NASA's OSIRIS-REx to Fly a Farewell Tour of Bennu
Monday, 08 February 2021 05:58
On April 7, NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission will give asteroid Bennu one last glance before saying farewell. Before departing for Earth on May 10, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will perform a final flyby of Bennu - capturing its last images of sample collection site Nightingale to look for transformations on Bennu's surface after the Oct. 20, 2020, sample collection event.
The OSIRIS-REx mission tea Orbit Logic Tackles Autonomous Lunar Exploration with Robotic Swarms
Monday, 08 February 2021 05:58
Orbit Logic has been awarded a Phase I Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) contract sponsored by NASA to develop the Intelligent Navigation, Planning, and Awareness for Swarm Systems (IN-PASS) solution - an autonomous planning architecture supporting collaborative Lunar exploration with teams of humans cooperating with heterogeneous swarms of orbital (satellite) and surface (rover) assets. ABL Space Systems to power first UK Vertical Satellite Launch
Monday, 08 February 2021 05:58
Lockheed Martin has contracted ABL Space Systems, of El Segundo, California, a developer of low-cost launch vehicles and launch systems for the small satellite industry, to supply a rocket and associated launch services for the company's first UK vertical satellite launch.
The project known as UK Pathfinder Launch is planned to be the first ever vertical small satellite launch from UK soil Chang'e 4 lander, rover resume work on moon
Monday, 08 February 2021 05:58
The lander and rover of the Chang'e 4 probe have resumed work for their 27th lunar day on the far side of the moon.
The Yutu 2 rover activated at 4:26 am on Saturday and the lander activated just over 12 hours later, the China National Space Administration's Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center said.
Yutu 2 has traveled about 628.5 meters on the far side of the moon. It is now OneSpace launches another private carrier rocket
Monday, 08 February 2021 05:58
The OS-X6B suborbital rocket, developed and made by OneSpace Technology, blasted off from a launch site in China's northwest at 17:05:05 on Friday.
With a length of 9.4 meters, the rocket Chongqing Liangjiang Star flew about 580 seconds and traveled 300 kilometers above the earth.
The test load was successfully separated and the entire flight was normal. This launch successfully comp Mikhail Kokorich resigns his CEO position in Momentus Space
Monday, 08 February 2021 05:58
Mikhail Kokorich has had to resign as his company develops dual-use technologies that can be used in civil and military spheres. The US government wants to keep them restricted from foreign access. As the details became known, Mikhail Kokorich the Russian founder and CEO of the American space startup Momentus Space resigned following publication of materials proving his illegitimate involvement in secret space technologies. Former Tomnod CEO joins Spire Global to lead aviation unit
Monday, 08 February 2021 00:58
SAN FRANCISCO – Shay Har-Noy, former Tomnod founder and CEO, has joined Spire Global as the company’s general manager of the aviation systems business unit.
Har-Noy has been acutely aware of aviation’s need for satellite data since 2014 when Tomnod enlisted the help of more than 10 million people to tag oil slicks, wreckage and rafts in satellite data in an effort to locate Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370, which disappeared with 239 passengers and crewmembers.
Cloud computing services changing the calculus for space startups
Sunday, 07 February 2021 23:06
WASHINGTON — The cloud computing industry is developing new products and services aimed at space companies that want to monetize data without having to invest in infrastructure, executives said Feb. 8 at the SmallSat Symposium.
Satellite imagery is not yet flowing like water from a tap
Sunday, 07 February 2021 21:35
SAN FRANCISCO – Companies are collecting more Earth imagery from satellites than ever before, but for some customers the data remains too expensive and too difficult to consume.
That was the consensus from a panel of Earth-observation experts speaking Feb.
Space industry investment continues to grow
Sunday, 07 February 2021 20:51
WASHINGTON — Nearly a year after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic raised fears of a slowdown in commercial space investment, experts say the industry is, in fact, doing better than ever.
During a panel discussion at the 2021 SmallSat Symposium Feb.
Camera captures the Southern Pinwheel galaxy in glorious detail
Sunday, 07 February 2021 20:40
New technique used to discover how galaxies grow
Sunday, 07 February 2021 20:38
For decades, space and ground telescopes have provided us with spectacular images of galaxies. These building blocks of the universe usually contain several million to over a trillion stars and can range in size from a few thousand to several hundred thousand light-years across.
Tricky terrain: Helping to assure a safe rover landing
Sunday, 07 February 2021 20:38
After a nearly seven-month journey to Mars, NASA's Perseverance rover is slated to land at the Red Planet's Jezero Crater Feb.
Op-ed | In defense of regulation
Sunday, 07 February 2021 17:34
Steve Blank’s op-ed of Feb. 5, “The FAA and SpaceX,” demands an informed rebuttal. Public debate over the appropriate level of regulation within any industry is appropriate in our democracy. However, Mr. Blank’s arguments lack grounding in the history and nature of private space activity regulation and he erroneously conflates that mission with the FAA’s primary task of regulating the safest transportation system in human history.
Mars missions from China and UAE are set to go into orbit – here's what they could discover
Sunday, 07 February 2021 15:06How times have changed since the Apollo era. Within the space of a few days, two space missions from China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), respectively, are set to reach Mars. The UAE's Hope mission will go into orbit around Mars on February 9. The next day, the Chinese Tianwen-1 mission – an orbiter and lander—will swing into orbit, with a predicted landing date sometime in May.
It is a very big moment for both countries. Hope is the first interplanetary mission by an Arab nation ever. And if China succeeds, it will be the first country ever to visit and land on Mars on its first try. The odds are stacked against them with nearly 50% of all Mars missions failing. China already lost a Mars orbiter mission (Yinghuo-1) back in 2011.
But before the missions can start doing science, tense moments await. As they arrive at the planet, they need to trigger a burn of their engines just at the right time to slow the probes down so they can be captured by Mars' gravitational field. Given the large distance from Earth, this needs to be carried out automatically by the probe.
Tianwen-1
If all goes well, the orbiter Tianwen, which means "Questions to Heaven" and the yet unnamed rover will attempt to measure Mars's climate and "ionosphere", a layer of electrically charged particles surrounding the planet.