Copernical Team
Jeff Bezos picks female aerospace pioneer to launch with him
Russian rocket launches UK telecom satellites
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A Russian Soyuz rocket carrying 36 UK telecommunication and internet satellites blasted off from the Vostochny cosmodrome in Russia's Far East on Thursday, the Roscosmos space agency said.
Images released by Roscosmos showed the Soyuz rocket, launched by Europe's Arianespace, taking off against dark skies at 1248 GMT.
"We have lift-off," OneWeb, a London-headquartered company, said on Twitter.
OneWeb is working to complete the construction of a constellation of low earth orbit satellites providing enhanced broadband and other services to countries around the world.
The company is competing against billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos in the race to provide fast internet for the world's remote areas via satellites.
The UK company plans for its global commercial internet service to be operational by next year, supported by some 650 satellites.
Arianespace, which has worked with Russia for close to two decades, is under contract to make 16 Soyuz launches between December 2020 and the end of 2022.
This year launches of 36 satellites took place in March, April and May.
"Taking our constellation to a total of 254 satellites, this launch will allow us to provide complete coverage north of 50 degrees latitude by the end of the 2021," OneWeb said.
Canada–US heatwave
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The heatwave now hitting parts of western Canada and the US has been particularly devastating. This Copernicus Sentinel-3 image shows land surface temperature. NASA satellites see upper atmosphere cooling and contracting due to climate change
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The sky isn't falling, but scientists have found that parts of the upper atmosphere are gradually contracting in response to rising human-made greenhouse gas emissions. Combined data from three NASA satellites have produced a long-term record that reveals the mesosphere, the layer of the atmosphere 30 to 50 miles above the surface, is cooling and contracting. Scientists have long predicted this Astronauts demonstrate CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing in space
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Researchers have developed and successfully demonstrated a novel method for studying how cells repair damaged DNA in space. Sarah Stahl-Rommel of Genes in Space and colleagues present the new technique in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on June 30, 2021.
Damage to an organism's DNA can occur during normal biological processes or as a result of environmental causes, such as UV light. In hu OneWeb fully-funded with new $500m investment
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OneWeb, the global Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite communications company, has secured further fund-raising on the anniversary of the successful bid by UK Government and Bharti Global (Bharti) to purchase OneWeb from US Chapter 11 to bring its total funding to $2.4 billion. OneWeb has completed its transformation with the exercise of a Call Option by Bharti to invest an additional $500m into the New funding from UK Space Agency will kickstart space technology projects
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The call for Grants for Exploratory Ideas, part of the National Space Technology Programme aims to fund short, three-month long projects that support innovative space technology activities, encourage collaboration between industry and academia, and encourage new entrants to the space sector.
Projects could include knowledge transfer, skills development, market studies, and proof of concept Deep Space Atomic Clock moves toward increased spacecraft autonomy
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Designed to improve navigation for robotic explorers and the operation of GPS satellites, the technology demonstration reports a significant milestone.
Spacecraft that venture beyond our Moon rely on communication with ground stations on Earth to figure out where they are and where they're going. NASA's Deep Space Atomic Clock is working toward giving those far-flung explorers more autonom SpaceX launches 88 satellites on rideshare mission
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SpaceX successfully launched 88 small satellites from Florida on Wednesday after postponing the mission Tuesday because of an airplane in the launch area.
The Falcon 9 rocket on the Transporter-2 rideshare mission lifted off at 3:31 p.m. EDT from Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. SpaceX confirmed all satellites were deployed properly almost 90 minutes after liftoff. Virgin Orbit launches 7 small satellites from jumbojet
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Launch company Virgin Orbit sent seven satellites into space on Wednesday from a rocket carried by a jet plane over the Pacific Ocean.
The Cosmic Girl jet, a modified 747, took off at 9:53 a.m. EDT from Mojave Air and Space Port about 90 miles north of Los Angeles.
Just under an hour later, the LauncherOne rocket dropped from the wing of the jet. Seconds after release, the rocket