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The tennis court size, kite-shaped apparatus acts like a parasol, ensuring the observatory is kept in the shade so that it is ab
The tennis court size, kite-shaped apparatus acts like a parasol, ensuring the observatory is kept in the shade so that it is able to detect faint infrared signals from the far reaches of the Universe.

The James Webb Space Telescope fully deployed its tennis-court sized sunshield Tuesday, a critical milestone for the success of its mission to study every phase of cosmic history, NASA said.

"All five layers of the sunshield are fully tensioned," said an announcer at the observatory's control center in Baltimore, where team members cheered, a live feed showed.

The 70-foot (21 meter) long, kite-shaped apparatus acts like a parasol, ensuring Webb's instruments are kept in the shade so they can detect faint infrared signals from the far reaches of the Universe.

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Second and third layers of Webb telescope sunshield fully tightened
Artist conception of the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: NASA GSFC/CIL/Adriana Manrique Gutierrez

The Webb team has completed tensioning for the first three layers of the observatory's kite-shaped sunshield, 47 feet across and 70 feet long.

The first —pulled fully taut into its final configuration—was completed mid-afternoon.

The team began the second layer at 4:09 pm EST today, and the process took 74 minutes. The third layer began at 5:48 pm EST, and the process took 71 minutes. In all, the tensioning process from the first steps this morning until the third layer achieved tension took just over five and a half hours.

These three layers are the ones closest to the Sun. Tensioning of the final two layers is planned for tomorrow.

"The membrane tensioning phase of deployment is especially challenging because there are between the structures, the tensioning mechanisms, the cables and the membranes," said James Cooper, NASA's Webb sunshield manager, based at Goddard Space Flight Center.

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Starlink’s lead executive in India said he resigned Friday for personal reasons, a month after the country’s government ordered SpaceX to stop preselling the satellite broadband service until it gives regulatory approval.

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The James Webb Space Telescope team has fully deployed the spacecraft’s 70-foot sunshield, a key milestone in preparing it for science operations.
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Elon Musk's stance is overly optimistic. Space is big, but LEO is not big enough to safely accommodate tens of billions of satellites.

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India’s space program looks to bounce back

Tuesday, 04 January 2022 11:51
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GSLV-F10

After a year marked by little launch activity and one high-profile failure, the head of India’s space program says he expects much more in 2022, including an uncrewed test flight for its human spaceflight program.

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JWST begins sunshield tensioning

Tuesday, 04 January 2022 10:59
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JWST

Spacecraft controllers started the final steps in the deployment of the sunshield of the James Webb Space Telescope Jan. 3 after fixing two minor issues with the spacecraft.

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Washington DC (UPI) Jan 3, 2022
The James Webb Space Telescope began one of the most complicated parts of its deployment Monday as NASA sent commands to fully extend the first layer of the observatory's critical five-layer sunshield. The $10 billion space telescope - the largest and most powerful in history - still is in the first half of its 29-day deployment schedule as it flies through space to a position over on
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meteor
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A meteor that caused an earthshaking boom over suburban Pittsburgh on New Year's Day exploded in the atmosphere with an energy blast equivalent to an estimated 30 tons (27,216 kilograms) of TNT, officials said.

NASA's Meteor Watch social media site said late Sunday a "reasonable assumption" of the speed of the meteor at about 45,000 mph (72,420 kph) would allow a "ballpark" estimate of its size as about a yard in diameter with a mass close to half a ton (454 kilograms).

If not for the cloudy weather, NASA said, it would have been easily visible in the daytime sky—maybe about 100 times the brightness of the full moon.

A nearby infrasound station registered the blast wave from the meteor as it broke apart, enabling the estimates.

National Weather Service meteorologist Shannon Hefferan told the Tribune-Review that satellite data recorded a flash over Washington County shortly before 11:30 a.m. Saturday and officials believed it was due to a meteor "falling through the atmosphere." Hefferan said a similar event occurred Sept. 17 in Hardy County, West Virginia.

Residents in South Hills and other areas reported hearing a loud noise and feeling their homes shaking and rattling.

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NASA's new space telescope 'hunky-dory' after problems fixed
This photo provided by NASA, the James Webb Space Telescope is separated in space on Saturday, Dec. 25, 2021. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope soared from French Guiana on South America's northeastern coast, riding a European Ariane rocket into the Christmas morning sky. The $10 billion infrared observatory is intended as the successor to the aging Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: NASA via AP
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Bringing the Sun into the lab
A plasma ejection during a solar flare. Immediately after the eruption, cascades of magnetic loops form over the eruption area as the magnetic fields attempt to reorganize. Credit: NASA/SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams.

Why the sun's corona reaches temperatures of several million degrees Celsius is one of the great mysteries of solar physics. A "hot" trail to explain this effect leads to a region of the solar atmosphere just below the corona, where sound waves and certain plasma waves travel at the same speed. In an experiment using the molten alkali metal rubidium and pulsed high magnetic fields, a team from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), a German national lab, has developed a laboratory model, and for the first time experimentally confirmed the theoretically predicted behavior of these plasma waves—so-called Alfvén waves—as the researchers report in the journal Physical Review Letters.

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The failed October debut of South Korea’s KSLV-2 rocket is being blamed on improperly anchored helium tanks inside the three-stage rocket’s upper stage. 

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Video: Orbital badminton in 360 degrees

Monday, 03 January 2022 12:49
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international space station
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Experience an orbital badminton match on the International Space Station ISS in 360° as ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer challenges his crewmates and Japanese spaceflight participants Yusaku Maezawa and Yozo Hirano.

Together with Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin, the Japanese spaceflight participants joined the current Expedition 66 crew for a short-term stay of 12 days on the ISS.

While their stay on the ISS focuses on scientific and operational activities, the astronauts on board the Space Station also enjoy recreational activities that provide an important balance for the crew and offer opportunities for intercultural exchange and team building.

Matthias was launched to the International Space Station on Crew Dragon Endurance as part of Crew-3 at 02:03 GMT/03:03 CET Thursday 11 November 2021. His ESA mission on board is known as Cosmic Kiss and will see him live and work for approximately six months in orbit.

Credit: ESA/NASA


Citation: Video: Orbital badminton in 360 degrees (2022, January 3) retrieved 3 January 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-01-video-orbital-badminton-degrees.html
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OW-V OneWeb Constellation

As the next wave of non-geostationary satellite constellations seeks U.S. Federal Communications Commission permission to operate in V-band, antenna makers are racing to make business cases viable in this Extremely High Frequency (EHF) area of radio spectrum.

Space SPACs look to rebound in 2022

Monday, 03 January 2022 12:05
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Space companies used mergers with special purpose acquisition corporations, or SPACs, to grow their businesses in 2021, but many shareholders were left underwater at the end of the year.

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