Copernical Team
Part of Wright brothers' 1st airplane on NASA's Mars chopper
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A piece of the Wright brothers' first airplane is on Mars.
NASA's experimental Martian helicopter holds a small swatch of fabric from the 1903 Wright Flyer, the space agency revealed Tuesday.
NASA will attempt first off-world flight in early April
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NASA is targeting early April for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter to make the first attempt at powered, controlled flight on another planet, the space agency said Tuesday.
Right now, the ultra-light aircraft remains fixed to the belly of the Perseverance rover, which touched down on the Red Planet on February 18.
On Sunday, Perseverance dropped the debris shield that had protected Ingenuity during landing, and is currently making its way to the "airfield" where Ingenuity will attempt its flights.
Once there, it will have 30 Martian sols—equal to 31 Earth days—to carry out its mission.
"The best guess we have right now is April 8," for the first flight, said Bob Balaram, Mars Helicopter chief engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, though he added it could be sooner or later by a few days.
Balaram revealed for the first time that Ingenuity is carrying a small piece of cloth that covered one of the wings of the Wright brothers' first aircraft that achieved the first powered flight on Earth at Kitty Hawk in 1903, to pay tribute to the milestone.
Is the nearest star cluster to the Sun being destroyed?
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Data from ESA’s Gaia star mapping satellite have revealed tantalising evidence that the nearest star cluster to the Sun is being disrupted by the gravitational influence of a massive but unseen structure in our galaxy.
RAF reportedly braced for 'Space War' over claims Russia tested 'anti-satellite weapons'
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The head of the UK Space Directorate, Air Vice-Marshal Harvey Smyth, expressed concern in December 2020 over Russia having allegedly conducted a new space test of anti-satellite weapons, without providing any evidence, claiming the "consequences of miscalculations and accidents have the potential to be catastrophic".
Britain's Royal Air Force is facing an immediate need to "catch up with i Pentagon wants new Command and Control System to counter hypersonic threats
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In 2017, Russia became the first country in the world to deploy nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles, with their development begun after the US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and started building a missile shield. Moscow sees the weapons as a guarantee against decapitation strikes. China also has a successful hypersonics programme.
The US Missile Defence Agency (MDA), the a Rocket Lab launches 100th satellite
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Rocket Lab, a leading launch provider and space systems company, has successfully launched its 19th Electron mission and deployed six spacecraft to orbit for a range of government and commercial customers. The mission, named 'They Go Up So Fast,' also deployed Rocket Lab's latest in-house manufactured Photon spacecraft to build flight heritage ahead of the upcoming CAPSTONE mission to the Moon f Kymeta Interoperability with Kepler LEO sats promises powerful connectivity of the Kymeta u8 Terminal
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Kymeta and Kepler Communications have announced the successful demonstration of the Kymeta u8 Terminal with LEO satellite acquisition, tracking and throughput measurements, during extreme cold weather temperatures. The collaboration with Kepler supports Kymeta's goal to develop solutions that are future proof with a clear LEO upgrade path and compatible with growing mega constellations.
In Deployable propulsion for satellites
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It took a large hangar to unfold the four ultra-lightweight booms, each made of carbon fibre-reinforced composites and 13.5 metres long, arranged in a cross shape. Researchers from the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) tested the booms twice in the aircraft hangar at the DLR site in Braunschweig.
In cooperation with the US space agency NASA, the aim i Astroscale confirms successful launch of ELSA-d satellite deorbiter
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Astroscale has confirmed the successful launch of its End-of-Life Services by Astroscale demonstration (ELSA-d) mission. This marks the start of the world's first commercial mission to prove the core technologies necessary for space debris docking and removal.
ELSA-d, which consists of two satellites stacked together - a servicer designed to safely remove debris from orbit and a client sat Algorithms inspired by social networks reveal lifecycle of substorms
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Space weather often manifests as substorms, where a beautiful auroral display such as the Northern Lights is accompanied by an electrical current in space which has effects at earth that can interfere with and damage power distribution and electrical systems. Now, the lifecycle of these auroral substorms has been revealed using social media-inspired mathematical tools to analyse space weather ob