Launch postponed for Soyuz rocket with UK telecom satellites
Thursday, 27 May 2021 19:14
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The launch of a Soyuz rocket carrying 36 UK telecommunication and internet satellites has been postponed until Friday, the Russian space agency Roscosmos said.
OneWeb, a London-headquartered company, is working to complete the construction of a constellation of low earth orbit satellites providing enhanced broadband and other services to countries around the world.
The launch of the rocket operated by European company Arianespace was scheduled for 1743 GMT on Thursday from the Vostochny cosmodrome in Russia's Far East.
"For technical reasons, the launch...has been postponed to the reserve date," Roscosmos said in a statement on Thursday.
The space agency added that the postponed launch will take place on Friday, May 28 at 1738 GMT.
The launch was postponed "due to the replacement of one item of electrical equipment," launch operator Arianespace said on Twitter.
It added that the Soyuz rocket and the satellites are in "stable and safe condition".
So far two batches of 36 OneWeb satellites have been placed into orbit from Russia this year.
The UK company plans for its global commercial internet service to be operational by next year, supported by some 650 satellites.
To give astronauts better food, engineers test a fridge prototype in microgravity
Thursday, 27 May 2021 17:58 Write a comment
Astronauts have been going to space since 1961, but they still don't have a refrigerator to use for keeping food cold on long missions to the moon or Mars.
Through experiments conducted in microgravity, a team of engineers from Purdue University, Air Squared Inc., and Whirlpool Corporation has shown that a prototype they developed could potentially overcome the challenges of getting a traditional fridge to work in space just as well as it does on Earth.
The canned and dried food that astronauts currently eat during missions has a shelf life of only about three years. The team's project, funded by NASA's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, aims to give astronauts a supply of food that could last five to six years.
Competitor fears Musk's SpaceX could 'monopolise' space
Thursday, 27 May 2021 15:43 Write a comment
The launching of thousands of satellites into low Earth orbit by tech billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX threatens the "de-facto monopolisation" of space, the head of competitor Arianespace Stephane Israel has warned.
Elon Musk's Starlink constellation project recently received authorisation from US regulator the Federal Communications Commission to provide broadband from space and place thousands of satellites lower than previously proposed, angering competitors including Amazon.
SpaceX, which asked the FCC for permission which will apply to some 2,800 satellites, plans ultimately to blanket poorly connected and isolated areas of the globe with internet connectivity.
ESA's Space Environment Report 2021
Thursday, 27 May 2021 15:00 Write a comment
Imagine driving down a road which has more broken cars, bikes and vans lining the street than functioning vehicles. This is the scene our satellites face in Earth orbit. In fact, since the start of the space age there has been more debris, “space junk”, in orbit than operational satellites.
So how do we clean up this mess?
South Korea signs Artemis Accords; Brazil, New Zealand likely next
Thursday, 27 May 2021 13:40 Write a comment
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea signed the Artemis Accords May 27, becoming the 10th signatory to the pact that governs norms of behavior for those who want to participate in the NASA-led Artemis lunar exploration program.
On the same day, South Korea and the United States signed an agreement on “civil global navigation satellite systems cooperation” under which the U.S.
Isotropic Systems closing in on multi-orbit antenna offering
Thursday, 27 May 2021 13:37 Write a comment
TAMPA, Fla. — British startup Isotropic Systems has unlocked more government funding for antennas it believes are timed for the satellite industry’s multi-orbit evolution.
Isotropic said May 25 it secured the final third of a previously unannounced 18.5 million euro ($22.5 million) contract from the UK Space Agency to help bring its flat-panel terminals to market early next year.
Juno returns to 'Clyde's Spot' on Jupiter
Thursday, 27 May 2021 11:24 Write a comment
During its 33rd low pass over the cloud tops of Jupiter on April 15, 2021, NASA's Juno spacecraft captured the intriguing evolution of a feature in the giant planet's atmosphere known as "Clyde's Spot."
The feature is informally named for amateur astronomer Clyde Foster of Centurion, South Africa, who discovered it in 2020 using his own 14-inch telescope. On June 2, 2020, just two days after Foster's initial discovery, Juno provided detailed observations of Clyde's Spot (upper image), which scientists determined was a plume of cloud material erupting above the top layers of the Jovian atmosphere just southeast of Jupiter's Great Red Spot, which is currently about 1.3 times as wide as Earth. These powerful convective outbreaks occasionally occur in this latitude band, known as the South Temperate Belt. The initial plume subsided quickly, and within a few weeks it was seen as a dark spot.
Many features in Jupiter's highly dynamic atmosphere are short lived, but the April 2021 observation from the JunoCam instrument (lower image) revealed that nearly one year after its discovery, the remnant of Clyde's Spot had not only drifted away from the Great Red Spot but had also developed into a complex structure that scientists call a folded filamentary region.
GAO report identifies technical and management risks with Artemis
Thursday, 27 May 2021 10:45 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — A Government Accountability Office report warns that NASA’s Artemis program faces technical risks as well as management issues that raise doubts about achieving the goal of returning humans to the moon by 2024.
The May 26 report by the GAO, requested by Congress in a 2018 appropriations bill, concluded that NASA’s approach to managing the various projects involved with the overall Artemis effort increased the odds of cost increases and schedule slips.
Adapting to changing climates: Q&A with Eumetsat’s Phil Evans
Thursday, 27 May 2021 10:43 Write a comment
It will take decades to fully deploy a next-generation weather-tracking constellation for Europe’s Eumetsat, which aims to launch its first of six new MTG satellites for geostationary orbit (GEO) next year.
Rampant satellite innovation swirling around the intergovernmental meteorological organization headquartered in Darmstadt, Germany, and the changing role of the private sector pose novel challenges as it charts this long-term course.
Cramming it all into three hundred and thirty seconds of microgravity
Thursday, 27 May 2021 08:49 Write a comment
On 24 May 2021, three experiments from the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) set off on their short journey into microgravity and back again. The DLR sounding rocket MAPHEUS 11 lifted off from the Esrange Space Center in northern Sweden and carried the materials science experiments MARS, X-RISE and SOMEX to an altitude of 221 kilometres. In the 15 minutes b SpaceX cargo mission to carry water bears, baby squids to space station
Thursday, 27 May 2021 08:49 Write a comment
SpaceX's 22nd cargo resupply mission, slated to launch no earlier than June 3, will see several unique science experiments - involving water bears, baby squids and kidney stones - ferried to the International Space Station.
Like so many experiments before them, the bulk of the experimental setups being carried aboard SpaceX CRS-22 are designed to illuminate the health risks facing ast Similar states of activity identified in supermassive and stellar mass black holes
Thursday, 27 May 2021 08:49 Write a comment
The researchers Juan A. Fernandez-Ontiveros, of the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) in Rome and Teo Munoz-Darias, of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC), have written an article in which they describe the different states of activity of a large sample of supermassive black holes in the centres of galaxies.
They have classified them using the behaviour of their closest " How ESA boosts climate education
Thursday, 27 May 2021 07:37 Write a comment
A series of fascinating new learning resources are enabling teachers in the UK to encourage the next generation of climate pioneers.
The freely available lesson plans and activities – which add to ESA’s portfolio of space-powered climate learning materials – were highlighted at the Climate Change Teacher Conference, a live-streamed online summit for British primary and secondary school educators that took place this week.
Quantum communication in space moves ahead
Thursday, 27 May 2021 07:00 Write a comment
Keeping information secure in today’s interconnected world is becoming ever more important, so ESA is supporting efforts to ensure that future communications are kept confidential.
Canada to send rover to Moon by 2026: minister
Thursday, 27 May 2021 06:28 Write a comment
Canada will land a robotic rover on the Moon within five years, its industry minister said Wednesday, announcing that Ottawa plans to "dream big" as it advances its competitive stake in the growing global space market.
"Canada will be part of space history," Francois-Philippe Champagne told a news conference.
"We recognize that global interest in space and in the space industry is on the rise," he said. "As the whole world looks to the stars we are ready to make Canada a world leader in research, technology and innovation so that we can be there as well."
"Let's seize the moment. I don't think there's ever been a better time to be Canadian, and dream big."
The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) will partner with the United States' NASA on the mission, according to a statement.
Two Canadian companies will first be selected to develop concepts for the rover and science instruments for the mission.