NASA launches baby squid and water bears to the International Space Station
Friday, 11 June 2021 12:07
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From worms to quail, the ISS has housed all kinds of creatures great and small over the years. Animal research in space is about to welcome some new members to the club.
Aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, 128 baby glow-in-the-dark bobtail squid and about 5,000 microscopic animals are headed to the ISS. The animals are tardigrades, better known as water bears, and they can be found everywhere on Earth.
Something fishy going on
The squid will be used to explore the effects of spaceflight on the interactions between microbes and animals. "Animals, including humans, rely on our microbes to maintain a healthy digestive and immune system. We do not fully understand how spaceflight alters these beneficial interactions," principal investigator Jamie Foster, a professor in the department of microbiology and cell science at the University of Florida, told the "BBC."
Prof. Foster added that the squid will "address these important issues in animal health." What makes the squid interesting is that they glow in the dark thanks to an organ in their sac.
Phase Four raises $26 million
Friday, 11 June 2021 09:53 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — Phase Four has raised $26 million in a Series B round that will allow it to accelerate production of its satellite electric propulsion systems.
The company announced June 11 it raised the round led by venture capital firm New Science Ventures LLC.
Voyage 2050 sets sail: ESA chooses future science mission themes
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ESA’s large-class science missions for the timeframe 2035-2050 will focus on moons of the giant Solar System planets, temperate exoplanets or the galactic ecosystem, and new physical probes of the early Universe.
New physical probes of the early Universe
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New physical probes of the early Universe Moons of the giant planets
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Moons of the giant planets Earth from Space: Chongqing, China
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Chongqing, the largest municipality in China, is featured in this Copernicus Sentinel-2 image.
Queqiao: The bridge between Earth and the far side of the moon
Friday, 11 June 2021 05:57 Write a comment
Because of a phenomenon called gravitational locking, the Moon always faces the Earth from the same side. This proved useful in the early lunar landing missions in the 20th century, as there was always a direct line of sight for uninterrupted radiocommunications between Earth ground stations and equipment on the Moon. However, gravitational locking makes exploring the hidden face of the moon - t ESA selects revolutionary Venus EnVision mission
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EnVision will be ESA's next Venus orbiter, providing a holistic view of the planet from its inner core to upper atmosphere to determine how and why Venus and Earth evolved so differently. The mission was selected by ESA's Science Programme Committee on 10 June as the fifth medium-class mission in the Agency's Cosmic Vision plan, targeting a launch in the early 2030s.
"A new era in the expl MIT study compares the four largest internet meganetworks
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In recent months, people have reported seeing a parade of star-like points passing across the night sky. The formation is not extraterrestrial, or even astrophysical in origin, but is in fact a line of satellites, recently launched by SpaceX, that will eventually be joined by many more to form Starlink, a "megaconstellation" that will wrap around the Earth as a global network designed to beam hi Iridium announces Operation Arctic Lynx
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Iridium Communications has announced Operation Arctic Lynx (OAL), a series of partnership-driven field exercises deploying Iridium and Iridium Connected technologies and involving more than 20 organizations, primarily focused above 60 degrees north latitude and stretching as far as 82 degrees north latitude.
Taking place between June 11 and June 26, 2021, OAL involves an international cont Marshall ships air filtration hardware to Wallops for ISS
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New air filtration technology developed, built, and tested at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, is bound for the International Space Station - where it will demonstrate advanced life support system capabilities that could help future explorers on the Moon and Mars breathe easier.
The new hardware, known as the 4-Bed Carbon Dioxide Scrubber, was shipped June 9 from NASA's space communications user terminal
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In the early days of cellphone use, each user was limited to their chosen provider's network and service capabilities. Restricting customers to service within one network led to high prices for out-of-network calls and limited value for customers. Cellphone providers long ago adopted roaming, allowing devices to jump from network to network without interrupting service and increasing competition Technology tests in microgravity for 'Cosmic Kiss' mission
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The 36th parabolic flight campaign organised by the German Space Agency at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) is taking place from 4 to 11 June 2021 at the airport in Paderborn. During the campaign, various technology tests for the 'Cosmic Kiss' mission to be flown by German ESA astronaut Matthias Mauer will be carried out under microgravity conditions, China reveals photos taken by Mars rover
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The China National Space Administration made public on Friday four pictures taken by the Tianwen 1 robotic mission, showing the Zhurong rover on Martian surface and scenes of its landing site.
Three pictures were taken by Zhurong's cameras, and display the rover's upper stage, its landing platform as well as environment of the landing site. Another one was shot Lunar sample tells ancient story with help of Curtin's world-class facilities
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Curtin University researchers have helped uncover the four billion year old story of a lunar sample brought from the Moon to Earth, by the manned Apollo 17 mission more than 50 years ago.
The global research collaboration, involving scientists from the UK, Canada, Sweden and Australia, aimed to analyse the ancient rock sample through a modern lens to find out its age, which crater it came