Copernical Team
New standard will aid in classification of commercial spaceflight safety events
ASTM's commercial spaceflight committee (F47) has approved a new standard that will help to enhance commercial spaceflight safety. The standard (F3550) provides guidance to space flight operators on classifying safety-related events.
"This new standard will help to classify events based on severity and impact," says ASTM International member Oscar Garcia, chairman and CEO, InterFlight Glob Rocket Lab catches rocket booster returning from space with helicopter
Rocket Lab (Nasdaq: RKLB) has successfully launched its 26th Electron mission, deploying 34 satellites to orbit. Rocket Lab has now deployed a total of 146 satellites to orbit with the Electron launch vehicle.
The "There And Back Again" mission also saw Rocket Lab complete a mid-air capture of the Electron booster with a helicopter for the first time. After launching to space, Electron's first China is building an asteroid deflection mission of its own, due for launch in 2025
There's an old joke that the dinosaurs are only extinct because they didn't develop a space agency. The implication, of course, is that unlike our reptilian ancestors, we humans might be able to save ourselves from an impending asteroid strike on Earth, given our six-and-a-half decades of spaceflight experience. But the fact is that while we have achieved amazing things since Sputnik kicked off the space age in 1957, very little effort thus far has gone into developing asteroid deflection technologies. We are woefully inexperienced in this arena, and aside from our Hollywood dramatizations of it, we've never yet put our capabilities to the test. But that's about to change.
Wu Yanhua, deputy head of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), announced last week that they plan to carry out an asteroid deflection test as early as 2025—part of a larger asteroid monitoring and defense system that the CNSA is in the early stages of developing.
Amid tensions on Earth, the United States claims that 'conflict in space is not inevitable'
In 1996, Joseph W. Ashy, former U.S. commander-in-chief of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, famously said: "We're going to fight in space. We're going to fight from space and we're going to fight into space."
In less than three decades since then, we've seen the establishment of the U.S. Space Force, anti-satellite weapons testing by major spacefaring nations and the rapid development of weapons that can interfere with, disrupt or destroy space assets.
No wonder there are many concerns about the potential of war in space. But the belief in the inevitability of space becoming the next major battlefield runs the risk of becoming, as space law expert Steven Freeland writes, "a self-fulfilling prophecy if care and restraint is not exercised."
It is therefore refreshing that, on April 18, U.S.
Spacesuit waltz| Cosmic Kiss
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Join ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer, and his Crew-3 mates NASA astronauts Kayla Barron, Raja Chari and Thomas Marshburn, as they check out their Crew Dragon launch and entry suits before they return to Earth.
The spacesuits are custom-made for each crew member and protect the astronauts from potential fire and depressurisation in the crew capsule. A single connection point on the thigh, connects the spacesuits to the life support system that supplies the astronauts with oxygen and power, as well as cooling and communication systems.
The suits are equipped with touchscreen-compatible gloves and a flame-resistant outer layer and can
Inflight call with Samantha and Matthias
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ESA astronauts Samantha Cristoforetti and Matthias Maurer, currently on board the International Space Station, discuss their brief handover with Josef Aschbacher, Director General of ESA, Walther Pelzer, Head of the German Space Agency at DLR, and Giorgio Saccoccia, Head of the Italian Space Agency ASI.
Samantha arrived at the Station with Crew-4 on 28 April 2022, marking the start of her second space mission Minerva. Matthias is coming to the end of his almost six-month-long first mission Cosmic Kiss. He is expected to return to Earth in early May aboard Crew Dragon Endurance as a member of Crew-3.
Europe's Spaceport: industrial service contract opportunities
ESA is inviting European space and non-space companies to get involved in the industrial service contracts of the French space agency, CNES, in its operational and maintenance activities at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.
Watch live: joint call with ESA astronauts Samantha Cristoforetti and Matthias Maurer in orbit
What’s better than one ESA astronaut on the International Space Station? Two ESA astronauts on the Space Station! And they’ll be in conversation with ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher, Head of the German space agency DLR Walther Pelzer and Head of the Italian apace agency ASI Giorgio Saccoccia today.
Purdue and Duke Energy to explore potential for clean, nuclear power source for campus
Purdue University and Duke Energy announced today (April 27) that they plan to jointly explore the feasibility of using advanced nuclear energy to meet the campus community's long-term energy needs.
With interest rising worldwide in new technologies that are reliable and carbon-free, Purdue and Duke Energy intend to study power produced through Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), a move that ma In Einstein's footsteps and beyond
In physics, as in life, it's always good to look at things from different perspectives.
Since the beginning of quantum physics, how light moves and interacts with matter around it has mostly been described and understood mathematically through the lens of its energy. In 1900, Max Planck used energy to explain how light is emitted by heated objects, a seminal study in the foundation of quan