NASA astronaut paints a picture of success growing plants in space
Wednesday, 28 April 2021 05:42
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Astronauts on the International Space Station recently enjoyed a fresh supply of leafy greens, thanks in large part to the efforts of Expedition 64 crew member Michael Hopkins. NASA's SpaceX Crew-1 mission commander took the lead on conducting four Vegetable Production System (Veggie) experiments, with the last two wrapping up after an April 13 harvest. VEG-03K and VEG-03L tested a new space cro Arianespace Vega mission set to launch EO satellites
Wednesday, 28 April 2021 05:42 Write a comment
On Wednesday, April 28, 2021 at 10:50 pm local time (01:50 UTC on Thursday, April 29), Arianespace's first Vega mission of the year will lift off from the Guiana Space Center, Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, with the optical observation satellite Pleiades Neo 3. The first of four satellites in an advanced Earth observation constellation, Pleiades Neo 3 was wholly funded and manufactured by Cosmodrome project injects new life into Russian Far East
Wednesday, 28 April 2021 05:42 Write a comment
Sixty years after Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, most Russians believe their country remains the leader in the field of aerospace.
It was no surprise when Moscow last year named its first approved coronavirus vaccine Sputnik, after the satellite whose launch in 1957 stunned the West.
A Bloomberg report said that while Russian President Vladimir Putin is not an interpla Astronomers detect first ever hydroxyl molecule signature in an exoplanet atmosphere
Wednesday, 28 April 2021 05:42 Write a comment
An international collaboration of astronomers led by a researcher from the Astrobiology Center and Queen's University Belfast, and including researchers from Trinity College Dublin, has detected a new chemical signature in the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet (a planet that orbits a star other than our Sun).
The hydroxyl radical (OH) was found on the dayside of the exoplanet WASP-33b. Th Physicists net neutron star gold from measurement of lead
Wednesday, 28 April 2021 05:42 Write a comment
Nuclear physicists have made a new, highly accurate measurement of the thickness of the neutron "skin" that encompasses the lead nucleus in experiments conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility and just published in Physical Review Letters. The result, which revealed a neutron skin thickness of .28 millionths of a nanometer, has important implica Russia to select actress for Soyuz mission in May
Wednesday, 28 April 2021 00:30 Write a comment
DOUGLAS, U.K. — The Russian actress who will be sent to the International Space Station on the upcoming Soyuz MS-19 spaceflight will be announced from among four finalists on May 15, according to the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin.
Dynetics protests NASA HLS award
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 21:19 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — Dynetics has joined Blue Origin in filing a protest of NASA’s selection of SpaceX for a single Human Landing System award, a move that could force the agency to suspend work on the program.
Germany’s launch startups race to grow their launch manifests
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 19:59 Write a comment
VALLETTA, Malta — Rocket Factory Augsburg has added two more customers to its launch manifest a week after rival German startup Isar Aerospace secured its first.
Of the three German startups vying for ESA funding as they race to launch competing smallsat launchers next year, only HyImpulse Technologies has yet to announce a customer for its rocket.
Air Force secretary nominee Kendall well versed in the challenges of space acquisitions
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 18:57 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — President Biden has nominated former top Pentagon acquisition official Frank Kendall to be secretary of the Air Force, the White House announced April 27. If confirmed, he will be the highest ranked civilian leader of both the Air Force and the Space Force.
Eutelsat buys a quarter of OneWeb to get a LEO broadband growth engine
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 18:48 Write a comment
TAMPA, Fla. — French satellite operator Eutelsat is paying $550 million to buy part of OneWeb, the startup deploying a broadband network in low Earth orbit.
The company is buying a 24% stake to give it similar governance rights to the British government and Indian telecom company Bharti Global, which bought OneWeb out of bankruptcy last year.
FCC approves Starlink license modification
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 16:04 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission approved a modification of SpaceX’s license for its Starlink constellation, allowing the company to operate more than 2,800 additional satellites in lower orbits.
In an order and authorization published April 27, the FCC said it will allow SpaceX to move 2,814 satellites from orbits in the range of 1,100 to 1,300 kilometers to 540 to 570 kilometers.
Op-ed | How Elon Musk’s CO2 XPRIZE can fight climate change and advance space exploration
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 13:30 Write a comment
Elon Musk and XPRIZE recently announced a $100 million prize purse for economically scalable ideas to capture and sequester carbon dioxide (CO2). As of Earth Day 2021, registration for XPRIZE Carbon Removal now open. The hope is to inspire a global industry that will “collectively achieve” gigaton-scale removal of CO2 from Earth’s atmosphere.
African spaceports cut rocket fuel costs
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 13:17 Write a comment
Space is big business once again, Mars rovers and putative moon landings aside, there is an enormous need for geostationary satellites. With increasing traffic there is also a need for new sites for spaceports that might offer reduced energy costs and simpler launching of new satellites. Writing in the International Journal of Aerospace System Science and Engineering, a team from the Obasanjo Space Center in Abuja, Nigeria, suggest that African spaceports offer a scientifically and economically viable option.
Rocket propellant is the main constituent of launch weight largely irrespective of payload. Indeed fuel accounts for 90 percent of the launch cost. As such, any measures that might be put in place to reduce fuel requirements can offer substantial savings. A launch site close to The Equator would offer several benefits in terms of reducing fuel costs. Obviously, a stationary object on the equator is moving at almost 1700 kilometers per hour relative to a "fixed" reference in space because of the rotation of the earth. If you launch from north or south of the equator, this boost is lower. Halfway to the pole and the speed boost is only 1200 km/h.
York Space Systems building larger LX-CLASS satellite platform
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 13:06 Write a comment
TAMPA, Fla. — Smallsat specialist York Space Systems is producing a larger satellite platform with double the payload volume of its current spacecraft bus in response to market demand.
The new LX-CLASS is designed to have a total mass of more than 350 kilograms, up from 180 kilograms for its flight-proven S-CLASS satellite platform.
NASA's scientific balloons return to flight with Spring 2021 campaign
Tuesday, 27 April 2021 11:48 Write a comment
NASA's Scientific Balloon Program is kicking off an ambitious schedule of 18 flights in 2021 with their spring campaign from Fort Sumner, New Mexico, the program's first major flight campaign since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
For this first campaign of 2021, the team is supporting a multitude of science and technology demonstration missions with six balloon flights scheduled from the end of April through mid-June.
"We have a packed scheduled for 2021 as we work to launch science and technology missions postponed due to the pandemic along with other planned missions," said Debbie Fairbrother, Scientific Balloon Program chief at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. "Our team has worked very hard to train and prepare for this surge in flight operations, and we're all excited to return to flight."
One of the missions, scheduled for flight in June, is the second demonstration flight of the Balloon-Borne Cryogenic Telescope Testbed, or BOBCAT. This mission will test technologies to fly a cold observatory telescope on a balloon to near-space altitudes. The technical challenge the mission is trying to address is cooling the telescope's mirrors using cryogen inside a dewar, a large vessel that can hold liquids at low temperatures.