Kennedy Space Center FL (SPX) Jan 15, 2021
The Orion spacecraft for NASA's Artemis I mission is taking one more step closer to its flight to the Moon. On Jan. 14, the spacecraft was lifted out of the stand in the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida where engineers have meticulously outfitted it with thousands of components and tested its systems and subsystems to ensure it can a

Beijing (XNA) Jan 15, 2021
China has newly released four national technical standards for the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), according to the China Satellite Navigation Office. This is a major move forward of China in standardizing and ensuring the development and industrial application of the BDS through drafting national standards, said the office. The four newly-released technical standards are f

Cleveland OH (SPX) Jan 15, 2021
NASA is developing capabilities that will allow missions at high altitudes to take advantage of signals from Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) constellations - like GPS commonly used in the U.S. These signals - used on Earth for navigation and critical timing applications - could provide NASA's Artemis missions to the Moon with reliable timing and navigation data. NASA's Space Communicat

Stevenage UK (SPX) Jan 15, 2021
Airbus has successfully completed the first key phase of the Skynet 6A project with the achievement of the Preliminary Design Review (PDR). The project now has permission to move into the next phase leading to the Critical Design Review (CDR). Airbus was awarded the Skynet 6A contract in July 2020 and teams across its sites in Stevenage, Portsmouth and Hawthorn have been working on the pro

Bethesda MD (SPX) Jan 15, 2021
Many think the idea of a military crewed space station is new. It is not. The Russian Almaz ("Diamond") was a highly secret Soviet military space station program that began in the early 1960s. In fact, three crewed military reconnaissance stations were launched between 1973 and 1976. These were referred to as Salyut 2, Salyut 3 and Salyut 5. To camouflage their real mission the three stati

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jan 15, 2021
Is our solar system located in a typical Milky Way neighborhood? Scientists have gotten closer to answering this question, thanks to the NASA-funded Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project, a "citizen science" collaboration between professional scientists and members of the public. Scientists tapped into the worldwide network of 150,000 volunteers using Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 to find new exam

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin company launched a new capsule into space Thursday to test all the astronaut perks before people strap in.

Thursday's flight with a dummy named Mannequin Skywalker lasted 10 minutes and reached 66 miles (106 kilometers) above West Texas. Both the New Shepard rocket and the capsule landed successfully.

It was the 14th flight to the fringes of space for a New Shepard rocket. The first was in 2015.

"The success of this flight puts us one really big step closer to flying astronauts," launch commentator Ariane Cornell said from company headquarters in Kent, Washington.

Video: 01:36:00

A replay of our start-of-year press conference with ESA Director General Jan Wörner, future Director General Josef Aschbacher and other ESA Directors, held online on Thursday, 14 January 2021.

They looked ahead at Europe's space activities in 2021 and answered questions from media. Highlights in 2021 include two ESA astronauts flying to the International Space Station, the new James Webb Space Telescope being launched from the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, and the launch of NASA’s first Artemis mission, in a programme that will take humans to the Moon powered by ESA’s European Service Module.

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