...the who's who,
and the what's what 
of the space industry

Space Careers

news Space News

Search News Archive

Title

Article text

Keyword

Write a comment
This screengrab made from SpaceX's live webcast shows the Starship SN10 prototype during a test flight after engines were ignite
This screengrab made from SpaceX's live webcast shows the Starship SN10 prototype during a test flight after engines were ignited just before the test was aborted

SpaceX is preparing for a possible launch of its prototype interplanetary Starship rocket from the company's facility in south Texas on Monday afternoon.

The company is hoping to finally perform a successful after the last three attempts ended in spectacular explosions.

"I have ordered the closure of Boca Chica Beach and Hwy 4 for the purpose of protecting and safety during SpaceX space flight activities on March 29," Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino Jr said in a statement.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk also tweeted on Sunday about the "Possible Starship flight tomorrow afternoon.

Write a comment
Proba-3 satellites form artificial eclipse

The longest corridor in ESA’s largest establishment was turned into a test site for one of the Agency’s most ambitious future missions, Proba-3. The two satellites making up this mission will line up so that one casts a shadow onto the other, revealing inner regions of the Sun’s ghostly atmosphere. But such precision formation flying will only be possible through a vision-based sensor system allowing one satellite to lock onto the other.

Image: Engine of Atlantis

Sunday, 28 March 2021 13:50
Write a comment
Image: Engine of Atlantis
Credit: Airbus

The second European Service Module that will power the Orion spacecraft on a crewed flyby of the moon is fitted with a special engine at Airbus facilities in Germany.

This engine belonged to Space Shuttle Atlantis, and is one of five refurbished engines to be paired with the first five European Service Modules. Technicians carefully install the engine in Airbus' cleanroom.

ESM is the powerhouse of NASA's Orion spacecraft. It will provide critical functions such as the propulsion system to get astronauts to the moon, and the consumables astronauts need to stay alive.

ESM-2 will fuel the crewed Orion spacecraft during a flyby of the moon for Artemis 2 and is currently undergoing integration and other testing in Europe before it is delivered to NASA this summer.

Meanwhile in the United States, the first European Service Module is making its way to the as part of the Orion spacecraft for the Artemis 1 mission test flight later this year. Next stop is fuelling, due to take place next week.

ESM is ESA's contribution to NASA's Artemis program and includes involvement from 10 European nations.

Write a comment
Exploring the moon’s shadowed regions using beamed energy

In less than three years, astronauts will return to the moon for the first time since the Apollo Era. As part of the Artemis Program, the purpose is not only to send crewed missions back to the lunar surface to explore and collect samples. This time around, there's also the goal of establishing vital infrastructure (like the Lunar Gateway and a Base Camp) that will allow for "sustained lunar exploration."

A key requirement for this ambitious plan is the provision of , which can be difficult in regions like the South Pole-Aitken Basin—a cratered region that is permanently-shadowed. To address this, a researcher from the NASA Langley Research Center named Charles Taylor has proposed a novel concept known as "Light Bender." Using telescope optics, this system would to capture and distribute sunlight on the moon.

The Light Bender concept was one of 16 proposals that were selected for Phase I of the 2021 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, which is overseen by NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD). As with previous NIAC submissions, those proposals that were selected represent a broad range of innovative ideas that could help advance NASA's space exploration goals.

Measuring shoreline retreat

Sunday, 28 March 2021 09:45
Write a comment
Annual mean shoreline change: Start Bay, Devon

Climate change is having an undeniable influence on coastal areas. A substantial proportion of the world’s sandy coastlines are already eroding owing to increased storm surges, flooding and sea level rise. With our coastal environments in constant change, Earth observation satellites are being used to better strengthen our knowledge of changing coastlines.

Write a comment
London, UK (SPX) Mar 29, 2021
Scientists have long known that certain ingredients are needed to support life, especially water and key organic chemicals like carbon. In recent years, both ingredients have been found on giant asteroids and other celestial bodies. But, until now, no study had delivered conclusive evidence, based on extraterrestrial samples, to show how and when organic matter was made on the rocks that g
Write a comment
Beer-Sheva, Israel (SPX) Mar 26, 2021
Surprisingly, exposure to a high background radiation might actually lead to clear beneficial health effects in humans, according to Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Nuclear Research Center Negev (NRCN) scientists. This is the first large-scale study which examines the two major sources of background radiation (terrestrial radiation and cosmic radiation), covering the entire U.S. populatio
Write a comment
Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Mar 29, 2021
The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology has conducted an international joint experiment with the German Aerospace Center (DLR) between the optical terminal (OSIRISv1) onboard the University of Stuttgart's Flying Laptop satellite and NICT's optical ground station equipped with newly developed optical bench with fine-pointing system. In February 2021, success in receivi
Write a comment
Moscow (Sputnik) Mar 29, 2021
Humanity will mark the 60th anniversary of its first foray into space next month, with over 560 people from 41 countries reaching low Earth orbit, travelling beyond low Earth orbit, or even going to the Moon since cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's historic 12 April, 1961 flight. Cardiovascular disease was is the single most common cause of death among Soviet and Russian cosmonauts, a comprehensive
Write a comment
Herndon VA (SPX) Mar 26, 2021
BlackSky has announced that its latest Gen-2 satellite, BlackSky 7, delivered first insights within 24 hours of launch. Within that time frame, the BlackSky operations team conducted satellite checkout and the satellite collected its first images. At the same time, those images were downlinked, processed and analyzed using BlackSky's Spectra AI suite of AI/ML algorithms to detect objects of inte
Write a comment
McLean VA (SPX) Mar 29, 2021
OneWeb has announced a Memorandum of Understanding with US DoD satellite communications application specialist, TrustComm Inc. OneWeb and TrustComm will enable Low Earth Orbit (LEO) connectivity to government customers. The agreement, signed on 16 March, envisions OneWeb and TrustComm working together to deliver OneWeb's high speed, low latency, beyond line-of-sight communications services - wit
Write a comment
Cape Canaveral FL (SPX) Mar 26, 2021
The U.S. Space Force's Space and Missile Systems Center successfully delivered the fifth Space Based Infrared System satellite (SBIRS GEO-5) to the processing facility at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. The satellite traveled across the country from the Lockheed Martin Space Systems Center satellite integration facility in Sunnyvale, California via a C-5M Super Galaxy on March
Write a comment
Hirosawa, Japan (SPX) Mar 29, 2021
Astronomers are now in a better position to interpret observations of supernova remnants thanks to computer simulations of these cataclysmic events by RIKEN astrophysicists1. When certain types of stars die, they go out in a blaze of glory-an incredibly powerful explosion known as a supernova. One of the most common forms of supernova, type Ia, starts with a dense white dwarf star that has
Write a comment
Leuven, Germany (SPX) Mar 29, 2021
Until now, Europe has had two major collaborative networks for ground-based astronomy, one in the optical wavelength domain and the other in the radio-wave domain. OPTICON and RadioNet have now come together to form Europe's largest ground-based astronomy collaborative network. Launched with funding to the tune of euro 15 million under the H2020 programme, the project aims to harmonise ob
Write a comment
Helsinki, Finland (SPX) Mar 29, 2021
In the recent past, space missions dedicated to the study of astrophysical signals in the high-energy spectrum revealed a series of enigmatic excesses not predicted by the theoretical models. In order to find an explanation for these anomalies, many solutions have been proposed. The most exciting hypothesis invokes the contribution of the elusive dark matter, the mysterious form of matter 4 time
Page 1768 of 1902