African spaceports cut rocket fuel costs
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 13:17
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Space is big business once again, Mars rovers and putative moon landings aside, there is an enormous need for geostationary satellites. With increasing traffic there is also a need for new sites for spaceports that might offer reduced energy costs and simpler launching of new satellites. Writing in the International Journal of Aerospace System Science and Engineering, a team from the Obasanjo Space Center in Abuja, Nigeria, suggest that African spaceports offer a scientifically and economically viable option.
Rocket propellant is the main constituent of launch weight largely irrespective of payload. Indeed fuel accounts for 90 percent of the launch cost. As such, any measures that might be put in place to reduce fuel requirements can offer substantial savings. A launch site close to The Equator would offer several benefits in terms of reducing fuel costs. Obviously, a stationary object on the equator is moving at almost 1700 kilometers per hour relative to a "fixed" reference in space because of the rotation of the earth. If you launch from north or south of the equator, this boost is lower. Halfway to the pole and the speed boost is only 1200 km/h.
York Space Systems building larger LX-CLASS satellite platform
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 13:06 Write a comment
TAMPA, Fla. — Smallsat specialist York Space Systems is producing a larger satellite platform with double the payload volume of its current spacecraft bus in response to market demand.
The new LX-CLASS is designed to have a total mass of more than 350 kilograms, up from 180 kilograms for its flight-proven S-CLASS satellite platform.
NASA's scientific balloons return to flight with Spring 2021 campaign
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 11:48 Write a comment
NASA's Scientific Balloon Program is kicking off an ambitious schedule of 18 flights in 2021 with their spring campaign from Fort Sumner, New Mexico, the program's first major flight campaign since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
For this first campaign of 2021, the team is supporting a multitude of science and technology demonstration missions with six balloon flights scheduled from the end of April through mid-June.
"We have a packed scheduled for 2021 as we work to launch science and technology missions postponed due to the pandemic along with other planned missions," said Debbie Fairbrother, Scientific Balloon Program chief at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. "Our team has worked very hard to train and prepare for this surge in flight operations, and we're all excited to return to flight."
One of the missions, scheduled for flight in June, is the second demonstration flight of the Balloon-Borne Cryogenic Telescope Testbed, or BOBCAT. This mission will test technologies to fly a cold observatory telescope on a balloon to near-space altitudes. The technical challenge the mission is trying to address is cooling the telescope's mirrors using cryogen inside a dewar, a large vessel that can hold liquids at low temperatures.
‘Campfires’ offer clue to solar heating mystery
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 11:00 Write a comment
Computer simulations show that the miniature solar flares nicknamed ‘campfires’, discovered last year by ESA’s Solar Orbiter, are likely driven by a process that may contribute significantly to the heating of the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona. If confirmed by further observations this adds a key piece to the puzzle of what heats the solar corona – one of the biggest mysteries in solar physics.
Crew-1 splashdown delayed by weather
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 10:25 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — NASA and SpaceX are postponing the return of a Crew Dragon spacecraft by three days because of poor weather forecast in the splashdown location off the Florida coast.
NASA announced late April 26 that, in cooperation with SpaceX, it is postponing the return of the Crew-1 mission, which was scheduled to undock from the International Space Station April 28 and splash down in the Gulf of Mexico south of Tallahassee, Florida, later that day.
China launches space mining test spacecraft on commercial rideshare mission
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 09:45 Write a comment
HELSINKI — China launched a small space mining test spacecraft and eight other commercial satellites into orbit on a Long March 6 rocket late Monday.
New ESA telescope in South America to search for dangerous asteroids
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 09:00 Write a comment
- ESA’s second Test-Bed Telescope has seen ‘first light’.
- It will help spot asteroids in space that could pose a risk to Earth.
- This telescope is the latest step towards ESA’s planned Flyeye telescope network.
- It is hosted at the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla Observatory in Chile.
New ESA telescope in South America to search for asteroids
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 09:00 Write a comment
- ESA’s second Test-Bed Telescope has seen ‘first light’.
- It will help spot asteroids in space that could pose a risk to Earth.
- This telescope is the latest step towards ESA’s planned Flyeye telescope network.
- It is hosted at the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla Observatory in Chile.
Northrop Grumman designs protected Tactical SATCOM Payload Prototype for the Space Force
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 06:16 Write a comment
Northrop Grumman Corporation has been selected by the U.S. Space Force's (USSF) Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) to proceed with its ongoing Protected Tactical SATCOM (PTS) Rapid Prototype program, with a flight demonstration of the company's PTS payload set to occur in 2024.
Selected for the initial award through the Space Enterprise Consortium, this continuation enables Northrop Gr North Korea's satellites in orbit not transmitting data
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 06:16 Write a comment
North Korean satellites launched into orbit are either unstable or not fully operational, and a reconnaissance satellite launched in February 2016 is not relaying data, a South Korean analyst said.
Song Geun-ho, a professor at Korea Defense Language Institute at South Korea's Joint Forces Military University, said in a new report on North Korea's space program that Pyongyang's claims of vi AFRL Inspire to feature special guest speaker from Space Operations Command
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 06:16 Write a comment
Wright-Patterson AFB OH (SPX) Apr 23, 2021
AFRL Inspire, a two-hour special event with eight TEDx-style talks, will be livestreamed from the Air Force Institute of Technology's Kenney Hall Auditorium April 28 beginning at 2 p.m. EDT. Inspire showcases the innovative ideas and passionate people AFRL has to offer as they provide entertaining and thought-provoking talks, share personal stories and On a changing planet, NASA goes Green
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 06:16 Write a comment
NASA is responsible for collecting much of the data that people use to explain humanity's environmental impact on Earth, from documenting climate change and its impacts on ice, sea level and weather patterns, to monitoring the health of forests and the movement of freshwater.
But NASA doesn't just report the data. It also acts on it.
NASA facilities across the United States are each ALMA discovers rotating infant galaxy with help of natural cosmic telescope
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 06:16 Write a comment
Using the Atacama ALMA array, astronomers found a rotating baby galaxy 1/100th the size of the Milky Way at a time when the Universe was only seven percent of its present age. Thanks to assistance by the gravitational lens effect, the team was able to explore for the first time the nature of small and dark "normal galaxies" in the early Universe, representative of the main population of the firs Blue Origin protests NASA choice of SpaceX to land astronauts on Moon
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 05:25 Write a comment
Blue Origin, the US space company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, on Monday filed a protest against NASA's choice of rival SpaceX to build the module that will land the next US astronauts on the Moon.
"NASA has executed a flawed acquisition for the Human Landing System program and moved the goalposts at the last minute," Blue Origin said in a statement sent to AFP.
The decision "elimi Robotic spacecraft will fly to asteroid, comet
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 05:25 Write a comment
Chinese scientists and engineers have begun to develop a robotic spacecraft to collect samples from an asteroid and have performed many ground tests, a top scientist said.
Ye Peijian, a leading spacecraft researcher at the China Academy of Space Technology, said Chinese researchers have chosen 2016 HO3, the smallest and closest "quasi-satellite" to Earth, as the target.
"We plan to u