Light Steering Technologies claims $1.25 million Air Force contract
Thursday, 27 April 2023 19:00New Hampshire startup Light Steering Technologies won a $1.25 million U.S. Air Force contract for angular pointing technology with small satellite applications.
Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer's first taste of science from space
Thursday, 27 April 2023 17:24ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, has recorded magnetic field data as its 10.6 m-long magnetometer boom deployed.
Juice launched on 14 April, with deployments and activation of its antennas, booms, sensors and instruments ongoing over the next months in a dedicated check-out period known as the commissioning phase.
The Juice magnetometer boom (J-MAG) was deployed on 21 April, when Juice was about 1.7 million km from Earth.
Data collected by J-MAG captured the moment of deployment itself.
The plot shows the magnitude of the magnetic field from two sensors, as indicated by the red and turquoise lines, before (flat line) and during the deployment (curving lines). The two sensors are mounted on the outer segment of the boom and separated by about 3 m. The labels OBS and IBS indicate the data from the outboard (OBS) and inboard sensors (IBS), respectively. OBS is mounted close to the end of the 10.6 m boom.
The left side of the plot shows the field trace before the boom deployment. The sensors are up against the side of the spacecraft and OBS is located close to two spacecraft thrusters, which are quite magnetic, explaining the difference in the two field magnitudes.
Raytheon rethinks strategy to compete in military satellite market
Thursday, 27 April 2023 16:49Albedo wins Air Force contract to supply thermal imagery at night
Thursday, 27 April 2023 16:43Earth observation startup Albedo announced a $1.25 million contract to provide the National Air and Space Intelligence Center with thermal infrared imagery for nighttime applications.
Italy’s post-pandemic space industry boost
Thursday, 27 April 2023 14:23An Italian Earth observation project funded by pandemic relief euros has ordered at least 34 satellites and a pair of Vega launches in recent months.
NASA's Voyager will do more science with new power strategy
Thursday, 27 April 2023 12:30The plan will keep Voyager 2's science instruments turned on a few years longer than previously anticipated, enabling yet more revelations from interstellar space.
Launched in 1977, the Voyager 2 spacecraft is more than 12 billion miles (20 billion kilometers) from Earth, using five science instruments to study interstellar space.
Sustainability in space—can you teach old satellites new tricks?
Thursday, 27 April 2023 12:13We've all heard that we should "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" to save the planet, but what about applying any of the "three R's" to space?
Researchers at USC Viterbi's Information Sciences Institute (ISI) are tackling this challenge—looking at how to reuse physical items that are already in space, namely, old satellites.
Legacy Satellites
There are currently several thousand satellites orbiting Earth. Many have already completed their missions or have outlived their primary lifespans—these are "legacy satellites." And while some of them may have broken hardware and will eventually run out of energy, leave orbit, and burn out in space, others are physically in good condition. So, the question becomes: what to do with them?
Alefiya Hussain, ISI Research Team Leader explained, "This project is looking at ways to possibly reuse satellites for different things. We are collaborating with the software company Tangram Flex to figure out how we can replace the software components within the satellites to re-purpose them."
She continued, "The approach we've taken is to look inside the satellite and say, this particular piece of software did this particular function before, can we actually replace that function to make it do something else as a path to repurposing it?"
China plans full reusability for its super heavy Long March 9 rocket
Thursday, 27 April 2023 10:27China is planning to make a fully reusable version of its Long March 9 rocket designed to launch infrastructure and deep space missions.
Could you be ESA’s official merchandise supplier?
Thursday, 27 April 2023 10:15ESA is inviting companies with an interest in merchandising to submit a tender to become the space agency’s official ESA-branded merchandise supplier.
Another giant leap into space: Successful launch of Lumelite-4 to enhance maritime communications
Thursday, 27 April 2023 09:37A microsatellite for maritime communications developed by the Satellite Technology And Research Centre (STAR) under the National University of Singapore's College of Design and Engineering (NUS CDE), and A*STAR's Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), has been successfully launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikotta, India, on Saturday, 22 April 2023 at 4.50pm (Singapore time).
Arianegroup, Eutelsat And Magellium Selected To Improve French Space Surveillance Capabilities
Thursday, 27 April 2023 09:37ArianeGroup, Eutelsat and Magellium have won a contract from the French space agency (CNES), as part of the space component of the France 2030. Investing for the Future plan, with the aim of enhancing space surveillance capabilities in order to substantially improve the security of space operations. The consortium will provide CNES with a Space Situational Awareness (SSA) data service thro
Voyager will do more science with new power strategy
Thursday, 27 April 2023 07:03Launched in 1977, the Voyager 2 spacecraft is more than 12 billion miles (20 billion kilometers) from Earth, using five science instruments to study interstellar space. To help keep those instruments operating despite a diminishing power supply, the aging spacecraft has begun using a small reservoir of backup power set aside as part of an onboard safety mechanism. The move will enable the missio
SpaceX aborts Starlink launch at last second, delays Falcon Heavy mission
Thursday, 27 April 2023 07:03The SpaceX Starlink mission to send 46 Internet communications satellites into low Earth orbit was delayed again on Wednesday and will try again on Thursday. The first attempt was scrubbed Tuesday morning just before the latest attempt on Wednesday from the Vandenberg Space Station in California on a reusable Falcon 9 rocket. "Standing down from today's Falcon 9 launch of Starlin
Out of gas in orbit? This US space company is here to help
Thursday, 27 April 2023 07:03The US company Orbit Fab is aiming to produce the go-to "gas stations" in space, its CEO tells AFP, hoping its refueling technology will make the surging satellite industry more sustainable - and profitable. The solar panels typically attached to satellites can generate energy for their onboard systems such as cameras and radios, but can't help the orbiting objects adjust their positions, e
Creating new and better drugs with protein crystal growth experiments on the ISS
Thursday, 27 April 2023 07:03For more than two decades, the International Space Station has provided a platform for growing and studying protein crystals. In the early days of microgravity research, scientists discovered that they protein crystals grown in space were more uniform and larger than those grown in Earth's gravity. Since then, drug companies and academic researchers have conducted hundreds of protein crystal gro