Copernical Team
Video: Drone test of Hera mission's asteroid radar
This drone hauled a model of the Juventas CubeSat high into the air, as a practical test of the antennas designed to perform the first radar sounding of the interior of an asteroid.
The shoebox-sized Juventas will be transported to the Didymos double-asteroid system by ESA's Hera mission. Once it flies freely in space, Juventas will deploy a cross antenna to perform a low-frequency radar scan up to 100 m deep within the smaller of the two asteroids, Dimorphos. Such low frequencies result in long wavelengths of around 6 m, too long for most indoor measurement facilities.
"To verify the antenna characteristics, we performed this aerial test with the support of the Hexapilots drone company," notes Martin Laabs of the Chair for Radio Frequency and Photonics Engineering of Technical University Dresden in Germany.
"For the most accurate measurements of the antennas' radiation properties, they had to be as far away as possible from other objects, so the Juventas model was hung 10 m down from the drone, which was flown up to 50 m into the sky.
UAE to send rover to the Moon in 2022
Lunar exploration firm iSpace said Wednesday it will transport a United Arab Emirates unmanned rover to the Moon next year, as the Gulf state seeks to expand its space sector.
The UAE—made up of seven emirates including the capital Abu Dhabi and freewheeling Dubai—announced in September 2020 that it planned to launch the "Rashid" rover by 2024.
The rover "will be transported to the Moon on iSpace's lunar lander" during a mission in 2022, the Japanese company said in a statement.
Fly your software in space
What would you do with a powerful space computer that can learn, react, photograph our planet and send and receive information in a variety of forms? The test of all knowledge is experiment, as Richard Feynman once said, and OPS-SAT is the first ESA spacecraft that you can apply to experiment with. Tell us your ideas for new OPS-SAT experiments via the Open Space Innovation Platform (OSIP).
Josef Aschbacher and Simonetta di Pippo discuss space debris
Josef Aschbacher and Simonetta di Pippo discuss space debris
Satcom Global and AnsuR Technologies to deliver unique visual communications for EO market
Leading satellite communications provider Satcom Global is delighted to announce a strategic partnership with software specialist AnsuR Technologies (AnsuR). The collaboration will enable Satcom Global to support its maritime and remote-land based communications customers with access to innovative visual technology, globally.
AnsuR develops software solutions for use in challenging environ Optimised approaches for less noise and lower fuel consumption
Approaches to busy airports are often noisier and less fuel-efficient than they could be. This is because aircraft have to be configured in an individual process before touchdown. Pilots reduce speed, set flaps, extend slats and finally deploy the landing gear. However, air traffic control restricts the flight profile, and pilots often have limited information about weather conditions.
Thu Atom interferometry demonstrated in space for the first time
Extremely precise measurements are possible using atom interferometers that employ the wave character of atoms for this purpose. They can thus be used, for example, to measure the gravitational field of the Earth or to detect gravitational waves. A team of scientists from Germany has now managed to successfully perform atom interferometry in space for the first time - on board a sounding rocket. Google unveils $2bn data hub in Poland
US tech giant Google on Wednesday launched a new cloud data hub in Warsaw - its first in Central and Eastern Europe - with an investment of nearly $2.0 billion (1.7 billion euros).
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki hailed the new hub saying it would ensure "better service from private and public entities" and strengthen security because the data would be stored in Poland.
"We hope that How NASA's Roman Space Telescope will uncover lonesome black holes
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will provide an unprecedented window into the infrared universe when it launches in the mid-2020s. One of the mission's planned surveys will use a quirk of gravity to reveal thousands of new planets beyond our solar system.
The same survey will also provide the best opportunity yet to definitively detect solitary small black holes for the first time Novel theory addresses centuries-old physics problem
The "three-body problem," the term coined for predicting the motion of three gravitating bodies in space, is essential for understanding a variety of astrophysical processes as well as a large class of mechanical problems, and has occupied some of the world's best physicists, astronomers and mathematicians for over three centuries. Their attempts have led to the discovery of several important fi