Virgin Galactic adds 100 customers after resuming ticket sales
Tuesday, 09 November 2021 11:21Virgin Galactic executives said they’ve seen strong interest from customers as the company restarts sales of tickets on its suborbital vehicles, even though those customers may have an extended wait until they fly.
NASA to provide Artemis update
Tuesday, 09 November 2021 10:13NASA will provide an update on its plans for the Artemis program as the new head of the agency’s exploration efforts works to get up to speed on both near-term and long-term priorities.
SpaceX returns 4 astronauts to Earth, ending 200-day flight
Tuesday, 09 November 2021 08:09Off-world colony simulation reveals changes in human communication over time with Earth
Tuesday, 09 November 2021 08:08Elton John famously sang that Mars "ain't the kind of place to raise your kids", but one day space agencies across the globe hope to prove him wrong by seeing the first human set foot on the Red Planet, and potentially colonizing it or any other moon or planet.
However, those who make the journey will not only have to survive on a freezing planet with no breathable atmosphere, but live in isolation unlike any other explorers in human history.
At its closest proximity, Mars is still almost 55m km away from Earth, making communication delays and supply issues between the two worlds unavoidable. This requires crew members to effectively cope with stressful conditions by themselves, with limited autonomous resources available on board.
With little chance of conducting a trial run in space, scientists have resorted to terrestrial experiments to see how astronauts cope with such challenges. A previous isolation experiment called Mars-500 revealed a psychological detachment from mission control among those who took part, raising fears that it could lead to resistance from future crews in deep space to any commands.
Satellites pinpoint communities at risk of permafrost thaw
Tuesday, 09 November 2021 07:30Thawing permafrost in the Arctic is already unleashing methane and carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, exacerbating global temperature rise. As well adding to the climate crisis, this ground, which has been frozen for thousands of years, is becoming unstable and causing serious issues for local communities. For the first time, data from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 missions along with artificial intelligence have been used to offer a complete overview of the Arctic to identify communities and infrastructure that will be at risk over the next 30 years.
Virgin Galactic has sold 100 more space tickets
Tuesday, 09 November 2021 06:34Virgin Galactic has sold around 100 tickets since flying its founder Richard Branson to space last summer, with commercial services expected to begin by the end of 2022, the company said in its financial results Monday. The current price of the fare is $450,000 per seat, well above the $200,000-$250,000 paid by some 600 customers from 2005 to 2014. In total, the company has now sold 70
ISS astronauts return to Earth in SpaceX craft after 6-month mission
Tuesday, 09 November 2021 06:34Four astronauts returned to Earth Monday in a SpaceX craft after spending six months on the International Space Station, a NASA live broadcast showed, marking the end of a busy mission. The international crew conducted thousands of experiments in orbit and helped upgrade the solar panels on the ISS during their "Crew-2" mission. Its descent slowed by four huge parachutes, their Dragon sp
Digantara and OrbAstro announce service agreement for space debris tracking mission on 6U satellite
Tuesday, 09 November 2021 06:34Digantara Research and Technologies has signed a contract with Orbital Astronautics Ltd to fly its SCOT (Space-based space Climate and Object Tracker) payload onboard an ORB-6 satellite platform launching towards the end of 2022. The mission will focus on demonstration of a novel LiDAR-based technology developed by Digantara, and will serve as the pilot for their LEO constellation providin
Tiny grains, severe damage: Hypervelocity dust impacts on a spacecraft produce plasma explosions and debris clouds
Tuesday, 09 November 2021 06:34The Parker Solar Probe spacecraft, NASA's newest and most ambitious effort to study the sun, has broken a lot of records: it has gotten closer to the sun than any other spacecraft to date, its instruments have operated at the hottest temperatures, and the probe is the fastest human-made object ever. But those records come at a cost: The spacecraft is moving so fast that running into even a tiny
Mystery object detected near China's space debris cleaner fuels fears of 'satellite-crushing weapon'
Tuesday, 09 November 2021 06:34China launched its Shijian 21 satellite into orbit from Xichang late in October on a mission to "test and verify space debris mitigation technologies". However, the launch triggered fears in the US military that Beijing had unveiled a new "satellite-crushing" weapon to achieve superior space attack systems. US space tracking has detected a mysterious object orbiting along with China's Shij
Airbus and Vietnam strenghthen partnership on Space Observation
Tuesday, 09 November 2021 06:34France and Vietnam have decided to strengthen their existing cooperation on Space domain. On November 3, in the presence of French and Vietnamese Prime Ministers, VAST, CNES and Airbus signed a Letter of Intent on cooperation related to Earth-Observation satellite implementation. This cooperation is aimed at facilitating the implementation of the "Vietnam Space Technology Program 2020 - 20
China and Africa will strengthen cooperation on Beidou satellite system
Tuesday, 09 November 2021 06:34China and Africa will strengthen their communication and cooperation in promoting and using the Beidou Navigation Satellite System, according to an international forum in Beijing on Friday. Officials, industry leaders and researchers from China, several African nations and the African Union shared their thoughts at the First China-Africa Beidou System Cooperation Forum and agreed to take a
LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration announces 90 gravitational wave discoveries to date
Tuesday, 09 November 2021 06:34The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration unveiled several studies that shed important new light on the nature of gravitational waves-ripples in time and space produced by merging black holes and/or neutron stars. They include a "census" of gravitational wave events to date and a new catalog of results from the second half of its third observing run (O3b), describing 90 gravitational wave events observ
NASA selects new mission to study storms, impacts on climate models
Tuesday, 09 November 2021 06:34NASA has selected a new Earth science mission that will study the behavior of tropical storms and thunderstorms, including their impacts on weather and climate models. The mission will be a collection of three SmallSats, flying in tight coordination, called Investigation of Convective Updrafts (INCUS), and is expected to launch in 2027 as part of NASA's Earth Venture Program. NASA selected
Radiocarbon is key to understanding Earth's past
Tuesday, 09 November 2021 06:34Radiocarbon records are critical to understanding the history of Earth's climate, magnetic field, and the Sun's activity, say researchers. In an article published in the journal Science, scientists have highlighted how recent advances in our knowledge of past radiocarbon levels are improving our understanding of climate processes, solar activity, geophysics and the carbon cycle. Unde