Strong interest for SpaceX smallsat rideshare launch services
Monday, 08 February 2021 20:25
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WASHINGTON — SpaceX is seeing strong demand for its dedicated smallsat rideshare missions, a program that is putting pricing pressure on small launch vehicle developers.
During a panel discussion at the 2021 SmallSat Symposium Feb. 9, a SpaceX official said the company has two more dedicated rideshare missions scheduled this year after its Falcon 9 Transporter-1 launch Jan.
Explainer: how the UAE probe reached Mars' orbit
Monday, 08 February 2021 20:10 Write a comment
The first Arab interplanetary mission reached Mars' orbit Tuesday in the most critical stage of its journey to unravel the secrets of weather on the Red Planet.
The unmanned probe—named "Al-Amal", Arabic for "Hope"—blasted off from Japan last year, the latest step in the UAE's ambitious space programme.
Here are some facts and figures about the oil-rich nation's project, which draws inspiration from the Middle East's golden age of cultural and scientific achievements.
Outsize plans
The United Arab Emirates, made up of seven members including Dubai and Abu Dhabi, has 12 satellites in orbit, with plans to launch several more in coming years.
In September 2019, it sent the first Emirati into space, Hazza al-Mansouri, who was part of a three-member crew. They blasted off from Kazakhstan, returning home after an eight-day mission in which he became the first Arab to visit the International Space Station.
But the UAE's ambitions go much further, with a goal of building a human settlement on Mars by 2117.
In the meantime, it plans to create a white-domed "Science City" in the deserts outside Dubai to simulate Martian conditions and develop the technology needed to colonise the planet.
Turkey unveils space program including 2023 moon mission
Monday, 08 February 2021 20:08 Write a comment
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan unveiled an ambitious 10-year space program for his country Tuesday that includes missions to the moon, sending Turkish astronauts into space and developing internationally viable satellite systems.
Erdogan announced the program, seen as part of his vision for placing Turkey in expanded regional and global role, during a live televised event laced with special effects.
Eutelsat awarded €100m contract for next-gen European navigation overlay service
Monday, 08 February 2021 19:21 Write a comment
JOHANNESBURG — The European GNSS Agency, GSA, has awarded a €100 million ($121 million) contract to Eutelsat Communications to develop and operate the agency’s next-generation EGNOS satellite navigation overlay service.
The European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) is used to improve the performance and accuracy of U.S.
Hope enters orbit around Mars
Monday, 08 February 2021 18:19 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — The United Arab Emirates’ first Mars mission, Hope, successfully entered orbit around the planet Feb. 9.
Hope completed a 27-minute burn of its main thrusters, slowing the spacecraft down enough to enter an initial “capture” orbit around Mars, at 10:57 a.m.
UAE's 'Hope' probe enters Mars orbit in first for Arab world
Monday, 08 February 2021 18:18 Write a comment
The United Arab Emirates' "Hope" probe on Monday successfully entered Mars' orbit, making history as the Arab world's first interplanetary mission.
The probe is designed to reveal the secrets of Martian weather, but the UAE also wants it to serve as an inspiration for the region's youth.
"To the people of the UAE, to the Arab and Muslim nations, we announce the succesful arrival to Mars' orbit. Praise be to God," said Omran Sharaf, the mission's project manager.
Super-Earth atmospheres probed at Sandia's Z machine
Monday, 08 February 2021 14:42 Write a comment
The huge forces generated by the Z machine at Sandia National Laboratories are being used to replicate the gravitational pressures on so-called "super-Earths" to determine which might maintain atmospheres that could support life.
Astronomers believe that super-Earths—collections of rocks up to eight times larger than Earth—exist in the millions in our galaxy.
Sentinel-6 passes in-orbit tests with flying colors
Monday, 08 February 2021 14:37
Keeping it fluid
Monday, 08 February 2021 14:31 Write a comment
Image:
NASA astronaut Victor Glover installs the Fluid Dynamics in Space experiment, or Fluidics for short. Fluidics is the black cylinder pictured in the foreground of the European Columbus module of the International Space Station.
Developed by French space agency CNES and co-funded by Airbus, the Fluidics experiment is probing how fluids behave in weightlessness.
The experiment is made up of six small, transparent spheres housed in the black centrifuge seen here and is studying two phenomena.
The first is ‘sloshing’ or how liquids move inside closed spaces, which is hard to predict both with and without gravity. Think how
Op-ed | Space weather bill will fizzle without funding
Monday, 08 February 2021 14:30 Write a comment
On Oct. 21, 2020, the Promoting Research and Observations of Space Weather to Improve the Forecasting of Tomorrow (PROSWIFT) Act was signed into law. This act culminates a multiyear bipartisan effort championed by Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.
Swarm begins offering commercial satellite data service
Monday, 08 February 2021 14:00 Write a comment
SAN FRANCISCO – With 81 miniature satellites in orbit, internet-of-things startup Swarm announced the start of its commercial data service.
“Swarm is now live commercially,” Ben Longmier, Swarm co-founder and chief technology officer, told SpaceNews. “We have a bunch of commercial customers on the network.
Six ways satellites make the world a better place
Monday, 08 February 2021 13:40 Write a comment
Almost 3,000 operational spacecraft orbit our Earth. This number is growing constantly, thanks to cheaper materials and smaller satellites.
Having this many satellites in orbit can create problems, including space junk and the way they change our view of the night sky. But satellites provide a vital service.
Many people are familiar with GPS, which helps us navigate. Some may know satellites provide crucial data for our weather forecasts. But satellites affect our lives in many different ways—and some of these may surprise you.
1. Spending money
Whether you pay for your morning coffee using a contactless payment, Google Pay, or even with cash withdrawn from an ATM, none of it would be possible without satellites. In fact, all financial transactions—from multimillion pound stock market transactions, to your monthly Netflix subscription – rely on satellite location and timing services for security.
Global navigation satellite systems orbit about 20,000km above the surface of the Earth and continually communicate with phones and computers to tell them precisely where they are and what time it is.
Thales Alenia selected to build Telesat’s broadband constellation
Monday, 08 February 2021 13:30 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — Canadian satellite operator Telesat announced Feb. 9 it has selected Thales Alenia Space to manufacture 298 satellites for a broadband network in low-Earth orbit.
Telesat also announced that its constellation, named Lightspeed, will start offering services in 2023.
Jupiter's Trojan asteroids offer surprises
Monday, 08 February 2021 13:26 Write a comment
A new study out this month suggests that Jupiter's Trojan asteroids may be more peculiar than previously thought. The Trojan asteroids are rocky objects which orbit the sun just ahead of and just behind the gas giant, in gravitational sweet spots known as Lagrange points. The swarm ahead of Jupiter, known as the L4 (Greek) group, is slightly larger than the L5 (Trojan) swarm behind, but until now, astronomers believed that there was otherwise little differentiation between the two swarms. The paper released this month appears to change that.
The research team, using data from the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) based in Hawaii, has discovered unexpected variations in the shape of the Trojans. This new study suggests that objects in the L4 population are actually more elongated than those in the L5 population, on average.
Why does this matter? Well, the difference "may imply a different collisional evolution within each cloud," the paper suggests. The L4 swarm's larger population means objects within it have had had more opportunities to collide with one another. As one Trojan slams into another, larger objects are worn down or broken into smaller pieces.
Industry still sees strong demand for smallsat launch services
Monday, 08 February 2021 12:18 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — While some see a surge of launch vehicle development efforts as a sign of an “overheated” market, others see those efforts as a sign of shifting demand.
At a Feb. 4 webinar, Tory Bruno, chief executive of United Launch Alliance, said he was concerned that too much investment was going into launch companies, creating capabilities that were driving down prices but not stimulating demand.