Information session on the outcome of ESA’s 317th Council
Thursday, 19 October 2023 12:00
ESA Member States met for the 317th session of the ESA Council on 18 and 19 October.
Watch the replay of the information session in which ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher and ESA Council Chair Renato Krpoun share the outcome of the meeting. They give an update to media on plans for ESA to cooperate with the UN’s Environment Programme on the use of Earth observation data and technology for the environment, as well as providing assistance to Poland for its national Earth observation project. They also share the latest plans for a Space Summit to be held
Copernicus operations resilience: Inuvik wildfires
Thursday, 19 October 2023 12:00
Copernicus operations resilience: Inuvik wildfires
Chinese satellite cluster utilizes InSAR technology for advanced terrain mapping
Thursday, 19 October 2023 09:33
Sydney, Australia (SPX) Oct 19, 2023
China's PIESAT-1, a unique constellation of remote-sensing satellites arranged in a wheel-like formation, has successfully acquired high-precision topographic data using multi-baseline interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) technology. This achievement marks China's first in-orbit application of this advanced mapping system, according to an announcement made by the Aerospace Informatio

Star trackers emerge as new tool for high-precision space debris detection
Thursday, 19 October 2023 09:33
Coimbra, Portugal (SPX) Oct 19, 2023
Neuraspace, a trailblazer in space traffic management (STM), has entered into a collaborative effort with Arcsec, a well-known supplier of star trackers. The alliance aims to employ Arcsec's star trackers in the detection and analysis of space debris, a move expected to bring a sea change in how space debris is managed.
The collaboration will facilitate Neuraspace in furnishing its clients

Space Development Agency partners with SpiderOak for OrbitSecure
Thursday, 19 October 2023 09:33
Washington DC (SPX) Oct 18, 2023
Space cybersecurity firm SpiderOak has secured an Other Transactional Authority agreement with the Space Development Agency (SDA). The contract aims to explore the integration of SpiderOak's OrbitSecure software suite into the Space Force's Rapid Resilient Command and Control initiative. This partnership aspires to bolster the cybersecurity of command and control systems as the Space Force conti

Rocket Lab Moves Into System Integration Phase for NASA's Mars Mission
Thursday, 19 October 2023 09:33
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Oct 19, 2023
Rocket Lab USA, Inc. has entered a crucial phase in its collaboration with NASA on the ESCAPADE mission, a project aiming to study Mars' hybrid magnetosphere. The company announced that the twin spacecraft for the mission have moved into the system integration phase, aligning with a launch scheduled for 2024.
Spearheaded by Dr. Rob Lillis at the University of California, Berkeley's Space S

Planetary Scientist Alan Stern Joins Virgin Galactic for Research Mission
Thursday, 19 October 2023 09:33
San Antonio TX (SPX) Oct 19, 2023
Dr. Alan Stern, a leading planetary scientist and the Associate Vice President of Southwest Research Institute's (SwRI) Space Science Division, will fly aboard the VSS Unity, Virgin Galactic's commercial spaceship, on November 2. The upcoming flight is not just a personal milestone for Stern but is set as a precursor to a NASA-funded Virgin Galactic suborbital flight, during which he will execut

Lockheed Martin Ventures backs HawkEye 360 with $10M in latest funding round
Thursday, 19 October 2023 09:33
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Oct 19, 2023
HawkEye 360 Inc., a front-runner in the provision of space-based radio frequency (RF) data and analytics, has concluded its Series D-1 funding round by securing an additional $10 million. This latest financial injection brings the total amount raised in the Series D-1 to $68 million. Key investors in this second closing were Lockheed Martin Ventures, the investment wing of Lockheed Martin Corpor

TRIDENT drill integrated into VIPER lunar rover
Thursday, 19 October 2023 09:33
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Oct 19, 2023
Engineers at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, together with the team from Honeybee Robotics in Altadena, California, are gearing up to incorporate the latest addition to NASA's first robotic Moon rover, VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover). The newly arrived instrument is the TRIDENT drill, an acronym for The Regolith Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain.
TRIDENT i

Psyche's 3.6 billion kilometre journey to the centre of the Earth via it's namesake
Thursday, 19 October 2023 09:33
Canberra, Australia (SPX) Oct 19, 2023
Psyche was the Greek goddess of the soul, born a mere mortal and later married to Eros, the God of love. Who knows why the Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis gave her name to a celestial object he observed one night in 1852?
Psyche was only the 16th "asteroid" ever discovered: inhabitants of the Solar System that were neither the familiar planets nor the occasional visitors known as c

Searching for concentrated biosignatures in an ancient, Martian mud lake
Thursday, 19 October 2023 09:33
Tucson AZ (SPX) Oct 19, 2023
A landmark discovery by a collaborative team led by the Planetary Science Institute's Alexis Rodriguez has unveiled evidence of sedimentary plains created by aquifer drainage within Martian collapse formations termed chaotic terrains.
"Our research focuses on a sedimentary unit within Hydraotes Chaos, which we interpret to be the remnants of a mud lake formed by discharges from gas-charged

Grasping the three-dimensional morphology of kilonovae
Thursday, 19 October 2023 09:33
Darmstadt, Germany (SPX) Oct 19, 2023
An advanced new three-dimensional (3D) computer simulation of the light emitted following a merger of two neutron stars has produced a similar sequence of spectroscopic features to an observed kilonova.
"The unprecedented agreement between our simulations and the observation of kilonova AT2017gfo indicates that we understand broadly what has taken place in the explosion and aftermath," say

New Siena Galaxy Atlas delivers improved measurements of almost 400,000 nearby galaxies
Thursday, 19 October 2023 09:33
Washington DC (SPX) Oct 19, 2023
Astronomers have created a detailed atlas of almost 400,000 galaxies in our cosmic neighborhood. The Siena Galaxy Atlas was compiled using data from NSF's NOIRLab telescopes, and is designed to be the pre-eminent digital galaxy atlas for large galaxies. It's a treasure trove of information for researchers investigating everything from galaxy formation and evolution to dark matter and gravitation
