NASA Awards Launch Services Contract for Europa Clipper Mission
Friday, 23 July 2021 17:18
NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for Earth’s first mission to conduct detailed investigations of Jupiter's moon Europa. Court denies Viasat attempt to halt Starlink launches pending legal action
Friday, 23 July 2021 14:32
TAMPA, Fla. — A federal appeals court denied a motion from satellite operator Viasat to stop SpaceX from enlarging its Starlink megaconstellation.
Viasat had requested a stay on a SpaceX license modification that allows it to continue building out the low-Earth-orbit constellation, while legal action seeking to compel a thorough environmental review of the broadband network plays out through the court.
Laser research to boost deep space missions
Friday, 23 July 2021 12:54
Canberra is one step closer to being Australia's home to deep space laser communication, thanks to a government funding for researchers at The Australian National University (ANU).
Two ANU projects have received funding from The Australian Moon to Mars Demonstrator Feasibility Grants from the Australian Space Agency to help test new activities that will drive space exploration.
The first project will build a prototype deep space laser communications transmitter compatible with optical communication technology developed by NASA for missions including the Optical to Orion (O2O) demonstration, at a specialist facility in the ACT.
The facility could eventually be used by NASA to support deep space missions.
"This funding is going to allow us to build a prototype system compatible with future NASA missions which are going to deep space," project lead, ANU Associate Professor Francis Bennet, said.
Keen to sign up for space tourism? Here are 6 things to consider (besides the price tag)
Friday, 23 July 2021 12:53
It's been a momentous month for space-faring billionaires. On July 11, British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson's Unity "rocket-plane" flew him and five fellow passengers about 85 kilometers above Earth. And this week, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' New Shepard capsule reached an altitude of 106km, carrying Bezos, his brother, and the oldest and youngest people ever to reach such a height. Passengers on both flights experienced several minutes of weightlessness and took in breathtaking views of our beautiful and fragile Earth.
Both flights created an avalanche of media coverage and brand recognition for Branson's Virgin Galactic and Bezos's Blue Origin. There is renewed anticipation of a lucrative commercial space tourism industry that could eventually see thousands of paying passengers journey into space (or not quite into space, depending on your preferred level of pedantry).
This year marks 60 years since Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space.
Duneside view of ESA's technical heart
Friday, 23 July 2021 11:41
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Duneside view of ESA's technical heart With cutting-edge hypersonics, Russia leads in new arms race
Friday, 23 July 2021 11:37
The Avangard, the Kinzhal and now the Zircon - Russia is leading the race to develop a range of new hypersonic weapons that President Vladimir Putin has dubbed "invincible".
Moscow's latest step came this week with another successful test of the Zircon, a ship-launched hypersonic missile.
Fired from one of Russia's most powerful warships, the Admiral Gorshkov frigate, a Zircon travellin ALMA images moon-forming disk around alien world
Friday, 23 July 2021 11:37
Astronomers have for the first time imaged a moon-forming disk around an exoplanet.
Scientists expect the discovery - made using the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimeter Array and detailed Thursday in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters - to aid the study of planet and moon formation in young solar systems.
"Our work presents a clear detection of a disc in which satelli Meet the Martian meteorite hunters
Friday, 23 July 2021 11:37
A team at the Natural History Museum (NHM), London is paving the way for future rovers to search for meteorites on Mars. The scientists are using the NHM's extensive meteorite collection to test the spectral instruments destined for the ExoMars rover Rosalind Franklin, and develop tools to identify meteorites on the surface of the red planet. The project is being presented today (23 July) at the Martian global dust storm ended winter early in the south
Friday, 23 July 2021 11:37
A dust storm that engulfed the entire Red Planet in 2018 destroyed a vortex of cold air around the Martian south pole and brought an early spring to the hemisphere. By contrast, the storm caused only minor distortions to the polar vortex in the northern hemisphere and no dramatic seasonal changes. Dr Paul Streeter of The Open University's Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathemati MDA Tech bridges gap between disparate sensors, fire control systems
Friday, 23 July 2021 11:37
The Missile Defense Agency-developed Joint Track Management Capability (JTMC) and Open Systems Gateway (OSG) linked multiple sensor and fire control systems from multiple services into one integrated network during a July 15 flight test at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.
The integration led to the successful engagement of a cruise missile target by an Army Patriot Advanced Capabilit A machine learning breakthrough: using satellite images to improve human lives
Friday, 23 July 2021 11:37
More than 700 imaging satellites are orbiting the earth, and every day they beam vast oceans of information - including data that reflects climate change, health and poverty - to databases on the ground. There's just one problem: While the geospatial data could help researchers and policymakers address critical challenges, only those with considerable wealth and expertise can access it.
No Week in images: 19 - 23 July 2021
Friday, 23 July 2021 11:30
Week in images: 19 - 23 July 2021
Discover our week through the lens
Mini radar could scan the moon for water and habitable tunnels
Friday, 23 July 2021 11:12
A miniature device that scans deep below ground is being developed to identify ice deposits and hollow lava tubes on the moon for possible human settlement.
The prototype device, known as MAPrad, is just one-tenth the size of existing ground penetrating radar systems, yet can see almost twice as deeply below ground—more than 100 meters down—to identify minerals, ice deposits, or voids such as lava tubes.
Local start-up CD3D PTY Limited has now received a grant from the Australian Space Agency's moon to Mars initiative to further develop the prototype with RMIT University, including testing it by mapping one of Earth's largest accessible systems of lava tubes.
CD3D CEO and RMIT Honorary Professor, James Macnae, said their unique geophysical sensor had several advantages over existing technology that made it more suitable for space missions.
Counting carbon
Friday, 23 July 2021 11:00
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The Paris Agreement adopted a target for global warming not to exceed 1.5°C. This sets a limit on the additional carbon we can add to the atmosphere – the carbon budget. Only around 17% of the carbon budget is now left. That is about 10 years at current emission rates.
Each country reports its annual greenhouse gas emissions to the United Nations. Scientists then set these emissions against estimates of the carbon absorbed by Earth’s natural carbon sinks. This is known as the bottom-up approach to calculating the carbon budget.
Another way to track carbon sources and sinks is
Senators push for action on space traffic management
Friday, 23 July 2021 10:49
WASHINGTON — Members of a Senate space subcommittee argued that the Commerce Department was not doing enough to implement policies on space traffic management (STM) or staffing the office responsible for it.
At the July 22 hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee, senators said they were worried that slow action by the Commerce Department to set up a civil STM system as outlined in Space Policy Directive (SPD) 3 in 2018 threatened U.S.