Ten Earth years later and Curiosity is still exploring Mars
Tuesday, 09 August 2022 01:30
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"We've got thumbnails!!" shouted, emotionally, over excited celebrations, is my most intense memory from 10 years ago. I had sat, with a lot of colleagues from my home university, The Open University here in the UK, in a seminar room, NASA TV on the big screen, anxiously watching the proceedings since 6.30 am on the 6th of August. The UK is 8 time zones ahead of Pasadena in California, where it Lowell Observatory points telescopes at Saturn during closest annual approach
Tuesday, 09 August 2022 01:30 Write a comment
Saturn will soon be at its biggest and brightest of the year, and Lowell Observatory is celebrating with nightly public telescope viewing. For the next several weeks, visitors will be able to gaze at this gas giant and see its dazzling system of rings, as well as some of its larger moons.
This Saturn viewing season centers around the planet's August 14 opposition. The term opposition indic Stars shed light on why stellar populations are so similar in Milky Way
Tuesday, 09 August 2022 01:30 Write a comment
Scientists have uncovered what sets the masses of stars, a mystery that has captivated astrophysicists for decades. Their answer? Stars, themselves.
Using highly detailed simulations, a collaborative team led by researchers from the University of Texas at Austin has made a breakthrough discovery that star formation is a self-regulatory process, knowledge that may allow researchers to under Stars determine their own masses
Tuesday, 09 August 2022 01:30 Write a comment
Last year, a team of astrophysicists including key members from Northwestern University launched STARFORGE, a project that produces the most realistic, highest-resolution 3D simulations of star formation to date. Now, the scientists have used the highly detailed simulations to uncover what determines the masses of stars, a mystery that has captivated astrophysicists for decades.
In a new s Spaceflight prepares propulsive Sherpa OTV to launch on upcoming Starlink mission
Tuesday, 09 August 2022 01:30 Write a comment
Spaceflight Inc., the leading global launch services provider, has announced it shipped the fully integrated Sherpa-LTC orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) and customer payload to Cape Canaveral to launch aboard an upcoming Starlink mission scheduled for next month.
The high-thrust propulsive Sherpa will deploy from SpaceX's Falcon 9 targeting a 310-kilometer circular orbit, before igniting and NASA's Moon-observing CubeSat ready for launch
Tuesday, 09 August 2022 01:30 Write a comment
NASA's water-scouting CubeSat is now poised to hitch a ride to lunar orbit. Not much bigger than a shoe box, Lunar IceCube's data will have an outsized impact on lunar science.
The satellite is integrated into the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and ready to journey to the Moon as part of the uncrewed Artemis I mission, launching this year.
Orbiting the Moon, Lunar IceCube will use Launch startup SpaceRyde fortifies advisory board
Monday, 08 August 2022 20:21 Write a comment
Canadian launch startup SpaceRyde said Aug. 8 it has added a second member to its advisory board with the appointment of Mina Mitry, the CEO of small satellite operator Kepler Communications.
The post Launch startup SpaceRyde fortifies advisory board appeared first on SpaceNews.
Beck: CAPSTONE demonstrates feasibility of low-cost interplanetary smallsats
Monday, 08 August 2022 20:10 Write a comment
Rocket Lab’s launch of a NASA lunar cubesat mission lived up to its name, serving as a capstone for the company’s efforts to develop end-to-end space systems and interplanetary missions, according to its chief executive.
NASA looking for new launch of remaining TROPICS cubesats
Monday, 08 August 2022 17:43 Write a comment
NASA is investigating alternative ways to launch four Earth science cubesats after Astra discontinued the rocket originally contracted to launch them.
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Commercial satellite race raises calls for more regulations
Monday, 08 August 2022 17:10 Write a comment
Rapidly evolving technology and space debris reported in several places around the world—including pieces of a Chinese Long March 5B Rocket in the Indian Ocean—signal the need for a new era for regulation of space, Flinders University experts say.
Their timely new report is calling on governments to pay more attention to the use of low-Earth orbit as space laws and technologies race ahead at high speed.
Ahead of a meeting of intergovernmental experts at next year's World Radio Conference, the space experts from the Flinders University's Jeff Bleich Centre are raising concerns on several fronts, commencing with the takeoff of commercial interest in satellite "mega-constellations" in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO).
"While there are laws that cover space activities, they are already under stress because of the speed at which the commercial space industry is evolving," says research associate in space law Joel Lisk, from the Jeff Bleich Centre at Flinders University's College of Business, Government and Law.
"There is a need to work towards ensuring that we have broad and flexible regulatory settings that are geared to rapid change and future developments.
Northrop Grumman and Firefly to partner on upgraded Antares
Monday, 08 August 2022 16:04 Write a comment
Northrop Grumman and Firefly Aerospace announced Aug. 8 that they will work together to develop a new first stage for Northrop’s Antares launch vehicle as well as a future medium-lift rocket.
SpaceLink and U.S. Army to study use of relay constellation to deliver data to troops in the field
Monday, 08 August 2022 15:00 Write a comment
SpaceLink signed an agreement with the U.S. Army to explore ways to use the company’s data-relay constellation to deliver commercial satellite imagery directly to troops on the ground.
The post SpaceLink and U.S.
Image: Pure gold pin for space testing
Monday, 08 August 2022 14:40 Write a comment
Although this pure gold pin is not much bigger than the tip of a pencil, it is the "pulsing heart" of ESA's Low Earth Orbit Facility, LEOX. Part of the Agency's Materials and Electrical Components Laboratory, based at ESA's ESTEC technical center in the Netherlands, this test facility is vital for developing materials capable of withstanding the highly-erosive individual oxygen atoms prevailing at the top of the atmosphere, the result of standard oxygen molecules of the same kind found just above the ground being broken apart by powerful ultraviolet radiation from the sun.
All missions that orbit less than about 1,000 km above Earth's surface must be designed to resist atomic oxygen. To realistically simulate the low-Earth orbit environment, the LEOX atomic oxygen facility generates atomic oxygen traveling at 7.8 km/s.
Atomic oxygen is not easy to generate on Earth, because it is so reactive. This means that the materials used to make the simulator must be as robust as the materials flown in space. This sturdy gold pin is used to inject tiny pulses of oxygen gas molecules into a vacuum chamber, where the molecules are split into atoms using a powerful laser.
100 days of the Minerva mission
Monday, 08 August 2022 14:39 Write a comment
ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti was launched to the International Space Station on 27 April as a part of Crew-4 for her second mission, Minerva. One hundred days in, mission Minerva is still going strong. From completing cutting-edge research in the world's only orbiting laboratory to sharing daily life on the Space Station via TikTok, it's all in a day's work for an ESA astronaut.
Inspired by the Roman goddess of wisdom, the handicrafts and the arts, the name Minerva is a homage to the competence and sophisticated craftmanship of the women and men all over the world who make human spaceflight possible. It also embodies the toughness and discipline that is required of us, and the wisdom we wish to demonstrate, as we consolidate and expand human presence in space. All these qualities and more have been on display during these first 100 days of the mission.
Making strides in health
Throughout mission Minerva, Samantha has played a vital role in a large number of scientific experiments on the Space Station, both from European states and international partners.
Jupiter missions could also help search for dark matter
Monday, 08 August 2022 13:30 Write a comment
In a recent study published in the Journal of High Energy Physics, two researchers from Brown University demonstrated how data from past missions to Jupiter can help scientists examine dark matter, one of the most mysterious phenomena in the universe. The reason past Jupiter missions were chosen is due to the extensive amount of data gathered about the largest planet in the solar system, most notably from the Galileo and Juno orbiters. The elusive nature and composition of dark matter continues to elude scientists, both figuratively and literally, because it does not emit any light.