Long Beach CA (SPX) Apr 20, 2023
Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB) is taking the next major step in evolving the Electron launch vehicle into a reusable rocket by launching a pre-flown Rutherford engine. The 3D printed engine, previously flown on the 'There and Back Again' mission launched in May 2022, has undergone extensive qualification and acceptance testing to certify it for re-flight, including multiple full mission dur

Colorado Springs CO (SPX) Apr 20, 2023
Phantom Space Corporation (Phantom), a space applications company providing small-class launch services to commercial and government clients has announced the selection of Arnhem Space Centre (ASC) on the Gove Peninsula in Australia's Northern Territory for a dedicated launch site. The Arnhem Space Centre expands Phantom's space launch capabilities with direct access to very low-inclinatio

Washington DC (SPX) Apr 20, 2023
To help guide NASA's efforts over the next decade, the agency has released its Planetary Defense Strategy and Action Plan. For three decades, NASA has engaged in studying near-Earth objects (NEOs), asteroids and comets that orbit the Sun and come within 30 million miles of our planet's orbit. While NEOs have the potential to help planetary scientists better understand the birth and formati

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Apr 20, 2023
A planetary scientist at NAU is part of a Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) mission to travel to Mars and survey the planet's two moons, including collecting a sample from one and returning it to Earth. Christopher Edwards, an associate professor in the Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science, received a six-year, $650,000 grant for the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) miss

Pasadena CA (JPL) Apr 20, 2023
Curiosity is carefully and patiently driving up a local canyon, named Marker Band valley, across a variably tilting surface that is scattered with horizontally banded bedrock and patches of sand. Can you imagine how fun and challenging it would be to scramble up the pass over this bumpy, uneven, and sandy terrain? As the rover continues her ascent up Marker Band valley, the rocks continue

Paris (ESA) Apr 20, 2023
Now in its fifth year in space, NASA's TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) remains a rousing success. TESS's cameras have mapped more than 93% of the entire sky, discovered 329 new worlds and thousands more candidates, and provided new insights into a wide array of cosmic phenomena, from stellar pulsations and exploding stars to supermassive black holes. Using its four cameras, TE

Gottingen, Germany (SPX) Apr 20, 2023
Stars that contain comparatively large amounts of heavy elements provide less favourable conditions for the emergence of complex life than metal-poor stars, as scientists from the Max Planck Institutes for Solar System Research and for Chemistry as well as from the University of Gottingen have now found. The team showed how the metallicity of a star is connected to the ability of its planets to

London, UK (SPX) Apr 20, 2023
Lunar exploration is undergoing a renaissance. Dozens of missions, organised by multiple space agencies - and increasingly by commercial companies - are set to visit the Moon by the end of this decade. Most of these will involve small robotic spacecraft, but NASA's ambitious Artemis programme, aims to return humans to the lunar surface by the middle of the decade. There are various reasons

Investment activity is picking up again for young space companies as growth-stage capital returns following market uncertainty in 2022, according to investors on an April 18 Space Symposium panel.