Copernical Team
Commercial space projects expected to provide more services in China
China unveiled a series of commercial space projects at the recent 9th China (International) Commercial Aerospace Forum held in Wuhan. The programs are expected to provide more service in sectors such as natural resources survey, disaster warning and remote sensing.
The projects include an ultra-low orbit satellite constellation, the Tianmu meteorological constellation, Luojia-2 SAR remote Raytheon, Northrop Grumman secure further hypersonic weapon development contract
Raytheon, an RTX business entity, and Northrop Grumman Corporation have obtained a subsequent contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to progress in the field of air-breathing hypersonic systems. This contract signals a commitment to the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) as the companies seek to construct and test additional flight vehicles.
The amb Studying solar flares and sunspots can help protect Earth
In 1859, the Carrington Event, the most intense geomagnetic storm in recorded history, created spectacular auroral displays around the globe, illuminating the night skies so brightly that birds began singing and laborers set off for work, mistakenly believing the sun had risen.
Telegraph systems around the world - essential for communication at the time - began to fail as fires sparked and UAH researchers find brightest gamma-ray burst ever detected
The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) has announced that three researchers associated with the UAH Center for Space Plasma and Aeronomic Research (CSPAR) have discovered a gamma-ray burst (GRB) approximately 2.4 billion light-years away in the constellation Sagitta that ranks as the brightest ever observed. Believed to have been triggered by collapse of a massive star, it is accompanied NASA's Starling CubeSats set in motion: an innovative swarm in LEO
NASA's quartet of Starling CubeSats has successfully deployed from Rocket Lab's Electron kick stage, marking a significant step forward in the field of satellite swarm technologies. These cutting-edge spacecraft, designed to work in cohesion as a "swarm", have successfully reached low Earth orbit and are set to commence their mission of testing advanced technologies for autonomous maneuvering, n A car-sized object that washed ashore in western Australia is thought to be space junk
Authorities were investigating on Tuesday whether a cylindrical object about the size of a small car that washed up on a remote Australian beach is space junk from a foreign rocket.
Euclid calling: downloading the Universe
First BepiColombo flyby of Mercury finds electron rain triggers X-ray auroras
BepiColombo, the joint European Space Agency (ESA) and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) mission, has revealed how electrons raining down onto the surface of Mercury can trigger high-energy auroras.
The mission, which has been enroute to the solar system's innermost planet since 2018, successfully carried out its first Mercury flyby on October 1, 2021. An international team of researchers analyzed data from three of BepiColombo's instruments during the encounter. The outcomes of this study have been published in Nature Communications.
Terrestrial auroras are generated by interactions between the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emitted by the sun, and an electrically charged upper layer of Earth's atmosphere, called the ionosphere.
NASA's Psyche mission enters home stretch before launch
Engineers and technicians at Cape Canaveral are preparing the Psyche spacecraft for liftoff, which is slated for Oct. 5.
With less than 100 days to go before its Oct. 5 launch, NASA's Psyche spacecraft is undergoing final preparations at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Teams of engineers and technicians are working almost around the clock to ensure the orbiter is ready to journey 2.5 billion miles (4 billion kilometers) to a metal-rich asteroid that may tell us more about planetary cores and how planets form.
The mission team recently completed a comprehensive test campaign of the flight software and installed it on the spacecraft, clearing the hurdle that kept Psyche from making its original 2022 launch date.
New strategy to keep pace with our changing world
Fuelled largely by climate change, our planet is being subjected to environmental changes that are having an unprecedented global impact on humans, animals and plants. Shockingly, in certain locations these changes are occurring at a rate never before witnessed.
To keep pace with the challenges we face, ESA is embarking on a new Earth observation science strategy – and has reached out to the scientific community at this early stage in the process to help guide the Agency’s scientific agenda for the coming years.