NASA rover to search for water, other resources on Moon
Friday, 21 May 2021 02:04
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As part of the Artemis program, NASA is planning to send its first mobile robot to the Moon in late 2023 in search of ice and other resources on and below the lunar surface. Data from the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, would help the agency map resources at the lunar South Pole that could one day be harvested for long-term human exploration at the Moon.
VIPER's Origins of life researchers develop a new ecological biosignature
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When scientists hunt for life, they often look for biosignatures, chemicals or phenomena that indicate the existence of present or past life. Yet it isn't necessarily the case that the signs of life on Earth are signs of life in other planetary environments. How do we find life in systems that do not resemble ours?
In groundbreaking new work, a team led by Santa Fe Institute Professor Chri Hubble tracks down fast radio bursts to galaxies' spiral arms
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Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have traced the locations of five brief, powerful radio blasts to the spiral arms of five distant galaxies.
Called fast radio bursts (FRBs), these extraordinary events generate as much energy in a thousandth of a second as the Sun does in a year. Because these transient radio pulses disappear in much less than the blink of an eye, researchers Everything you need to know for the May 26 Lunar Eclipse
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The total lunar eclipse of May 26th - the first in more than two years - favors western North America, but much of the continent will see the partial phases, provided skies are clear.
No one has seen a total lunar eclipse since January 20-21, 2019, but the drought is finally ending. Viewers in the western half of North America, western South America, East Asia, and Australia will see the M Global navigation satellite system technology needs proper protection
Friday, 21 May 2021 02:04 Write a comment
Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) such as GPS, the European Galileo system, or indeed China's own BeiDou are a testament to the powerful global services that large superpowers can offer the world.
Such potent navigational software that can pinpoint a location down to several centimeters from space are invaluable for everyday life, and are embedded into our smartphones, cars and ev First detailed images from the Pleiades Neo 3 satellite
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Airbus has released a first collection of sharp images at 30cm native resolution from the Pleiades Neo 3 satellite, recently safely launched and secured in orbit. The successful acquisitions and delivery of these first images are the start of a new era for both commercial and government geospatial applications requiring a high level of accuracy and the ability to see fine details.
The Plei Firefly selects SpaceX to launch its lunar lander
Thursday, 20 May 2021 21:12 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — Firefly Aerospace announced May 20 it selected SpaceX to launch its first lunar lander mission for NASA, the latest in a series of contract wins by SpaceX for lunar missions.
Firefly said that a SpaceX Falcon 9 will launch its Blue Ghost lunar lander in 2023 on a mission to land in Mare Crisium on the near side of the moon.
Rare 4000-year comets can cause meteor showers on Earth
Thursday, 20 May 2021 18:13 Write a comment
Comets that circle the Sun in very elongated orbits spread their debris so thin along their orbit or eject it out of the solar system altogether so that their meteor showers are hard to detect. From a new meteor shower survey published in the journal Icarus, researchers now report that they can detect showers from the debris in the path of comets that pass close to Earth orbit and are known to return as infrequently as once every 4,000 years.
"This creates a situational awareness for potentially hazardous comets that were last near Earth orbit as far back as 2,000 BC," said meteor astronomer and lead author Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute.
With ULA’s new rocket Vulcan behind schedule, Space Force agrees to let Atlas 5 fill in
Thursday, 20 May 2021 16:25 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — What would have been the first national security mission for United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket will be flown by Atlas 5, the company confirmed May 19.
That mission, known as USSF-51, was awarded to ULA in August 2020 and is scheduled to launch in late 2022.
Europe making progress on sovereign LEO constellation as OneWeb and Starlink race ahead
Thursday, 20 May 2021 15:33 Write a comment
TAMPA, Fla. — The industry consortium devising a satellite network to keep the European Union from falling too far behind the megaconstellation goldrush is weeks away from nailing down key criteria.
Talking to the moon: Europe pitches lunar satellites plan
Thursday, 20 May 2021 15:15 Write a comment
The European Space Agency presented a vision Thursday to put satellites in orbit around the moon that would facilitate future missions to Earth's closest neighbor.
Video: Bringing connectivity to the moon
Thursday, 20 May 2021 15:05 Write a comment
As international teams across the world forge plans to revisit the moon, ESA is elaborating how best to facilitate this exploration.
As part of its moonlight initiative, the agency is encouraging European space companies to put a constellation of telecommunications and navigation satellites around the moon.
To succeed, the proposed lunar missions will require reliable navigation and telecommunication capabilities. Building these independently would be costly, complex and inefficient.
If this work were outsourced to a consortium of space companies, each individual mission would become more cost-efficient.
Having one system dedicated to lunar telecommunications and navigation could reduce design complexity, liberating missions to concentrate on their core activities.
Because missions could rely on this dedicated telecommunications and navigation service, they would be lighter. This would make space for more scientific instruments or other cargo.
An accurate and reliable telecommunications and navigation service would enable missions to land wherever they wanted. Radio astronomers could set up observatories on the far side of the moon.
Rovers could trundle over the lunar surface more speedily. It could even enable the teleoperation of rovers and other equipment from Earth.
Infographic: Moonlight - Navigation for the Moon
Thursday, 20 May 2021 13:09 Write a comment
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Infographic: Infographic: Moonlight - Navigation for the Moon Virgin Galactic schedules next SpaceShipTwo test flight for May 22
Thursday, 20 May 2021 12:52 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — Virgin Galactic will attempt its next SpaceShipTwo suborbital test flight as soon as May 22 after resolving concerns about the maintenance of its carrier aircraft.
The company said in a May 20 statement that the VSS Unity suborbital spaceplane will make a powered flight to the edge of space May 22, pending weather conditions and final technical checks, from Spaceport America in New Mexico.
Op-ed | Beijing’s Troubling Space Ambitions
Thursday, 20 May 2021 12:35 Write a comment
On May 14, China became the second country in the world to land and operate a rover on the surface of Mars. China’s Mars landing follows the April 28 launch of the first components of its next space station.