...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

OneWeb's seventh launch

TAMPA, Fla. — OneWeb’s broadband constellation is set to pass the 200th mark after Arianespace successfully launched its latest batch of satellites May 28.

Arianespace launched 36 satellites on a Soyuz-2.1b rocket 1:38 p.m.

Starship

WASHINGTON — NASA released its fiscal year 2022 budget request May 28, asking for $24.8 billion to support a number of new and existing science and exploration programs but also proposing once again to cancel an airborne astronomical observatory.

A Russian Soyuz rocket carrying 36 UK telecommunication and internet satellites blasted off from the Vostochny cosmodrome in Russia's Far East on Friday, the space agency said.

During the , which was carried out by Arianespace, the world's leading satellite launch company, the Soyuz rocket took off at 1738 GMT.

"The launch went according to plan," Dmitry Rogozin, the head of the Roscosmos , said on messaging app Telegram.

The launch was originally scheduled for Thursday but was postponed for technical reasons.

OneWeb, a London-headquartered company, is working to complete the construction of a constellation of low earth orbit satellites providing enhanced broadband and other services to countries around the world.

The company is competing against billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos in the race to provide fast internet via satellites for the world's .

The UK company plans for its global commercial internet service to be operational by next year, supported by some 650 satellites.

Earlier launches of 36 satellites each took place in April and March.

"The satellites arrive pre-assembled from Florida in containers. Our team takes them over in Russia and accompanies them from their arrival at the airport until the launch," Arianespace launch campaign manager, Jean-Claude Garreau, told AFP.

SpaceX CRS-22 mission to space station launches water bears, squid, solar panels
Cell Science-04 flies tardigrades, or water bears, to the space station for a study seeking to identify the genes involved in its adaptation and survival in high stress environments. Credit: Thomas Boothby, University of Wyoming

The 22nd SpaceX cargo resupply mission carrying scientific research and technology demonstrations launches to the International Space Station from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida no earlier than June 3. Experiments aboard include studying how water bears tolerate space, whether microgravity affects symbiotic relationships, analyzing the formation of kidney stones, and more.

Highlights of the payloads on this resupply mission include:

Water bears take on space

Tardigrades, known as due to their appearance under a microscope and common habitat in water, are tiny creatures that tolerate environments more extreme than most life forms can.

Researchers develop better ways to culture living heart cells on the International Space Station
Detection of cardiac structural proteins, stained green, in a cell derived from stem cells. The nucleus is stained blue. Credit: Antonio Rampoldi, Cardiomyocyte Stem Cell Laboratory, Emory University School of Medicine

As part of preparing for an experiment aboard the International Space Station, researchers explored new ways to culture living heart cells for microgravity research. They found that cryopreservation, a process of storing cells at -80°C, makes it easier to transport these cells to the orbiting lab, providing more flexibility in launch and operations schedules. The process could benefit other biological research in space and on Earth.

The investigation, MVP Cell-03, cultured heart precursor on the station to study how microgravity affects the number of cells produced and how many of them survive.

WASHINGTON — President Biden’s $715 billion defense budget proposal for 2022 includes $17.4 billion for the U.S. Space Force, about $2.2 billion more than what Congress enacted in 2021.

The proposed $715 billion defense budget is $11.3 billion more than what Congress appropriated in 2021.

SES teleport

TAMPA, Fla. — As bitter legal disputes and billion-dollar price tags dominate headlines around C-band, work is frantically underway to clear the spectrum for U.S. terrestrial 5G wireless operators.

Satellite operators Intelsat and SES, which stand to gain the most from clearing the frequencies in time, are nearing a June 1 internal housekeeping milestone for vacating part of the band this December.

Researchers prepare to send fungi for a ride around the moon
Drs. Zachary Schultzhaus (left), Zheng Wang (center), and Jillian Romsdahl (right) from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory's fungal biology research team observe a fungal agar plate in Washington, D.C., Nov. 13, 2019.

Week in images: 24 - 28 May 2021

Friday, 28 May 2021 12:43

Week in images: 24 - 28 May 2021

Discover our week through the lens

Video: 00:04:10

In the midst of COVID restrictions rendering travel close to impossible, ESA had to produce an ambitious video to call for applications to the 2021 astronaut selection.

The challenge of this project was to show locations as varied as a spaceship, a city, a canyon, a forest, ESA's satellite testing or control centres, Europe's space port in Kourou, or even the Moon. 
To create the illusion of immersing the protagonists into these various environments, ESA teamed up with Duck Factory to use a "Virtual Set": a new technology, that has not yet been used to the full extent of

WASHINGTON — The bipartisan leadership of the House Science Committee has asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate NASA’s cybersecurity activities amid growing concerns about hacking of government computer systems.

In a May 27 letter, the top Democrats and Republicans of the committee requested the GAO investigate the “cybersecurity risks to the sensitive data” associated with major NASA programs.

ESA astronaut Samantha Christoforetti trains for her second space mission

ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti is expected to serve as International Space Station commander for Expedition 68, following an in-principle agreement by international partners on 19 May, pending consolidation of the Space Station’s operational plans and launch dates. 

Earth from Space: The Great Lakes

Friday, 28 May 2021 07:00
All five of North America’s Great Lakes are pictured in this spectacular image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission.

All five of North America’s Great Lakes are pictured in this spectacular image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission: Lake Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario.

Navigation error sends NASA's Mars helicopter on wild ride
This May 22, 2021 photo made available by NASA shows the surface of Mars from a height of 33 feet (10 meters), captured by the Ingenuity Mars helicopter during its sixth flight. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech via AP

A navigation timing error sent NASA's little Mars helicopter on a wild, lurching ride, its first major problem since it took to the Martian skies last month.

The experimental helicopter, named Ingenuity, managed to land safely, officials at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory reported Thursday.

The trouble cropped up about a minute into the helicopter's sixth test flight last Saturday at an altitude of 33 feet (10 meters). One of the numerous pictures taken by an on-board camera did not register in the navigation system, throwing the entire timing sequence off and confusing the craft about its location.

Galileo Second Generation

Acting on behalf of the European Commission, ESA has signed two contracts for an overall amount of €1.47 billion, to design and build the first batch of the second generation of Europe’s Galileo navigation satellites.

Page 1799 of 2017