jellyfish.
Published in The Astrophysical Journal, an Australian-Italian team used the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescope to observe a cluster of galaxies known as Abell 2877.
Lead author and PhD candidate Torrance Hodgson, from the Curtin University node of Hubble Sees Changing Seasons on Saturn
Monday, 22 March 2021 10:06 Write a comment
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is giving astronomers a view of changes in Saturn's vast and turbulent atmosphere as the planet's northern hemisphere summer transitions to fall as shown in this series of images taken in 2018, 2019, and 2020 (left to right).
"These small year-to-year changes in Saturn's color bands are fascinating," said Amy Simon, planetary scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Hubble Shows Torrential Outflows from Infant Stars May Not Stop Them from Growing
Monday, 22 March 2021 10:06 Write a comment
Though our galaxy is an immense city of at least 200 billion stars, the details of how they formed remain largely cloaked in mystery.
Scientists know that stars form from the collapse of huge hydrogen clouds that are squeezed under gravity to the point where nuclear fusion ignites. But only about 30 percent of the cloud's initial mass winds up as a newborn star. Where does the rest of the Algorithms inspired by social networks reveal lifecycle of substorms, a key element of space weather
Monday, 22 March 2021 10:00 Write a comment
Space weather often manifests as substorms, where a beautiful auroral display such as the Northern Lights is accompanied by an electrical current in space which has effects at earth that can interfere with and damage power distribution and electrical systems. Now, the lifecycle of these auroral substorms has been revealed using social media-inspired mathematical tools to analyse space weather observations across the Earth's surface.
Analysis by researchers led by the University of Warwick has revealed that these substorms manifest as global-scale electrical current systems associated with the spectacular aurora, reaching across over a third of the globe at high latitudes.
New research which involves the University of Warwick, John Hopkins University—Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Bergen and Cranfield University, and published today in the journal Nature Communications processes data on disturbances in the Earth's magnetic field from over a hundred magnetometers in the Northern hemisphere using a new technique that enables them to find 'like-minded friends'.
Green cities use space to boost wellbeing
Monday, 22 March 2021 09:57 Write a comment
Urban greenery can improve air quality and promote wellbeing. ESA is working with municipal authorities to identify how space can help to create sustainable cities in which people are healthier, happier and more productive.
Discover how space can help to boost the physical and mental health of city dwellers in an hour-long webinar to be held on 25 March.
UNSW Canberra Space launches world-leading CubeSat satellites
Monday, 22 March 2021 06:53 Write a comment
UNSW Canberra Space's M2 CubeSat satellites successfully launched with Rocket Lab's 'They Go Up So Fast' mission from New Zealand earlier today, representing a significant step forward in Australia's sovereign space capabilities.
The M2 mission, a collaboration between UNSW Canberra Space and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), brings together emerging technologies that deliver advanced