In the emptiness of space, Voyager I detects plasma 'hum'
Tuesday, 11 May 2021 01:54
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Voyager 1 - one of two sibling NASA spacecraft launched 44 years ago and now the most distant human-made object in space - still works and zooms toward infinity.
The craft has long since zipped past the edge of the solar system through the heliopause - the solar system's border with interstellar space - into the interstellar medium. Now, its instruments have detected the constant drone of NASA's OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Heads for Earth with Asteroid Sample
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After nearly five years in space, NASA's Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft is on its way back to Earth with an abundance of rocks and dust from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu.
On Monday, May 10, at 4:23 p.m. EDT the spacecraft fired its main engines full throttle for seven minutes - its most significant maneuver si VIPER Hits the SLOPEs
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Before NASA's next lunar rover paves the way for long-term human exploration of the Moon, it must first pass a series of rigorous mobility tests along the banks of Lake Erie.
The Simulated Lunar Operations Laboratory, or SLOPE Lab, at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland is home to multiple sandboxes that mimic the lunar and Martian terrain to evaluate the traction performance and lim First ever discovery of methanol in a warm planet-forming disk
Tuesday, 11 May 2021 01:54 Write a comment
An international team of researchers led by Alice Booth (Leiden University, the Netherlands) have discovered methanol in the warm part of a planet-forming disk. The methanol cannot have been produced there and must have originated in the cold gas clouds from which the star and the disk formed.
Thus, the methanol is inherited. If that is common, it could give the formation of life elsewhere How planets form controls elements essential for life
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The prospects for life on a given planet depend not only on where it forms but also how, according to Rice University scientists.
Planets like Earth that orbit within a solar system's Goldilocks zone, with conditions supporting liquid water and a rich atmosphere, are more likely to harbor life. As it turns out, how that planet came together also determines whether it captured and retained Space weather is difficult to predict - with only an hour to prevent disasters on Earth
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Recent developments at the forefront of astronomy allow us to observe that planets orbiting other stars have weather. Indeed, we have known that other planets in our own solar system have weather, in many cases more extreme than our own.
Our lives are affected by short-term atmospheric variations of weather on Earth, and we fear that longer-term climate change will also have a large impact After Chinese rocket reentry, DoD calls for countries to ‘behave responsibly’
Monday, 10 May 2021 20:38 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — Less than two days after parts of an uncontrolled Chinese rocket fell into the Indian Ocean, the Pentagon said allowing a large booster to free fall toward Earth is “irresponsible behavior.
Crew training begins soon for first private trip to ISS
Monday, 10 May 2021 20:08 Write a comment
Training of the crew for the first entirely private trip to the International Space Station (ISS) is to begin soon, Axiom Space, the company behind the flight, said Monday at a joint press conference with NASA.
Four astronauts are to be launched to the ISS in late January aboard a rocket built by another space company, Elon Musk's SpaceX.
Only one of the four—NASA veteran Michael Lopez-Alegria—has been in space before.
The other three are businessmen—Larry Conner, an American, Mark Pathy, a Canadian, and Eytan Stibbe, an Israeli.
The mission dubbed Ax-1 is to last around 10 days, said Axiom Space president and CEO Michael Suffredini.
The astronauts will work and live in the American section of the space station and plan to conduct a number of scientific experiments while in orbit.
"We'll be starting what I would call serious training next week," said Lopez-Alegria, the Ax-1 commander.
"From there the pace will pick up, and we'll all be immersed essentially full time in ISS systems and Crew Dragon training starting in the fall.
NASA spacecraft begins 2-year trip home with asteroid rubble
Monday, 10 May 2021 20:06 Write a comment
With rubble from an asteroid tucked inside, a NASA spacecraft fired its engines and began the long journey back to Earth on Monday, leaving the ancient space rock in its rearview mirror.
The trip home for the robotic prospector, Osiris-Rex, will take two years.
Inmarsat heading to administrative court over Dutch 3.5 GHz auction
Monday, 10 May 2021 19:52 Write a comment
TAMPA, Fla. — Inmarsat is pivoting to an administrative court in its battle to stop the Netherlands from auctioning 3.5 GHz spectrum, which the British satellite operator says it does not want to cede to bandwidth-hungry 5G networks.
Orbcomm gets no offers after contacting more than 50 potential buyers
Monday, 10 May 2021 19:47 Write a comment
TAMPA, Fla. — Satellite operator Orbcomm said May 10 it did not get any alternative proposals in its 30-day “go-shop” period, which followed private equity firm GI Partners’ $1.1 billion acquisition offer.
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Heads for Earth with Asteroid Sample
Monday, 10 May 2021 18:22 Write a comment
After nearly five years in space, NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft is on its way back to Earth with an abundance of rocks and dust from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu. OneWeb creating government subsidiary after buying TrustComm
Monday, 10 May 2021 15:34 Write a comment
TAMPA, Fla. — OneWeb, the U.K.-headquartered low Earth orbit (LEO) broadband operator, is buying Texas-based managed satcoms provider TrustComm to create a new government subsidiary.
The deal comes soon after the U.S.
A new era of spaceflight? Promising advances in rocket propulsion
Monday, 10 May 2021 13:20 Write a comment
The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) has recently commissioned three private companies, Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin and General Atomics, to develop nuclear fission thermal rockets for use in lunar orbit.
Such a development, if flown, could usher in a new era of spaceflight. That said, it is only one of several exciting avenues in rocket propulsion. Here are some others.
Chemical rockets
The standard means of propulsion for spacecraft uses chemical rockets. There are two main types: solid fuelled (such as the solid rocket boosters on the Space Shuttle), and liquid fuelled (such as the Saturn V).
In both cases, a chemical reaction is employed to produce a very hot, highly pressurized gas inside a combustion chamber. The engine nozzle provides the only outlet for this gas which consequently expands out of it, providing thrust.
The chemical reaction requires a fuel, such as liquid hydrogen or powdered aluminum, and an oxidiser (an agent that produces chemical reactions) such as oxygen.
South Korea’s space agency sets sight on missions that ‘won’t pay off until 2050’
Monday, 10 May 2021 13:05 Write a comment
SEOUL, South Korea — The chief of South Korea’s space agency has vowed to spin off near-term applications to the private sector and refocus the agency on long-term investments that “won’t pay off until 2050.