Munich, Germany (SPX) Apr 06, 2023
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics have developed a new way to produce and shape large, high-quality mirrors that are much thinner than conventional mirrors used for space telescopes. The resulting mirrors are flexible enough to be rolled up and stored compactly inside a launch vehicle. "Launching and deploying space telescopes is a complicated and costly

ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer mission, Juice, is planned for launch at 13:15 BST/14:15 CEST on 13 April from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. Here’s how to follow the key milestones online.

They may be microscopic, but their ability to sequester carbon is phenomenal. We are talking phytoplankton – and scientists working on a project funded by ESA are assessing different aspects of the role that these tiny plants play in the ocean carbon cycle to better understand climate processes.

True Anomaly, formed a year ago to focus on the national security market, announced April 6 it has raised $30 million in pre-seed, seed, and Series A funding.

Image: Practice makes perfect

An advanced broadband satellite that will provide high-speed internet connectivity from low Earth orbit has left OneWeb Florida Facilities to Vandenberg launch pad.

Loft Orbital has ordered an additional 15 satellite buses from Airbus OneWeb Satellites to meet growing demand for its standardized space platforms.

Antennas and radio frequency systems for space are growing larger and more powerful, so to keep pace ESA’s ground-based test facilities are scaling up too. A construction project underway beside the dunes of the North Sea marks the expansion of the ESTEC technical centre in the Netherlands with the addition of Europe’s largest antenna and radio-frequency payload test chamber – Hertz 2.0.

The upcoming launch of a NASA Earth science instrument on a commercial communications satellite illustrates the promise of, but also the problems with, hosted payloads.

The successful launch of Tranche 0 satellites took place 27 months after SDA, an agency under the U.S.