Albedo wins Air Force contract to supply thermal imagery at night
Thursday, 27 April 2023 16:43
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Earth observation startup Albedo announced a $1.25 million contract to provide the National Air and Space Intelligence Center with thermal infrared imagery for nighttime applications.
Italy’s post-pandemic space industry boost
Thursday, 27 April 2023 14:23 Write a comment
An Italian Earth observation project funded by pandemic relief euros has ordered at least 34 satellites and a pair of Vega launches in recent months.
NASA's Voyager will do more science with new power strategy
Thursday, 27 April 2023 12:30 Write a comment
The plan will keep Voyager 2's science instruments turned on a few years longer than previously anticipated, enabling yet more revelations from interstellar space.
Launched in 1977, the Voyager 2 spacecraft is more than 12 billion miles (20 billion kilometers) from Earth, using five science instruments to study interstellar space.
Sustainability in space—can you teach old satellites new tricks?
Thursday, 27 April 2023 12:13 Write a comment
We've all heard that we should "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" to save the planet, but what about applying any of the "three R's" to space?
Researchers at USC Viterbi's Information Sciences Institute (ISI) are tackling this challenge—looking at how to reuse physical items that are already in space, namely, old satellites.
Legacy Satellites
There are currently several thousand satellites orbiting Earth. Many have already completed their missions or have outlived their primary lifespans—these are "legacy satellites." And while some of them may have broken hardware and will eventually run out of energy, leave orbit, and burn out in space, others are physically in good condition. So, the question becomes: what to do with them?
Alefiya Hussain, ISI Research Team Leader explained, "This project is looking at ways to possibly reuse satellites for different things. We are collaborating with the software company Tangram Flex to figure out how we can replace the software components within the satellites to re-purpose them."
She continued, "The approach we've taken is to look inside the satellite and say, this particular piece of software did this particular function before, can we actually replace that function to make it do something else as a path to repurposing it?"
China plans full reusability for its super heavy Long March 9 rocket
Thursday, 27 April 2023 10:27 Write a comment
China is planning to make a fully reusable version of its Long March 9 rocket designed to launch infrastructure and deep space missions.
Could you be ESA’s official merchandise supplier?
Thursday, 27 April 2023 10:15 Write a comment
ESA is inviting companies with an interest in merchandising to submit a tender to become the space agency’s official ESA-branded merchandise supplier.
Another giant leap into space: Successful launch of Lumelite-4 to enhance maritime communications
Thursday, 27 April 2023 09:37 Write a comment
A microsatellite for maritime communications developed by the Satellite Technology And Research Centre (STAR) under the National University of Singapore's College of Design and Engineering (NUS CDE), and A*STAR's Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), has been successfully launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikotta, India, on Saturday, 22 April 2023 at 4.50pm (Singapore time). Arianegroup, Eutelsat And Magellium Selected To Improve French Space Surveillance Capabilities
Thursday, 27 April 2023 09:37 Write a comment
ArianeGroup, Eutelsat and Magellium have won a contract from the French space agency (CNES), as part of the space component of the France 2030. Investing for the Future plan, with the aim of enhancing space surveillance capabilities in order to substantially improve the security of space operations.
The consortium will provide CNES with a Space Situational Awareness (SSA) data service thro Voyager will do more science with new power strategy
Thursday, 27 April 2023 07:03 Write a comment
Launched in 1977, the Voyager 2 spacecraft is more than 12 billion miles (20 billion kilometers) from Earth, using five science instruments to study interstellar space. To help keep those instruments operating despite a diminishing power supply, the aging spacecraft has begun using a small reservoir of backup power set aside as part of an onboard safety mechanism. The move will enable the missio SpaceX aborts Starlink launch at last second, delays Falcon Heavy mission
Thursday, 27 April 2023 07:03 Write a comment
The SpaceX Starlink mission to send 46 Internet communications satellites into low Earth orbit was delayed again on Wednesday and will try again on Thursday.
The first attempt was scrubbed Tuesday morning just before the latest attempt on Wednesday from the Vandenberg Space Station in California on a reusable Falcon 9 rocket.
"Standing down from today's Falcon 9 launch of Starlin Out of gas in orbit? This US space company is here to help
Thursday, 27 April 2023 07:03 Write a comment
The US company Orbit Fab is aiming to produce the go-to "gas stations" in space, its CEO tells AFP, hoping its refueling technology will make the surging satellite industry more sustainable - and profitable.
The solar panels typically attached to satellites can generate energy for their onboard systems such as cameras and radios, but can't help the orbiting objects adjust their positions, e Creating new and better drugs with protein crystal growth experiments on the ISS
Thursday, 27 April 2023 07:03 Write a comment
For more than two decades, the International Space Station has provided a platform for growing and studying protein crystals. In the early days of microgravity research, scientists discovered that they protein crystals grown in space were more uniform and larger than those grown in Earth's gravity. Since then, drug companies and academic researchers have conducted hundreds of protein crystal gro New findings indicate gene-edited rice might survive in Martian soil
Thursday, 27 April 2023 07:03 Write a comment
Andy Weir's bestselling 2011 book, The Martian, features botanist Mark Watney's efforts to grow food on Mars after he becomes stranded there. While Watney's initial efforts focus on growing potatoes, new research presented at the 54th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference by a team of interdisciplinary researchers from the U of A suggests future Martian botanists like Watney may have a better o Sols 3812-3813: Tiny Sticks Poking Out at Us
Thursday, 27 April 2023 07:03 Write a comment
I am 'shadow' Geo science team lead (GeoSTL) today, helping a new colleague to learn the details of the role. It's so amazing that we train the next generation, in year 11 of our mission. I still remember my own training, as I wasn't part of the initial cohort of GeoSTLs.
Inspired by watching my colleague doing a great job, I went back through my notebook, and found out that one of the ear Juice's first taste of science from space
Thursday, 27 April 2023 07:03 Write a comment
ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, has recorded magnetic field data as its 10.6 m-long magnetometer boom deployed.
Juice launched on 14 April, with deployments and activation of its antennas, booms, sensors and instruments ongoing over the next months in a dedicated check-out period known as the commissioning phase.
The Juice magnetometer boom (J-MAG) was deployed on 21 April,