NASA sets coverage for Russian spacewalks
Thursday, 14 April 2022 03:54NASA will provide coverage of spacewalks Monday, April 18, and Thursday, April 28, as Russian cosmonauts venture outside the International Space Station to activate a new robotic arm attached to the Nauka module. Coverage for both spacewalks will begin at 10 a.m. EDT each day on NASA Television, the NASA app, and agency's website. Each spacewalk is scheduled to begin around 10:25 a.m.
New tests evaluate mission readiness of astronauts upon landing
Thursday, 14 April 2022 03:54Have you ever felt off-balance after being on amusement rides or gotten motion sickness on a boat? Astronauts feel something similar that can be more intense when they return to Earth from space. Once they land, their whole body - including muscles, bones, inner ear, and organs - starts readjusting to Earth's gravity. Astronauts often report feeling dizzy, lightheaded, nauseated, and off-b
Digging into drill data takes perseverance
Thursday, 14 April 2022 03:54Drilling is on hold while the rover focuses on driving, so the sampling team is off studying the data we have acquired so far. What kind of information do we get from the drill, and how do the rocks we have drilled so far compare to each other? One of the first things we look at is how difficult it was for the drill to make progress through the rock. The rover has a rotary percussive drill
Breaking news from the dawn of the universe
Thursday, 14 April 2022 03:54An international effort led by astrophysicists at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, and the Technical University of Denmark, have identified a distant object with properties that lie in-between those of a galaxy and those of a so-called quasar. The object can be seen as the ancestor of a supermassive black hole, and it was born relatively soon after the Big Bang. Simulations ha
Hubble sheds light on origins of supermassive black holes
Thursday, 14 April 2022 03:54Astronomers have identified a rapidly growing black hole in the early universe that is considered a crucial "missing link" between young star-forming galaxies and the first supermassive black holes. They used data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to make this discovery. Until now, the monster, nicknamed GNz7q, had been lurking unnoticed in one of the best-studied areas of the night sky,
Webb's coldest instrument reaches operating temperature
Thursday, 14 April 2022 03:54With help from a cryocooler, Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument has dropped down to just a few degrees above the lowest temperature matter can reach and is ready for calibration. The James Webb Space Telescope will see the first galaxies to form after the Big Bang, but to do that its instruments first need to get cold - really cold. On 7 April, Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) - a joint d
DLR research observatory to be named after Johannes Kepler
Thursday, 14 April 2022 03:54Johannes Kepler Observatory - this will be the name of the new research observatory of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR). Work is currently underway to put the facility into operation at the Empfingen Innovation Campus. The observatory is a core research facility for the DLR Institute of Technical Physics. In future, it will be used to determine the tra
How to compete with robots
Thursday, 14 April 2022 03:54When it comes to the future of intelligent robots, the first question people ask is often: how many jobs will they make disappear? Whatever the answer, the second question is likely to be: how can I make sure that my job is not among them? In a study just published in Science Robotics, a team of roboticists from EPFL and economists from the University of Lausanne offers answers to both que
NASA's Fermi hunts for gravitational waves from monster black holes
Thursday, 14 April 2022 03:54Our universe is a chaotic sea of ripples in space-time called gravitational waves. Astronomers think waves from orbiting pairs of supermassive black holes in distant galaxies are light-years long and have been trying to observe them for decades, and now they're one step closer thanks to NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Fermi detects gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light. An i
ESA ends cooperation with Russia on lunar missions
Wednesday, 13 April 2022 21:57ESA announced April 13 it was further cutting ties with Russia by dropping plans to cooperate on a series of lunar missions, turning instead to NASA and other agencies.
The post ESA ends cooperation with Russia on lunar missions appeared first on SpaceNews.
Dirk Hoke to lead propulsion startup Plasmos
Wednesday, 13 April 2022 21:01Dirk Hoke, the former CEO of Airbus Defence and Space, is joining propulsion startup Plasmos Inc. as chairman of the board.
The post Dirk Hoke to lead propulsion startup Plasmos appeared first on SpaceNews.
Dirk Hoke to become chairman of propulsion startup Plasmos
Wednesday, 13 April 2022 21:01Dirk Hoke, the former CEO of Airbus Defence and Space, is joining propulsion startup Plasmos Inc. as chairman of the board.
The post Dirk Hoke to become chairman of propulsion startup Plasmos appeared first on SpaceNews.
Intelligence official says U.S. government is not micromanaging commercial imagery
Wednesday, 13 April 2022 20:47Many of the commercial companies that are openly sharing satellite imagery of Ukraine work with the U.S. government but are not restricted in what they can share, said Stacey Dixon, principal deputy director of national intelligence
James Webb telescope's coldest instrument reaches operating temperature
Wednesday, 13 April 2022 19:53NASA's James Webb Space Telescope will see the first galaxies to form after the Big Bang, but to do that, its instruments first need to get cold—really cold. On April 7, Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI)—a joint development by NASA and ESA (European Space Agency)—reached its final operating temperature below 7 kelvins (minus 447 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 266 degrees Celsius).
Space Force looking at what it will take to refuel satellites in orbit
Wednesday, 13 April 2022 16:31The U.S. Space Force in 2025 plans to launch to geostationary orbit three small satellites that will attempt to dock with a propellant tanker so they can be refueled in space.