Northrop Grumman designs protected Tactical SATCOM Payload Prototype for the Space Force
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 06:16Northrop Grumman Corporation has been selected by the U.S. Space Force's (USSF) Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) to proceed with its ongoing Protected Tactical SATCOM (PTS) Rapid Prototype program, with a flight demonstration of the company's PTS payload set to occur in 2024. Selected for the initial award through the Space Enterprise Consortium, this continuation enables Northrop Gr
North Korea's satellites in orbit not transmitting data
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 06:16North Korean satellites launched into orbit are either unstable or not fully operational, and a reconnaissance satellite launched in February 2016 is not relaying data, a South Korean analyst said. Song Geun-ho, a professor at Korea Defense Language Institute at South Korea's Joint Forces Military University, said in a new report on North Korea's space program that Pyongyang's claims of vi
AFRL Inspire to feature special guest speaker from Space Operations Command
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 06:16Wright-Patterson AFB OH (SPX) Apr 23, 2021 AFRL Inspire, a two-hour special event with eight TEDx-style talks, will be livestreamed from the Air Force Institute of Technology's Kenney Hall Auditorium April 28 beginning at 2 p.m. EDT. Inspire showcases the innovative ideas and passionate people AFRL has to offer as they provide entertaining and thought-provoking talks, share personal stories and
On a changing planet, NASA goes Green
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 06:16NASA is responsible for collecting much of the data that people use to explain humanity's environmental impact on Earth, from documenting climate change and its impacts on ice, sea level and weather patterns, to monitoring the health of forests and the movement of freshwater. But NASA doesn't just report the data. It also acts on it. NASA facilities across the United States are each
ALMA discovers rotating infant galaxy with help of natural cosmic telescope
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 06:16Using the Atacama ALMA array, astronomers found a rotating baby galaxy 1/100th the size of the Milky Way at a time when the Universe was only seven percent of its present age. Thanks to assistance by the gravitational lens effect, the team was able to explore for the first time the nature of small and dark "normal galaxies" in the early Universe, representative of the main population of the firs
Blue Origin protests NASA choice of SpaceX to land astronauts on Moon
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 05:25Blue Origin, the US space company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, on Monday filed a protest against NASA's choice of rival SpaceX to build the module that will land the next US astronauts on the Moon. "NASA has executed a flawed acquisition for the Human Landing System program and moved the goalposts at the last minute," Blue Origin said in a statement sent to AFP. The decision "elimi
Robotic spacecraft will fly to asteroid, comet
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 05:25Chinese scientists and engineers have begun to develop a robotic spacecraft to collect samples from an asteroid and have performed many ground tests, a top scientist said. Ye Peijian, a leading spacecraft researcher at the China Academy of Space Technology, said Chinese researchers have chosen 2016 HO3, the smallest and closest "quasi-satellite" to Earth, as the target. "We plan to u
Reusable plane project aims for low orbit
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 05:25China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp, a major defense contractor, plans to produce a reusable aerospace plane and put it into commercial flight by 2030. The plane will take off from and land on a conventional runway like a jetliner and will be capable of flying in near space or even into outer space. The low-cost aircraft will have high-quality safety features and will be used to fulf
Icy clouds could have kept early Mars warm enough for rivers and lakes, study finds
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 05:25One of the great mysteries of modern space science is neatly summed up by the view from NASA's Perseverance, which just landed on Mars: Today it's a desert planet, and yet the rover is sitting right next to an ancient river delta. The apparent contradiction has puzzled scientists for decades, especially because at the same time that Mars had flowing rivers, it was getting less than a third
Star light, star bright as explained by math
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 05:25Not all stars shine brightly all the time. Some have a brightness that changes rhythmically due to cyclical phenomena like passing planets or the tug of other stars. Others show a slow change in this periodicity over time that can be difficult to discern or capture mathematically. KAUST's Soumya Das and Marc Genton have now developed a method to bring this evolving periodicity within the framewo
Probing deep space with Interstellar
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 01:00When the four-decades-old Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft entered interstellar space in 2012 and 2018, respectively, scientists celebrated. These plucky spacecraft had already traveled 120 times the distance from the Earth to the sun to reach the boundary of the heliosphere, the bubble encompassing our solar system that's affected by the solar wind. The Voyagers discovered the edge of the bubble but left scientists with many questions about how our Sun interacts with the local interstellar medium. The twin Voyagers' instruments provide limited data, leaving critical gaps in our understanding of this region.
Blue Origin protests NASA Human Landing System award
Monday, 26 April 2021 21:13WASHINGTON — Blue Origin filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office April 26 over NASA’s decision to select only SpaceX for its Human Landing System (HLS) program, arguing the agency “moved the goalposts” of the competition.
Startup and established IoT satellite operators exchange blows in regulatory battle
Monday, 26 April 2021 20:29TAMPA, Fla. — U.S.-based startup Swarm Technologies and 28-year old Orbcomm, both pursuing the fast-growing market for connecting Internet of Things (IoT) sensors to satellites, are locked in a regulatory tussle over plans to expand overseas.
Orbcomm is challenging a letter the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) sent March 10, which aimed to clarify how it and Swarm would share spectrum in Very High Frequency (VHF) bands worldwide.
Delta 4 Heavy sends spy satellite to orbit in ULA’s first launch of 2021
Monday, 26 April 2021 20:08WASHINGTON — United Launch Alliance launched a classified National Reconnaissance Office spy satellite on a Delta 4 Heavy rocket April 26 at 1:47 p.m. Pacific from Space Launch Complex-6 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
More patrols, fewer boaters for SpaceX splashdown Wednesday
Monday, 26 April 2021 19:18The astronauts flying SpaceX back to Earth this week urged boaters to stay safe by staying away from their capsule's splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.
NASA and SpaceX are promising more Coast Guard patrols and fewer pleasure boaters for Wednesday afternoon's planned splashdown off the Florida panhandle coast near Tallahassee—the company's second return of a crew.