ESA’s director general says the agency does not have the budgetary capacity nor the political intention to send its astronauts to China’s space station.

The post ESA is no longer planning to send astronauts to China’s Tiangong space station appeared first on SpaceNews.

Satellite imagery confirms an enormous iceberg, around five times the size of Malta, has finally calved from Antarctica’s Brunt Ice Shelf. The new berg, estimated to be around 1550 sq km and around 150 m thick, calved when the crack known as Chasm-1 fully extended northwards severing the west part of the ice shelf.

This crack was first revealed to be extending in early 2012 after having been dormant for some decades. After several years of desperately clinging on, image data from the Copernicus Sentinel missions visually confirm the calving event.

U.S.-based launch services provider Spaceflight said Jan. 25 it has booked a dedicated launch in 2026 from Isar Aerospace, the German rocket developer aiming to perform the first test flight of its Spectrum vehicle this year.

The post Spaceflight books dedicated Isar Aerospace launch in 2026 appeared first on SpaceNews.

Image: Printed nerves for a satellite

London, UK (SPX) Jan 25, 2023
A new study led by a joint team at Nagoya University and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan has measured the cosmic age of a very distant galaxy. The team used the ALMA radio telescope array to detect a radio signal that has been travelling for approximately 97% of the age of the Universe. This discovery confirms the existence of galaxies in the very early Universe found by the James

We’re marking 20 years of the European Centre for Space Records in ESA ESRIN, Frascati, one of the physical homes of the ESA Archives, by giving access to our digital holdings in a new web portal.

Wallops Island VA (SPX) Jan 24, 2023
Rocket Lab USA, Inc. has launched its 33rd Electron rocket and first mission from Virginia. The "Virginia is for Launch Lovers" mission lifted off at 18:00 EST on January 24th from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 2 (LC-2) at Virginia Space's Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport within NASA's Wallops Flight Facility. The mission deployed three satellites to a 550km orbit for leading radio frequency geospati

Ann Arbor MI (SPX) Jan 25, 2023
It was believed that Hall thrusters, an efficient kind of electric propulsion widely used in orbit, need to be large to produce a lot of thrust. Now, a new study from the University of Michigan suggests that smaller Hall thrusters can generate much more thrust-potentially making them candidates for interplanetary missions. "People had previously thought that you could only push a certain a

Kennedy Space Center FL (SPX) Jan 25, 2023
The Boeing CST-100 Starliner's crew and service modules were connected, or mated, on Jan. 19 in advance of the first launch with astronauts to the International Space Station on the company's next-generation spacecraft. During the operation inside the company's Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a crane lifted the reusable crew module a