WASHINGTON — Blue Origin flew a new model of its New Shepard suborbital vehicle Jan. 14, a flight the company says brings it “really close” to finally flying people.

The New Shepard vehicle lifted off from Blue Origin’s West Texas test site at 12:17 p.m.

SAN FRANCISCO – Hanwha Aerospace, South Korea’s largest defense company, announced plans Jan. 14 to invest approximately $100 million to purchase 30% of the shares of satellite manufacturer Satrec Initiative.

Once the deal is completed, Satrec Initiative, a firm known for manufacturing small and medium-size Earth-observation satellites, will be managed independently but will have access to additional resources through the Hanwha Group, South Korea’s largest industrial conglomerate, including Hanwha Aerospace’s radar and infrared technologies, according to the news release.

On Jan. 13, 2021, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, experienced its first lunar transit of the year when the moon crossed its view of the sun. The transit lasted about 30 minutes, between 12:56 and 1:25 a.m. ET. During this time, the moon happened to cover two of the spacecraft's fine-guidance sensors, causing its view of the sun to jitter slightly. SDO recovered a steady view shortly after the transit.

SDO sees lunar transits regularly. Due to its inclined circular orbit 23,000 miles above Earth, the moon passes between SDO and the sun between two and five times each year.

SDO captured these images in a wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light. This kind of light is invisible to human eyes, and colorized here in red.

WASHINGTON — The first in SpaceX’s new generation of Dragon cargo spacecraft completed its mission with a splashdown off the Florida coast Jan. 13.

The CRS-21 Dragon spacecraft splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico west of Tampa at 8:26 p.m.

A replay of our start-of-year press conference with ESA Director General Jan Wörner, future Director General Josef Aschbacher and other ESA Directors, held online on Thursday, 14 January 2021.

They looked ahead at Europe's space activities in 2021 and answered questions from media. Highlights in 2021 include two ESA astronauts flying to the International Space Station, the new James Webb Space Telescope being launched from the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, and the launch of NASA’s first Artemis mission, in a programme that will take humans to the Moon powered by ESA’s European Service Module.

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Have you heard of polyurethanes? As you read this, you’re undoubtedly close to some, or maybe sitting on them: this versatile class of chemicals is used for everything from padding your couch to insulating your windows, packaging food to carpet underlay, electronics casings to skateboard wheels. They also have vital uses in space, triggering a new ESA Clean Space project aiming to manufacture them in a greener way.