ESA Open Day registration now open
Tuesday, 14 September 2021 10:15
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Registration for this year's ESA Open Day is now open. This tenth annual ESA Open Day will combine an in-person visit of ESA's ESTEC technical centre in the Netherlands by people with disabilities (and their carers as needed) on Saturday 2 October and a virtual event for everyone, taking place on the following day, on Sunday 3 October.
BAE Systems to acquire smallsat company In-Space Missions
Tuesday, 14 September 2021 09:45 Write a comment
BAE Systems announced Sept. 14 that it will acquire In-Space Missions, a company that recently won a contract to build a British military satellite.
Announcing Earth observation hackathon winners
Tuesday, 14 September 2021 07:00 Write a comment
In June 2021, more than 4300 participants from 132 countries and territories came together to solve challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic. ESA, NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) are pleased to announce CleverChart and TRACER as the winners of the Open Science Award.
SpaceX launches first dedicated polar Starlink mission
Tuesday, 14 September 2021 03:58 Write a comment
SpaceX launched its first dedicated polar Starlink mission Sept. 13 as the company moves into the next phase of deployment of its broadband satellite constellation.
Raymond: Small satellites and fast data transforming space business
Monday, 13 September 2021 19:29 Write a comment
The combination of small satellites and computing power is one of the most exciting developments in space technology, said Gen. John "Jay" Raymond, chief of the U.S. Space Force
Marlink’s sale values maritime connectivity specialist at $1.4 billion
Monday, 13 September 2021 19:05 Write a comment
Private equity firm Providence Equity Partners has agreed to buy a majority stake in Marlink, valuing the maritime connectivity specialist at $1.4 billion.
SpaceX’s Starlink broadband to be available in Japan’s remote areas next year
Monday, 13 September 2021 18:18 Write a comment
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite broadband service will be available in Japan’s remote areas starting in 2022.
EXPLAINER: 4 will circle Earth on 1st SpaceX private flight
Monday, 13 September 2021 18:10 Write a comment
![EXPLAINER: 4 will circle Earth on 1st SpaceX private flight](https://scx1.b-cdn.net/csz/news/800a/2021/explainer-4-will-circl.jpg "In this Aug. 8, 2021 photo provided by John Kraus, from left, Chris Sembroski, Sian Proctor, Jared Isaacman and Hayley Arceneaux stand for a photo in Bozeman, Mont., during a "fighter jet training" weekend to familiarize the crew with G-forces. Credit: John Kraus/Inspiration4 via AP")
For the first time in 60 years of human spaceflight, a rocket is poised to blast into orbit with no professional astronauts on board, only four tourists.
SpaceX's first private flight will be led by a 38-year-old entrepreneur who's bankrolling the entire trip. He's taking two sweepstakes winners with him on the three-day, round-the-world trip, along with a health care worker who survived childhood cancer.
Kibo | Space Station 360 (in French with English subtitles available)
Monday, 13 September 2021 15:00 Write a comment
Video:
00:02:59
ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet takes you on a tour of the International Space Station like no other. Filmed with a 360 camera, the Space Station 360 series lets you explore for yourself alongside Thomas’s explanation – this is the Kibo module.
Kibo is the Japanese module, also known as the Japanese Experiment Module or JEM. Thomas takes you through the hardware available for the astronauts and researchers on Earth and the unique airlock and storage space in Kibo.
The video is part of a series with Thomas showing each module in full 360 surround video.
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Now officially a public company, BlackSky moving to expand sales and marketing
Monday, 13 September 2021 14:23 Write a comment
Satellite imagery and geospatial data provider BlackSky began trading on the NYSE Sept. 10, a day after closing a merger with a special purpose acquisition company.
Toward better space health: Understanding the effects of microgravity on P-glycoprotein
Monday, 13 September 2021 13:54 Write a comment
Deep space is most likely going to be humanity's final frontier, and space travel will undoubtedly become much more common in the future. However, space is a very hostile environment not only because of the technical difficulties that entail going there, but also because of the detrimental effects that constant microgravity has on the human body. Some examples of these are bone loss, muscle atrophy, and liver and kidney problems, as well as space motion sickness.
It should come as no surprise that astronauts resort to various drugs to ameliorate the symptoms caused by microgravity. Unfortunately for them, microgravity has been noted to have a significant impact on the pharmacokinetics of certain drugs, which could lead to altered efficacy and unexpected outcomes. In particular, delivering an accurate amount of a drug to the brain has become a key problem in space health.
In a recent effort to shed some light onto this issue, a team of scientists from Beijing Institute of Technology, China, studied the effects that microgravity has on P-glycoprotein (P-gp), an important efflux transporter. Their results are detailed in their paper published in Space: Science and Technology, on 17 Jun 2021.
Cosmic concrete developed from space dust and astronaut blood
Monday, 13 September 2021 13:30 Write a comment
Transporting a single brick to Mars can cost more than a million British pounds—making the future construction of a Martian colony seem prohibitively expensive. Scientists at The University of Manchester have now developed a way to potentially overcome this problem, by creating a concrete-like material made of extra-terrestrial dust along with the blood, sweat and tears of astronauts.
In their study, published today in Materials Today Bio, a protein from human blood, combined with a compound from urine, sweat or tears, could glue together simulated moon or Mars soil to produce a material stronger than ordinary concrete, perfectly suited for construction work in extra-terrestrial environments.
The cost of transporting a single brick to Mars has been estimated at about US$2 million, meaning future Martian colonists cannot bring their building materials with them, but will have to utilize resources they can obtain on-site for construction and shelter. This is known as in-situ resource utilization (or ISRU) and typically focusses on the use of loose rock and Martian soil (known as regolith) and sparse water deposits.
SpaceX Inspiration4 mission will send four people with minimal training into orbit
Monday, 13 September 2021 10:50 Write a comment
On Sept. 15, 2021, the next batch of space tourists are set to lift off aboard a SpaceX rocket. Organized and funded by entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, the Inspiration4 mission touts itself as "the first all-civilian mission to orbit" and represents a new type of space tourism.
The four crew members will not be the first space tourists this year. In the past few months, the world witnessed billionaires Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos launching themselves and a lucky few others into space on brief suborbital trips.
Perseverance collects first Mars samples
Monday, 13 September 2021 09:22 Write a comment
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has collected and stored the first samples of Martian rock for later return to Earth, but exactly when those samples will arrive on Earth remains uncertain.
SpaceX to launch private, all-civilian crew into Earth orbit
Monday, 13 September 2021 04:19 Write a comment
SpaceX is set to launch four people into space Wednesday on a three-day mission that is the first to orbit the Earth with exclusively private citizens on board, as Elon Musk's company enters the space tourism fray.
The "Inspiration4" mission caps a summer that saw billionaires Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos cross the final frontier, on Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin spaceships respectively