Copernical Team
Blue Canyon and SEAKR deliver first flight unit and payloads for Blackjack Program
Small satellite manufacturer and mission services provider Blue Canyon Technologies, LLC, and SEAKR Engineering, LLC, wholly owned subsidiaries of Raytheon Technologies, has announced that they have delivered one Saturn-class microsat bus and completed acceptance testing of the first two of twelve Pit Boss Battle Management Command, Control and Communication payloads for the Defense Advanced Res LEO satellite cluster to provide secure digital military intelligence from 2024
BAE Systems is set to launch its first multi-sensor satellite cluster into low Earth orbit in 2024 to deliver high-quality information and intelligence in real time from space to military customers. Known as AzaleaTM, the group of satellites will use a range of sensors to collect visual, radar and radio frequency (RF) data, which will be analysed by on board machine learning on edge processors t Why do we always need to wait for 'launch windows' to get a rocket to space?
Earlier this week, the Artemis I moon mission was scrubbed again; now we have to wait for a new launch window.
Just 40 minutes before the Space Launch System rocket was set to take off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on September 3, a leaking fuel line caused engineers to scrub the launch.
So what is a launch window, and why can't a rocket go up at any time? And what does it mean to "scrub" it?
Waiting for the right alignment
A launch window is like waiting for the stars to align. The rocket will be "thrown" off the surface of Earth. This toss must be timed perfectly so the craft's resulting path through space sends it—and everything it's carrying—towards the intended location at the right time.
For Artemis I—a mission to send the Orion capsule into orbit around the moon—the "right time" means waiting for the moon to be as close to Earth as possible (known as "perigee") during its 28-day cycle. Hence why we'll now be waiting roughly four weeks for the next moonshot.
Week in images: 05-09 September 2022
Week in images: 05-09 September 2022
Discover our week through the lens
ESA completes end-to-end test of enhanced, secure Galileo service
Europe’s Galileo satellite navigation system continues to evolve. For the very first time, end-to-end testing of the Galileo system demonstrated signal acquisition of an improved version of the Public Regulated Service (PRS), the most secure and robust class of Galileo services. The system test extended from the Galileo Security Monitoring Centre in Spain and the Galileo Control Centre in Germany to a Galileo satellite at ESA’s ESTEC technical heart in the Netherlands, which then broadcast in turn to a user receiver.
Help explore the future with ESA’s Advanced Concepts Team
Next week ESA’s future-oriented Advanced Concepts Team, the ACT, will mark its 20th anniversary by contemplating the coming two decades in space – and outside space researchers, engineers and students are cordially invited to take part.
Momentus First Demonstration Mission Status Update #5
Momentus Inc. (NASDAQ: MNTS), a U.S. commercial space company that plans to offer transportation and other in-space infrastructure services, has provided its fifth Mission Update on its inaugural Vigoride mission that launched on May 25.
Since the Company's last update on August 3, Momentus has successfully deployed an additional payload from its Vigoride orbital transfer vehicle. SelfieSa Falcon 9 set to launch BlueWalker 3 to Low Earth Orbit
AST SpaceMobile, Inc. ("AST SpaceMobile") (NASDAQ: ASTS), the company building the first and only space-based cellular broadband network accessible directly by standard mobile phones, has announced its BlueWalker 3 (BW3) test satellite is planned to reach orbit September 10 from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, a mission that plans to kick off testing with mobile network operator Hubble finds spiraling stars, providing window into early universe
Nature likes spirals - from the whirlpool of a hurricane, to pinwheel-shaped protoplanetary disks around newborn stars, to the vast realms of spiral galaxies across our universe.
Now astronomers are bemused to find young stars that are spiraling into the center of a massive cluster of stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.
The outer arm of the spira Unraveling a mystery surrounding cosmic matter
Early in its history, shortly after the Big Bang, the universe was filled with equal amounts of matter and "antimatter" - particles that are matter counterparts but with opposite charge. But then, as space expanded, the universe cooled. Today's universe is full of galaxies and stars which are made of matter. Where did the antimatter go, and how did matter come to dominate the universe? This cosm