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Earth from Space: Bucharest, Romania

Thursday, 08 April 2021 08:00
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The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over Bucharest – the capital and largest city of Romania.

The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over Bucharest – the capital and largest city of Romania.

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WASHINGTON — The new chief executive of OneWeb says the company is still pursuing some kind of navigation capability for its broadband satellite constellation, although a full-fledged service may have to wait until a second-generation system.

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WASHINGTON — The Office of the Director of National Intelligence in a new report released April 8 projects that by 2040 China will be the most significant rival to the United States in space, competing on commercial, civil and military fronts.

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WASHINGTON — Congressman Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) hailed the April 8 announcement that Los Angeles Air Force Base will be the permanent home of the U.S. Space Force procurement command. 

“I’m very excited that Space Systems Command will be located at Los Angeles Air Force Base,” Lieu told SpaceNews.

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force is consolidating oversight of space launch activities under a two-star general who will have broad responsibilities for the procurement of launch services and for the operations of the military’s launch ranges.

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force on April 8 unveiled new details of its plan to establish a Space Systems Command in Los Angeles to oversee the development of next-generation technologies, and the procurement of satellites and launch services.

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Phase Four thruster

WASHINGTON — Phase Four, a startup working on electric propulsion for satellites, has won an Air Force contract to test using an alternative propellant for its thrusters.

Phase Four announced April 8 it received a $750,000 Phase 2 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award from the U.S.

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Lunar brightness temperature for calibration of microwave humidity sounders
Average microwave TB simulation and data. (a) 89GHz; (b) 157GHz; (c) 183GHz. Credit: Science China Press

Calibration and validation (CAL/VAL) is a key technology for quantitative application of space-borne remote sensing data. However, the complex space environment can cause many uncertainties and degrade calibration accuracy. In-flight calibration is always needed. The thermal emission of the Moon is stable over hundreds of years because there is no atmosphere and no significant physical or chemical change on its surface. The deep space view of the Microwave Humidity Sounder onboard NOAA-18 has viewed the Moon many times every year. Under solar illumination, the lunar surface shows stable and periodical variation in microwave brightness temperature (TB). The Moon is a potential calibration source for thermal calibration

The related work was published in Science China Earth Sciences as "Calibration of the space-borne humidity sounder based on real-time thermal emission from ." Based on the heat conductive equation, the temperature profiles of lunar regolith at different regions and local time are simulated numerically with the real-time solar radiance and angle of incidence.

Mars didn't dry up in one go

Wednesday, 07 April 2021 16:00
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Mars didn't dry up in one go
View of hillocks on the slopes of Mount Sharp, showing the various types of terrain that will soon be explored by the Curiosity rover, and the ancient environments in which they formed, according to the sedimentary structures observed in ChemCam's telescope images (mosaics A and B). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/CNES/CNRS/LANL/IRAP/IAS/LPGN

The Perseverance rover has just landed on Mars. Meanwhile, its precursor Curiosity continues to explore the base of Mount Sharp (officially Aeolis Mons), a mountain several kilometers high at the center of the Gale crater. Using the telescope on the ChemCam instrument to make detailed observations of the steep terrain of Mount Sharp at a distance, a French-US team headed by William Rapin, CNRS researcher at the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie (CNRS/Université Toulouse III/CNES), has discovered that the Martian climate recorded there alternated between dry and wetter periods, before drying up completely about 3 billion years ago.

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Mars didn't dry up in one go
View of hillocks on the slopes of Mount Sharp, showing the various types of terrain that will soon be explored by the Curiosity rover, and the ancient environments in which they formed, according to the sedimentary structures observed in ChemCam's telescope images (mosaics A and B). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/CNES/CNRS/LANL/IRAP/IAS/LPGN

The Perseverance rover has just landed on Mars. Meanwhile, its precursor Curiosity continues to explore the base of Mount Sharp (officially Aeolis Mons), a mountain several kilometers high at the center of the Gale crater. Using the telescope on the ChemCam instrument to make detailed observations of the steep terrain of Mount Sharp at a distance, a French-US team headed by William Rapin, CNRS researcher at the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie (CNRS/Université Toulouse III/CNES), has discovered that the Martian climate recorded there alternated between dry and wetter periods, before drying up completely about 3 billion years ago.

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Federal officials warn that many space startups are not aware of their export control obligations and are exposed to punitive sanctions. With five different export control mechanisms, this is no surprise. If your startup has an international client, supplier, expert, investor, or cooperation, you might just need a permit.

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Mount Etna smoke plumes

Italy’s Mount Etna, Europe’s most active volcano, has recently been on explosive form, with 17 eruptions in less than three months. Instruments onboard three different satellites orbiting Earth have acquired imagery of the eruptions – revealing the intensity of the lava-fountaining eruptive episodes, known as paroxysms.

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ORBCOMM's Network Control Center in Sterling, VA

TAMPA, Fla. — Private equity firm GI Partners plans to buy satellite operator Orbcomm, which specializes in connecting industrial monitoring devices, for about $1.1 billion including net debt.

Ariane 6 pre-flight 'plumbing' tests

Wednesday, 07 April 2021 13:19
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Ariane 6 pre-flight 'plumbing' tests Image: Ariane 6 pre-flight 'plumbing' tests
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Liftoff of the Tianwen-1 spacecraft atop a Long March 5 from Wenchang, July 23, 2020.

HELSINKI — The coastal cities of Ningbo and Wenchang are planning construction of new commercial spaceports to meet growing demand for launch in China.

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