SolAero Technologies' Ingenuity on Mars
Thursday, 22 April 2021 07:03SolAero Technologies, a leading provider of high efficiency solar cells composite structural products for satellite and aerospace applications, congratulates the team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Labs (JPL) on the successful maiden flight of the Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity. SolAero is proud to have supplied the solar panel that has enabled the first powered, controlled flight on another planet.
Dodging debris to keep satellites safe
Thursday, 22 April 2021 07:00Our planet is surrounded by spacecraft helping us study our changing climate, save lives following disasters, deliver global communication and navigation services and help us answer important scientific questions.
But these satellites are at risk. Accidental collisions between objects in space can produce huge clouds of fast-moving debris that can spread and damage additional satellites with cascading effect.
In this animation, find out how teams at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, take action to keep satellites safe after receiving an alert warning of a possible collision between an active satellite and a piece of
MOXIE creates oxygen on Mars
Thursday, 22 April 2021 03:38NASA's Perseverance rover has been marking milestones on Mars since landing on the Red Planet in February. Its latest historic accomplishment is the first creation of oxygen from carbon dioxide in the thin Mars atmosphere. Mission time is measured in sols, or Martian days. Oxygen production was achieved early in the evening of April 20, or early morning on Sol 60 in Jezero Crater. MOXIE (M
NASA to participate in tabletop exercise simulating asteroid impact
Thursday, 22 April 2021 03:38JPL's Center for Near Earth Object Studies will lead the hypothetical impact scenario to see how international agencies respond to an actual impact prediction. During the week of April 26, members of NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) will participate in a "tabletop exercise" to simulate an asteroid impact scenario. The exercise depicting this fictional event is being led
Perseverance extracts first oxygen from Mars surface materials
Thursday, 22 April 2021 03:38The growing list of "firsts" for Perseverance, NASA's newest six-wheeled robot on the Martian surface, includes converting some of the Red Planet's thin, carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere into oxygen. A toaster-size, experimental instrument aboard Perseverance called the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) accomplished the task. The test took place April 20, the 60th Martian
Twenty years of Europeans on the Space Station
Thursday, 22 April 2021 03:38On 23 April 2001, ESA astronaut Umberto Guidoni first set foot, or hand, on the International Space Station, making him the first European to visit and work the orbiting outpost. Since then, the Space Station has grown immensely, as have the number of Europeans to have worked in it, together with the science experiments performed in orbit. When Umberto arrived, he flew on the Space Shuttle
Scientists find CO2-rich liquid water in ancient meteorite
Thursday, 22 April 2021 03:38Water is abundant in our solar system. Even outside of our own planet, scientists have detected ice on the moon, in Saturn's rings and in comets, liquid water on Mars and under the surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus, and traces of water vapor in the scorching atmosphere of Venus. Studies have shown that water played an important role in the early evolution and formation of the solar system
NASA's Webb to study young exoplanets on the edge
Thursday, 22 April 2021 03:38Before planets around other stars were first discovered in the 1990s, these far-flung exotic worlds lived only in the imagination of science fiction writers. But even their creative minds could not have conceived of the variety of worlds astronomers have uncovered. Many of these worlds, called exoplanets, are vastly different from our solar system's family of planets. They range from star-
Astronomers release new all-sky map of Milky Way's outer reaches
Thursday, 22 April 2021 03:38Astronomers using data from NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) telescopes have released a new all-sky map of the outermost region of our galaxy. Known as the galactic halo, this area lies outside the swirling spiral arms that form the Milky Way's recognizable central disk and is sparsely populated with stars. Though the halo may appear mostly empty, it is also predicted to contain a massive re
Record-breaking flare from Sun's nearest neighbor
Thursday, 22 April 2021 03:38A team of astronomers including Carnegie's Alycia Weinberger and former-Carnegie postdoc Meredith MacGregor, now an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, spotted an extreme outburst, or flare, from the Sun's nearest neighbor - the star Proxima Centauri. Their work, which could help guide the search for life beyond our Solar System, is published in The Astrophysical Jou
Outback radio telescope discovers dense, spinning, dead star
Thursday, 22 April 2021 03:38Astronomers have discovered a pulsar - a dense and rapidly spinning neutron star sending radio waves into the cosmos - using a low-frequency radio telescope in outback Australia. The pulsar was detected with the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescope, in Western Australia's remote Mid West region. It's the first time scientists have discovered a pulsar with the MWA but they believ
OneSat Final Design Review successfully achieved
Thursday, 22 April 2021 03:38Airbus has passed an important milestone for the OneSat flexible satellite product line, with the Final Design Review successfully achieved with customers and space agencies. The fully reconfigurable OneSat product line features major innovations and disruptive technologies including the latest digital processing and active antennas enabling several thousand beams. In addition, to meet the
Lawmakers continue to question Space Command’s move to Alabama
Wednesday, 21 April 2021 22:28WASHINGTON — U.S. Space Command has close ties to other military space organizations in Colorado, but if it has to move to Alabama it could continue to do its job without major disruption, Gen.
Nelson sails through NASA administrator confirmation hearing
Wednesday, 21 April 2021 22:19ORLANDO — The Biden administration’s nominee for NASA administrator, Bill Nelson, got a friendly reception from former colleagues on the Senate Commerce Committee during a confirmation hearing April 21 but offered few specifics about how he would run the agency.
Space Development Agency to add more laser links to satellites if the price is right
Wednesday, 21 April 2021 18:25WASHINGTON — Each of the satellites in the Space Development Agency’s mesh network known as the Transport Layer could have as many as five laser links so they can talk to other satellites, airplanes, ships and ground stations.