Week in images: 12 - 16 April 2021
Friday, 16 April 2021 12:19
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Week in images: 12 - 16 April 2021
Discover our week through the lens
NASA rocket to survey the solar system's windshield
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Eleven billion miles away—more than four times the distance from us to Pluto—lies the boundary of our solar system's magnetic bubble, the heliopause. Here the Sun's magnetic field, stretching through space like an invisible cobweb, fizzles to nothing. Interstellar space begins.
"It's really the largest boundary of its kind we can study," said Walt Harris, space physicist at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
We still know little about what lies beyond this boundary. Fortunately, bits of interstellar space can come to us, passing right through this border and making their way into the solar system.
A new NASA mission will study light from interstellar particles that have drifted into our solar system to learn about the closest reaches of interstellar space.
New Tactical ISR Satellites Provide Global, Persistent Support For Warfighters
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Lockheed Martin is addressing the accelerating demand for space-enabled warfighting capabilities with a new line of rapid, integrated and affordable tactical Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) satellites.
These satellites, based on Lockheed Martin's LM 400 mid-size bus, enable tactical warfighters to track moving targets at long ranges and operate in contested and denied e Fast-spinning black holes narrow the search for dark matter particles
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Ultralight bosons are hypothetical particles whose mass is predicted to be less than a billionth the mass of an electron. They interact relatively little with their surroundings and have thus far eluded searches to confirm their existence. If they exist, ultralight bosons such as axions would likely be a form of dark matter, the mysterious, invisible stuff that makes up 85 percent of the matter Astronauts need a fridge
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For astronauts to go on long missions to the moon or Mars, they need a refrigerator. But today's fridges aren't designed to work in zero gravity - or upside down if oriented that way when a spacecraft lands on another planet.
A team of engineers from Purdue University, Air Squared Inc., and Whirlpool Corporation is working on building a fridge for zero gravity that operates in different or China to launch a pair of spacecraft towards the edge of the solar system
Friday, 16 April 2021 11:07 Write a comment
HELSINKI — China is developing a mission to send a pair of spacecraft to study the far reaches of the solar system and reach interstellar space by mid-century.
NASA approves plans for Crew-2 launch
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WASHINGTON — NASA managers approved plans to launch a SpaceX commercial crew mission to the International Space Station next week, pending the resolution of one minor issue with the Falcon 9 rocket.
NASA officials said April 15 that, after the completion of a flight readiness review, they approved plans for the launch April 22 of the Crew-2 mission, which will transport American, European and Japanese astronauts to the station on a Crew Dragon spacecraft.
La Soufrière volcano: before-and-after
Friday, 16 April 2021 10:30 Write a comment
Image:
False-colour images captured by Copernicus Sentinel-2 show the aftermath of the explosive volcanic eruption that took place on 9 April 2021 on the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent. Earth from Space: Space Coast, Florida
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On 22 April 2021, on Earth Day, Thomas Pesquet is planned to return to the International Space Station for his second mission, Alpha. Ahead of his launch, the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over Cape Canaveral, USA, in a region known as the Space Coast.
SpaceX, NASA give 'go' for astronaut launch, 3rd for Dragon
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NASA spacecraft leaves mess after grabbing asteroid samples
Friday, 16 April 2021 06:41
NASA spacecraft leaves its mark after grabbing asteroid Bennu samples
Friday, 16 April 2021 06:41Science Marches on: International Space Station update
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The first quarter of 2021 flew by almost as fast as the International Space Station itself. Get up to speed with some March highlights from our orbital outpost as an astronaut prepares to be launched into space on a Dragon.
NASA delays starting contract with SpaceX for Gateway cargo services
Thursday, 15 April 2021 21:51 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — More than a year after selecting SpaceX to deliver cargo to the lunar Gateway, NASA has yet to formally start that contract as it performs a broader review of its Artemis program.
NASA announced in March 2020 that it awarded a contract to SpaceX for the agency’s Gateway Logistics Services program to transport cargo to the lunar Gateway.
LeoLabs adding new services to support growing space activity in low Earth orbit
Thursday, 15 April 2021 20:28 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — Space object-tracking startup LeoLabs is adding more sensors and data processing capacity to its network in preparation for a surge in satellites launches in the coming years, the company’s CEO said April 15.