Virgin Galactic rockets its first tourist passengers into space
Friday, 11 August 2023 04:49
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Virgin Galactic launched its first tourist passengers into the weightlessness of space Thursday, the culmination of a nearly two-decade commercial pursuit, the company said.
The three passengers - Jon Goodwin, Keisha Schahaff, and her teenage daughter Anastatia Mayers - floated gravity-free through the Virgin spacecraft about 45 minutes after taking off.
"They are officially astronauts Virgin Galactic's first space tourists finally soar, an Olympian and a mother-daughter duo
Thursday, 10 August 2023 19:23 Write a comment
Russia is to launch its first mission to the moon in almost 50 years
Thursday, 10 August 2023 18:50 Write a comment
Watch NASA engineers put a Mars lander's legs to the test
Thursday, 10 August 2023 18:24 Write a comment
Sturdy legs are needed to absorb the impact of the heaviest spacecraft to ever touch down on the Red Planet.
NASA's Perseverance rover continues to rack up tubes filled with rock core samples for the planned Mars Sample Return campaign. The joint effort by NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) seeks to bring scientifically selected samples back from Mars to be studied on Earth with lab equipment far more complex than could be brought to the Red Planet. Engineers are busy designing the Sample Retrieval Lander that would help bring those samples to Earth. As part of that effort, they've been testing prototypes of the lander's legs and footpads at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
NASA to Host Media for Asteroid Capsule Drop Test Briefing in Utah
Thursday, 10 August 2023 17:37 Write a comment
Media are invited to Utah’s western desert on Wednesday, Aug. 30, to learn about NASA preparations and readiness to receive America’s first asteroid sample collected in space. Viasat studying L-band from Inmarsat for direct-to-device services
Thursday, 10 August 2023 17:23 Write a comment
Viasat is in the early stages of exploring how to use L-band spectrum from newly acquired Inmarsat to connect consumer devices directly from space, including potentially from small satellites in low Earth orbit.
SpaceX to offer mid-inclination smallsat rideshare launches
Thursday, 10 August 2023 16:49 Write a comment
SpaceX is offering a second class of rideshare missions on its Falcon 9 rocket to serve customers seeking to go to mid-inclination orbits.
Virgin Galactic conducts first space tourist suborbital flight
Thursday, 10 August 2023 15:15 Write a comment
Virgin Galactic took its first private astronaut customers on a suborbital spaceflight Aug.
Op-ed | SPACs are a double-edged sword for newspace
Thursday, 10 August 2023 14:36 Write a comment
While special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) hold the potential to drive space industry growth, it is crucial to understand their potential risks.
Course correction keeps Parker Solar Probe on track for Venus flyby
Thursday, 10 August 2023 14:10 Write a comment
NASA's Parker Solar Probe executed a short maneuver on Aug. 3, 2023, that kept the spacecraft on track to hit the aim point for the mission's sixth Venus flyby on Monday, Aug. 21, 2023.
Operating on preprogrammed commands from mission control at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, Parker fired its small thrusters for 4.5 seconds, enough to adjust its trajectory by 77 miles and speed up—by 1.4 seconds—its closest approach to Venus. The precise timing and position are critical to that flyby, the sixth of seven approaches in which Parker uses the planet's gravity to tighten its orbit around the sun.
"Parker's velocity is about 8.7 miles per second, so in terms of changing the spacecraft's speed and direction, this trajectory correction maneuver may seem insignificant," said Yanping Guo, mission design and navigation manager at APL.
Micropatch algorithm improves ground-to-spacecraft software update efficiency
Thursday, 10 August 2023 14:06 Write a comment
Hera's mini-radar will probe asteroid's heart
Thursday, 10 August 2023 13:31 Write a comment
The smallest radar to fly in space has been delivered to ESA for integration aboard the miniature Juventas CubeSat, part of ESA's Hera mission for planetary defense. The radar will perform the first radar imaging of an asteroid, peering deep beneath the surface of Dimorphos—the Great Pyramid-sized body whose orbit was shifted last year by the impact of NASA's DART spacecraft.
"This delivery marks a definite milestone," comments Alain Hérique of Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble (IPAG) at the University Grenoble Alpes in France, the instrument's principal investigator.
"We have been working hard in recent weeks to finalize the radar for its handover. But this is far from the end of our involvement. IPAG and our project partners will be following the process of integration, especially in terms of connection with the rest of the CubeSat, to optimize the performance of the finished instrument, and to calibrate its performance to ensure we interpret our science data as best we can once we are in space.
Solar System fingerprints found in memories of ESA flotilla
Thursday, 10 August 2023 13:00
Space Force tries to hedge risk with new launch strategy
Thursday, 10 August 2023 12:59 Write a comment
As it prepares to award the next round of National Security Space Launch contracts, the Space Force is no longer comfortable relying on just two companies.
Putting a stamp on Huginn
Thursday, 10 August 2023 12:18 Write a comment
A new stamp for the Huginn mission has been released, taking inspiration from the mission’s Nordic name, Huginn, it presents a colourful design with a deep history.