Tracking Ariane 6 as it soars over the Azores
Thursday, 04 July 2024 06:00
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A network of ground stations around the world, including two owned by ESA, will track the debut flight of Europe’s new Ariane 6 rocket. They will monitor key phases of the flight and gather telemetry and video that will be used to analyse the rocket’s performance and optimise future launches.
Firefly Aerospace aims to launch eight CubeSat satellites after scrub
Wednesday, 03 July 2024 21:38 Write a comment
Firefly Aerospace will try to get its Alpha rocket carrying eight CubeSat satellites into space on Tuesday night from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base after the mission was scrubbed on Monday.
The satellites are being put into space under NASA's Launch Services Program Venture. Officials blamed a "last minute" ground systems issues led to the mission's pause on Monday.
"O Crew inside NASA's Mars habitat simulator to exit after more than a year
Wednesday, 03 July 2024 21:38 Write a comment
The first volunteer crew, to live for more than a year inside NASA's Mars habitat at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, will exit the simulated Red Planet ground mission on Saturday.
Crew members Kelly Haston, Anca Selariu, Ross Brockwell and Nathan Jones will be greeted with a short welcome ceremony at about 5 p.m. EDT, which can be viewed on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app and Blue Origin, Stoke Space selected by U.S. Space Force to compete for small satellite missions
Wednesday, 03 July 2024 20:56
Sentinel-2C ready for transatlantic trip to farewell Vega launch
Wednesday, 03 July 2024 17:56
Image: Orion spacecraft prepares for upcoming launch
Wednesday, 03 July 2024 17:30 Write a comment
Technicians lift NASA's Orion spacecraft out of the Final Assembly and System Testing cell on June 28, 2024. The integrated spacecraft, which will be used for the Artemis II mission to orbit the moon, has been undergoing final rounds of testing and assembly, including end-to-end performance verification of its subsystems and checking for leaks in its propulsion systems.
A 30-ton crane returned Orion into the recently renovated altitude chamber where it underwent electromagnetic testing.
The spacecraft will now undergo a series of tests that will subject it to a near-vacuum environment by removing air, thus creating a space where the pressure is extremely low.
This results in no atmosphere, similar to the one the spacecraft will experience during future lunar missions.
The data recorded during these tests will be used to qualify the spacecraft to safely fly the Artemis II astronauts through the harsh environment of space.
Provided by NASA
Could we replace Ingenuity with a swarm of robotic bees?
Wednesday, 03 July 2024 16:43 Write a comment
Humans finally achieved controlled flight on another planet for the first time just a few years ago. Ingenuity, the helicopter NASA sent to Mars, performed that difficult task admirably. It is now taking a well-deserved rest until some intrepid human explorer someday comes by to pick it up and hopefully put it in a museum somewhere.
But what if, instead of a quadcopter, NASA used a series of flexible-wing robots akin to bees to explore the Martian terrain? That was the idea behind the Marsbee proposal by Chang-Kwon Kang and his colleagues at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. The project was supported by a NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) grant back in 2018—let's see what they did with it.
The concept was initially inspired by work at the University of Tokyo on a dragonfly-like micro aerial vehicle (MAV). It is one of the few drones able to fly in Earth's gravity using flexible wings that flap.
Video: Proba-3's new view on space weather
Wednesday, 03 July 2024 13:09 Write a comment
Video: Proba-3's new view on space weather
The double-satellite mission will reveal the Sun's stormy corona
Ariane 6 launches Peregrinus: students take on the Sun
Wednesday, 03 July 2024 13:07
Chinese satellite manufacturer MinoSpace raises $137 million
Wednesday, 03 July 2024 12:45
Increasingly feasible, on-orbit servicing has a challenging road to market
Wednesday, 03 July 2024 12:00
Commercial space stations go international
Wednesday, 03 July 2024 12:00
Proba-3’s new view on space weather
Wednesday, 03 July 2024 09:30 Write a comment
Video:
00:02:05
Space weather can affect satellites in orbit, trigger geomagnetic storms on Earth and interfere with ground infrastructure. We need to understand it better, and the best way to do that is look at where it comes from.
The Sun’s corona, its upper atmospheric layer, gives rise to the solar wind and is where coronal mass ejections are spawned: massive outward explosions of charged plasma. ESA’s Proba-3 double-satellite mission will use formation flying to open up sustained coronal views. Mimicking a total solar eclipse, one satellite will block out the fiery face of the Sun by casting a shadow onto the other.
SpaceX retools problem booster for overnight launch from Space Coast
Wednesday, 03 July 2024 09:24 Write a comment
SpaceX is rolling a booster that was part of a scrubbed launch attempt last month back to the launch pad for an early morning mission on the Space Coast.
A Falcon 9 rocket on the Starliner 8-9 mission carrying 20 Starlink satellites including 13 with direct-to-cell capabilities aims for liftoff from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's Space Launch Complex 40 at 2:57 a.m. Eastern time Wednesday during a window that lasts until 5:59 a.m.
Space Launch Delta 45's weather squadron forecasts an 80% chance for good conditions. Additional opportunities fall to Sunday, July 7, during a window that opens at 12:28 a.m.
This is the 16th flight of the first-stage booster, which was previously on the pad for the Starlink 10-3 mission, but was changed out after an issue when it hit T-0 during a launch attempt on June 14.
The flight eventually took off with a new booster while SpaceX reconfigured this for Wednesday morning's attempt. SpaceX never revealed the reason behind the scrub or the booster switch.
It will attempt a landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic.
Stellar success for ESA's first open day in the UK
Wednesday, 03 July 2024 08:53 Write a comment
Thousands of visitors flocked to ESA’s establishment in the UK last Saturday to experience first-hand how the agency is pushing the boundaries of exploration and using space to improve life on Earth.