The Ariane 6 Launcher Task Force consists of top management of ESA, launch base prime contractor CNES, launcher system prime contractor ArianeGroup and launch service provider Arianespace. This regular update will follow Task Force meetings, to report on the progress being made towards inaugural flight of the new Ariane 6 launcher.

The next update is expected on or soon after 8 June.

Beijing, China (SPX) May 12, 2023
Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are the brightest millisecond-duration cosmic explosions in radio bands. Their unknown origin poses challenges for astronomy as well as physics. The Commensal Radio Astronomy FAST Survey (CRAFTS), a key program of the Five-hundred-meter Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), discovered the world's first persistently active repeating FRB, known as FRB 20190520B. Now this

Stevenage UK (SPX) May 11, 2023
Airbus has selected the National Satellite Test Facility (NSTF) at Harwell in Oxfordshire to carry out the comprehensive test campaign on the UK Ministry of Defence's next generation secure communications satellite SKYNET 6A. The 116 million pound government-funded NSTF, operated by experts from the STFC RAL Space (Science and Technology Facilities Council), will carry out the SKYNET 6A te

Luxembourg (SPX) May 11, 2023
EAGLE-1 consortium lead SES announces a new key partner, TESAT, responsible for developing and integrating the Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) payload for the EAGLE-1 satellite. The SES and TESAT partnership is aimed at achieving the next key milestone in building and implementing Europe's pioneering quantum secure communications initiative EAGLE-1. Supported by the European Space Agency (E

Adelaide, Australia (SPX) May 09, 2023
SmartSat Cooperative Research Centre (CRC), Australia's leading space research centre, has unveiled the Compact Hybrid Optical-RF User Segment (CHORUS) prototype terminal to create more stable and secured military satellite communications at the 15th Australian Space Forum. Funded by SmartSat CRC, the world-leading technology embedded in this prototype has been entirely developed in Austra

Image: This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image features the Japanese island of Nishinoshima, in the northwest Pacific Ocean.

Munich, Germany (SPX) May 12, 2023
Using ESO's Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA), astronomers have created a vast infrared atlas of five nearby stellar nurseries by piecing together more than one million images. These large mosaics reveal young stars in the making, embedded in thick clouds of dust. Thanks to these observations, astronomers have a unique tool with which to decipher the complex puzzle of s

Minneapolis MN (SPX) May 12, 2023
Thanks to data from a magnified, multiply imaged supernova, a team led by University of Minnesota Twin Cities researchers has successfully used a first-of-its-kind technique to measure the expansion rate of the Universe. Their data provide insight into a longstanding debate in the field and could help scientists more accurately determine the Universe's age and better understand the cosmos.

Amsterdam, Netherlands (SPX) May 12, 2023
An international team of astronomers including several Dutch researchers has observed the benzene molecule (C6H6) in a planet-forming disk around a young star for the first time. Besides benzene, they saw many other, smaller carbon compounds and few oxygen-rich molecules. The observations suggest that, like our own Earth, the rocky planets forming in this disc contain relatively little carbon. T

Pasadena CA (JPL) May 11, 2023
Coming in for sol 3825 planning today, the team was very excited to see that we successfully drilled a new hole on the Ubajara target. The image shows the drill contacting the rock, just before beginning the drilling activity. On the first sol of the plan, we begin with some imaging. We take a stereo mosaic of the target "Kukenan" to document the bedding of the local bedrock. We also take