Beijing (Sputnik) Jul 21, 2022
Last month, the US Space Force (USSF) launched a new intelligence center and US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines called space "a warfighting domain." The military branch was launched in 2019 as Washington began to fret it was losing its half-century of dominance in US orbit. The Chinese government has denounced the United States' militarization of space, calling on Washington

Denver CO (SPX) Jul 26, 2022
Today, Space For Humanity (S4H), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, announced its selection committee has chosen Sara Sabry to become the organization's second sponsored Citizen Astronaut. Sara will become the first Egyptian to fly to space when she flies aboard Blue Origin's NS-22 flight. Sara, 29, is an Egyptian mechanical and biomedical engineer and founder of Deep Space Initiative (DS

Houston TX (SPX) Jul 26, 2022
Planetary scientists from Rice University, NASA's Johnson Space Center and the California Institute of Technology have an answer to a mystery that's puzzled the Mars research community since NASA's Curiosity rover discovered a mineral called tridymite in Gale Crater in 2016. Tridymite is a high-temperature, low-pressure form of quartz that is extremely rare on Earth, and it wasn't immediat

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 25, 2022
Some planning days are more complicated than others, not because Mars throws us a curve ball, that happens, too, as regular readers of this blog will know. No, sometimes it's just plain old computer issues here on Earth that make things complicated. Today was such a day, and some of our personal computers hadn't properly updated one of the tools, but when we found out it was too late to diagnose

San Francisco CA (SPX) Jul 25, 2022
Planet Labs PBC (NYSE: PL), a leading provider of daily data and insights about Earth, has announced a new contract with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The organization is leveraging Planet's PlanetScope and SkySat products to evaluate oil spills, track marine debris, detect vessels, and identify large marine mammals like whales. In 2004, Hurricane Ivan caused

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 25, 2022
Water is life, but for all its importance, humanity has a surprisingly limited view of Earth's freshwater bodies. Researchers have reliable water level measurements for only a few thousand lakes around the world, and little to no data on some of the planet's important river systems. The upcoming Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite will fill that enormous gap. By helping to provid

Boca Raton FL (SPX) Jul 20, 2022
Terran Orbital Corporation (NYSE: LLAP), a global leader in satellite solutions, primarily serving the United States and Allied aerospace and defense industries, has announced the first signal acquisition of the Terabyte Infrared Delivery (TBIRD) Lasercom Optical Link on NASA's Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator 3 (PTD-3) satellite. Acquisition of the Lasercom Optical Link means that the s

Paris (AFP) July 26, 2022
French and British satellite operators Eutelsat and OneWeb on Tuesday announced plans to merge and create a "global champion" in the fast-growing broadband internet market, rivalling US giants such as Elon Musk's Starlink. Eutelsat and OneWeb said in a joint statement they had signed a memorandum of understanding to join forces to become "a leading global player in connectivity... in an all-

Heidelberg, Germany (SPX) Jul 26, 2022
An international team of researchers has demonstrated that the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) is capable of detecting radio emissions from normal spiral galaxies in the early universe. The SKAO, whose construction began this year, will soon be the largest radio telescope in the world. The astronomers, who are part of the SKAO's "Extragalactic Continuum" working group, are looking for

Moscow (AFP) Jul 26, 2022
Russia has decided to quit the International Space Station "after 2024", the newly-appointed chief of Moscow's space agency told President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday. "Of course, we will fulfil all our obligations to our partners, but the decision to leave this station after 2024 has been made," Roscosmos chief Yury Borisov told Putin in comments released by the Kremlin.