Copernical Team
SpaceX launches 47 more Starlink satellites into orbit
SpaceX confirmed it deployed 47 new Starlink satellites Thursday morning after a predawn launch from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The Falcon 9 rocket with the satellites lifted off in the darkness at 3:19 a.m. EDT with the deployment of the satellites confirmed about an hour later.
The rocket's first stage also successfully returned to Earth and stuck its landin Paris Air Show 2023 in pictures - Day 5
After four intensive days of panels and sessions dedicated to professionals and trade visitors, starting today ESA/CNES pavilion will be hosting a variety of events dedicated to students and general public.
Click the link here to view the full programme of events being held in the ESA-CNES shared area. The public days will take place from Friday to Sunday 23, 24 and 25 June.
Week in images: 19-23 June 2023
Week in images: 19-23 June 2023
Discover our week through the lens
Full ignition for ESA’s reusable rocket engine
Work to develop a reusable engine for European rockets is progressing, with full ignition of an early prototype of Prometheus. These images were taken on 22 June 2023 at ArianeGroup’s test facility in Vernon, France during a 12-second burn.
Earth from Space: Tashkent, Uzbekistan
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The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over Tashkent, the capital city of Uzbekistan. ESA tests multi-orbit connectivity
Engineers have communicated via video link using connectivity delivered by 5G terrestrial networks and a combination of satellites in different orbits, as part of an experiment led by ESA’s 5G/6G Hub.
How to follow the Euclid launch live
ESA will be broadcasting live as the Euclid space telescope, which will explore the dark Universe, is targeted to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida, USA, at 11:11 local time / 15:11 UTC / 17:11 CEST on Saturday 1 July 2023. A back-up launch date of Sunday 2 July 2023 is foreseen.
Here’s how to follow the launch online.
All times CEST. Times subject to change at short notice
First view of Ariane 6 on launchpad
ESA’s new Ariane 6 launch system is being prepared for a round of engine fire tests – with removal of the mobile building that protects the rocket while it sits on the launch pad at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.
A new mission will grab dead satellites and push them into the atmosphere to burn up
Plenty of news stories have focused on the danger posed by Kessler syndrome. In this condition, space is made inaccessible by a cloud of debris surrounding our planet that would destroy any further attempts to get into orbit. Therefore, plenty of companies have sprung up to take care of the problem, from blasting derelict satellites with lasers to helping to refuel them—lots of business models have been created to capture this opportunity.
One of the farthest along is Astroscale. This British start-up is tackling the problem with one of the more conventional techniques—linking up with an existing satellite to deorbit it. And recently, they released a promotional video for their new project—the ELSA-M.
ELSA-M, which stands for End of Life Services by Astroscale-Multiple, is designed to couple with an existing satellite, force it into a lower orbit, and make it reenter more quickly. It will be the first satellite to boost itself up to another orbit for a second rendezvous and deorbit that second satellite as well.
Video: BepiColombo's third Mercury flyby
Watch Mercury appear from the shadows as the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo spacecraft sped by the planet's night side during its 19 June 2023 close flyby, and enjoy a special flyover of geologically rich terrain.
In the first part of the movie, composed of 217 images captured by BepiColombo's monitoring camera M-CAM 3, the planet's illuminated side quickly appears in the spacecraft's field of view, showing off a bounty of geological features on its surface. The planet's terminator—the divide between day and night—becomes more distinctive from afar, adding to the beauty of the image sequence. At one point Mercury momentarily appears to hang between the spacecraft's body and antenna before the spacecraft speeds away.
The image sequence starts from 19:46:25 UTC on 19 June 2023, at an altitude of 1,789 km above the planet's surface, and ends at 20:34:25 UTC on 20 June 2023, when BepiColombo was 331,755 km away.