IXPE untangles theories surrounding historic supernova remnant
Thursday, 16 November 2023 00:29
NASA's IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) telescope has captured the first polarized X-ray imagery of the supernova remnant SN 1006. The new results expand scientists' understanding of the relationship between magnetic fields and the flow of high-energy particles from exploding stars.
"Magnetic fields are extremely difficult to measure, but IXPE provides an efficient way for us to p 
A novel system for slip prevention in unmanned rovers
Wednesday, 15 November 2023 20:19
Given the hostile conditions of extraterrestrial environments, unmanned rovers play a critical role in the exploration of planets and moons. NASA's Mars and lunar exploration rovers have significantly contributed to our understanding of these extraterrestrial bodies. Planetary surfaces often present challenging landscapes with slopes, craters, and dunes.
AST SpaceMobile adjusts launch plan for potential direct-to-device customer
Wednesday, 15 November 2023 20:11
Rocket exhaust on the moon: NASA supercomputers reveal surface effects
Wednesday, 15 November 2023 19:36
Through Artemis, NASA plans to explore more of the moon than ever before with human and robotic missions on the lunar surface. Because future landers will be larger and equipped with more powerful engines than the Apollo landers, mission risks associated with their operation during landing and liftoff is significantly greater. With the agency's goal to establish a sustained human presence on the moon, mission planners must understand how future landers interact with the lunar surface as they touch down in unexplored moonscapes.
Landing on the moon is tricky. When missions fly crew and payloads to the lunar surface, spacecraft control their descent by firing rocket engines to counteract the moon's gravitational pull. This happens in an extreme environment that's hard to replicate and test on Earth, namely, a combination of low gravity, no atmosphere, and the unique properties of lunar regolith—the layer of fine, loose dust and rock on the moon's surface.
Each time a spacecraft lands or lifts off, its engines blast supersonic plumes of hot gas toward the surface and the intense forces kick up dust and eject rocks or other debris at high speeds.
Rocket Factory Augsburg perceives historic moment for European launch industry
Wednesday, 15 November 2023 19:19
Fall into an ice giant's atmosphere
Wednesday, 15 November 2023 19:08
The unique atmospheric compositions of "ice giant" planets Uranus and Neptune were recreated to simulate a plunge deep within them, using suitably adapted European shocktubes and plasma facilities.
Taking place as part of an effort to simulate the flight of proposed atmospheric probes, the test campaign achieved an equivalent speed up to 19 km/s—although further work will be needed to reach the actual velocities that probes into these gas giants would attain.
Testing took place inside the hypersonic plasma T6 Stalker Tunnel at Oxford University in the U.K., along with the University of Stuttgart's High Enthalpy Flow Diagnostics Group's plasma wind tunnels in Germany, as shown in the video clip here.
Whether by impacts, landings or atmospheric probes, human-made spacecraft have touched all the planets of the solar system except two: the outer gas giants Uranus and Neptune.
Now both NASA and ESA are considering future missions to this intriguing pair, almost identical in size.
How NASA's Roman Space Telescope will chronicle the active cosmos
Wednesday, 15 November 2023 19:07
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will pair space-based observations with a broad field of view to unveil the dynamic cosmos in ways that have never been possible before.
"Roman will work in tandem with NASA observatories such as the James Webb Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory, which are designed to zoom in on rare transient objects once they've been identified, but seldom if ever discover them," said Julie McEnery, Roman's senior project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
"Roman's much larger field of view will reveal many such objects that were previously unknown. And since we've never had an observatory like this scanning the cosmos before, we could even find entirely new classes of objects and events."
The mission's High Latitude Time-Domain Survey is well-designed to discover a particular type of exploding star that astronomers can use to trace the evolution of the universe and probe possible explanations for its accelerated expansion.
Scientists suspect there's ice hiding on the moon, and a host of missions from the US and beyond are searching for it
Wednesday, 15 November 2023 16:40
Building a space station on the moon might seem like something out of a science fiction movie, but each new lunar mission is bringing that idea closer to reality. Scientists are homing in on potential lunar ice reservoirs in permanently shadowed regions, or PSRs. These are key to setting up any sort of sustainable lunar infrastructure.
In late August 2023, India's Chandrayaan-3 lander touched down on the lunar surface in the south polar region, which scientists suspect may harbor ice. This landing marked a significant milestone not only for India but for the scientific community at large.
Isar Aerospace Aquila rocket engine test
Wednesday, 15 November 2023 15:24
Video:
00:44:00
Scenes from testing the Aquila engine, designed, built and tested by Isar Aerospace at their engine test site in Esrange, Sweden.
Isar Aerospace finished engine hotfire testing for its Aquila engines in October 2023 by firing an Aquila engine for 260 seconds multiple times – more than it needs to fire for a flight. The test exceeded expectations by firing one of the engines six separate times without refurbishment.
Munich-based Isar Aerospace was supported by ESA’s Business Incubation Centre and previous Boost! contracts in 2020 and 2021. Its Spectrum rocket will be 28 m tall, 2 m in diameter
Italy's Mount Etna spews lava
Wednesday, 15 November 2023 13:00
Image:
One of the world’s most active volcanoes, Mount Etna, erupted on Sunday – spewing lava and clouds of ash high over the Mediterranean island of Sicily. This image, captured on 13 November by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, has been processed using the mission’s shortwave-infrared bands Press conference with ESA project astronaut Marcus Wandt
Wednesday, 15 November 2023 13:00
Video:
00:39:52
Watch the replay of the press conference with ESA project astronaut Marcus Wandt taking place at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne (Germany) as he prepares for his first mission to the International Space Station.
He was joined by another ESA astronaut, Matthias Maurer. Marcus’s mission, called Muninn, is supported by ESA and the Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA).
The mission will last up to 14 days, in which Marcus will take part in microgravity research and educational outreach activities. Marcus will be a mission specialist on Ax-3 and his launch is scheduled on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft no earlier
White House proposal would split mission authorization between Commerce and Transportation
Wednesday, 15 November 2023 13:00
Spacelab-1: 40 years on
Wednesday, 15 November 2023 12:25
Forty years ago this month, the first European-built Spacelab was launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on board Space Shuttle Columbia. Also on board was Ulf Merbold, who became ESA's first astronaut in space. The 10-day Spacelab-1 mission marked ESA's entry into human spaceflight activities.