Copernical Team
Seeing Ingenuity Mars helicopter fly in 3D
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When NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter took to the Martian skies on its third flight on April 25, the agency's Perseverance rover was there to capture the historic moment. Now NASA engineers have rendered the flight in 3D, lending dramatic depth to the flight as the helicopter ascends, hovers, then zooms laterally off-screen before returning for a pinpoint landing. Seeing the sequence is a bit like standing on the Martian surface next to Perseverance and watching the flight firsthand.
Located on the rover's mast, or "head," the zoomable dual-camera Mastcam-Z imager provided the view. Along with producing images that enable the public to follow the rover's daily discoveries, the cameras provide key data to help engineers navigate and scientists choose interesting rocks to study.
Justin Maki, an imaging scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, led the team that stitched the images into a video. The frames of the video were reprojected to optimize viewing in an anaglyph, or an image seen in 3D when viewed with color-filtered glasses (you can create your own 3D glasses in a few minutes).
Perseverance's robotic arm starts conducting science
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Image: OSIRIS-REx bids farewell to Asteroid Bennu
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On April 9, 2021, NASA's Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft took one last look at Bennu, the asteroid from which it scooped up a sample last October. Slated for return to Earth in 2023, the mission is on track to deliver a sample of pristine material left over from the formation of our solar system into the hands of researchers on Earth.
This image, the last one taken by the spacecraft, shows crescent Bennu with its night side merging with the complete black of space as the spacecraft pushed away from Bennu.
For two years, OSIRIS-REx studied the asteroid, revealing the many secrets of this ancient body and delivering clues about its rubble-pile-like consistency and surface terrain, which turned out to be much rockier and more rugged than initially expected from the observations of ground-based telescope.
On May 10, 2021, the spacecraft embarked on its return voyage to Earth. On Sept. 24, 2023, the spacecraft will jettison the sealed capsule containing the sample and send it onto a trajectory to touch down in the Utah desert.
Starlink and OneWeb have their first avoidance maneuver with each other's constellations
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Two companies, OneWeb and SpaceX, are racing to put fleets of thousands of communication satellites into orbit. In March, they had their first near miss. Avoidance maneuvers were successful, but how many more close calls will they face in the future?
SpaceX has already launched over a thousand of its Starlink global broadband internet satellites, and competitor OneWeb has lofted 146 of its own. Both companies—and several others—are actively prepping for dozens of more launches and thousands of more satellites.
But while space is a big place, orbits are a precious resource, especially with so many satellites already up and so many more planned. near misses are unavoidable, as both companies found out on March 30th, when they received several "red alerts" from the US Space Force's 18th Space Control Squadron, warning of a possible collision.
The red alert came just five days after OneWeb launched 36 satellites from Russia. While the OneWeb constellation orbits at a higher altitude than Starlink, they must pass through those orbits to get to their operational location.
Scientists invent method for predicting solar radio flux for two years ahead
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Since the launch of Sputnik, the Earth's first artificial satellite, in 1957, more than 41,500 tons of manmade objects have been placed in orbit around the sun, the Earth, and other planetary bodies. Since that time, the majority of objects, such as rocket bodies and large pieces of space debris, re-entered the Earth's atmosphere in an uncontrolled way, posing a potential hazard to people and infrastructure. Predicting the re-entry date and time is a challenging task, as one needs to specify the density of the upper Earth atmosphere that strongly depends on solar activity which, in turn, is hard to predict. Earth atmosphere can become very heated due to solar activity which causes it to expand, and a satellite can decay in its orbit and fall back to the Earth due to the effect known as atmospheric drag.
Webb mirror beauty
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Video:
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The beauty shot video of the international James Webb Space Telescope (Webb) showing off the telescope's primary mirror.
The world’s most powerful space science telescope has opened its primary mirror for the last time on Earth.
As part of Webb’s final tests, the 6.5 meter (21 feet 4 inch) mirror was commanded to fully expand and lock itself into place, just like it would in space. The conclusion of this test represents the team’s final checkpoint in a long series of tests designed to ensure Webb’s 18 hexagonal mirrors are prepared for a long journey in space, and
Tracking Carbon from the Ocean Surface to the Twilight Zone
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A seaward journey, supported by both NASA and the National Science Foundation, set sail in the northern Atlantic in early May-the sequel to a complementary expedition, co-funded by NSF, that took place in the northern Pacific in 2018.
The 2021 deployment of NASA's oceanographic field campaign, called Export Processes in the Ocean from Remote Sensing (EXPORTS), consists of 150 scientists an New Satellite Data Learning Tool Brings EO To The Next Generation
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A new UK Space Agency-backed online tool for learning satellite Earth Observation (EO) is now available for trial by higher education institutions.
Earth Blox aims to help inspire the UK's next generation of climate specialists and digital pioneers by giving them instant access to over 20 petabytes of global imagery - the capacity of around 20,000 home computers - without having to write a NASA's giant Webb telescope succeeds in key pre-launch test
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The world's largest and most powerful space telescope unfolded its giant golden mirror for the last time on Earth on Tuesday, a key milestone before the $10 billion observatory is launched later this year.
The James Webb Space Telescope's 21 feet 4 inch (6.5 meter) mirror was commanded to fully expand and lock itself into place, NASA said - a final test to ensure it will survive its million How to keep spacesuit ‘underwear’ clean?
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Spacewalking is a major highlight of any astronaut’s career. But there is a downside: putting on your spacesuit means sharing some previously-worn underlayers. A new ESA study is looking into how best to keep these items clean and hygienic as humans venture on to the Moon and beyond.