Russia will use International Space Station 'until 2028'
Wednesday, 12 April 2023 19:31
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Russia said Wednesday it planned to use the International Space Station until 2028, an apparent reversal of an earlier announcement to quit the orbiting laboratory after 2024.
In July last year, Moscow said it was leaving the International Space Station "after 2024" as ties unraveled between the Kremlin and the West over Moscow's military intervention in Ukraine.
On Wednesday, the head of Russian space agency Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, said Moscow's participation in the international space project had been extended.
"By the decision of the government, the operation of the International Space Station has been extended until 2028," Borisov told President Vladimir Putin during a televised meeting, referring to the Russian segment.
He said the "time has come" to discuss the creation of a Russian orbital station.
"Time is running fast and we cannot take a break from manned spaceflight under any circumstances," Borisov told the Kremlin chief.
The ISS was launched in 1998 at a time of increased US-Russia cooperation following the Cold War "Space Race."
ISS partners—the United States, Russia, Europe, Canada and Japan—are for the moment only committed to operate the orbiting laboratory until 2024, though US officials have stated they want to continue until 2030.
Space race! Meteorites hit Maine, museum offers $25K reward
Wednesday, 12 April 2023 19:28 Write a comment
Somewhere in a remote stretch of forest near Maine's border with Canada, rocks from space crashed to Earth and may be scattered across the ground—just waiting to be picked up.
If you're the first to find a really big one, a museum says it'll pay out a $25,000 reward.
The unusually bright fireball could be seen in broad daylight around noon Saturday, said Darryl Pitt, chair of the meteorite division at the Maine Mineral and Gem Museum in Bethel.
NASA said the meteorite fall was observed on radar—a first for Maine—and witnesses heard sonic booms.
The museum wants to add to its collection of moon and Mars rocks, Pitt said, so the first meteorite hunters to deliver a 1-kilogram (2.2-pound) specimen will claim the $25,000 prize.
According to Pitt, the fact that radar detected the fiery descent assures the meteorites can be found on the ground.
"With more people having an awareness, the more people will look—and the greater the likelihood of a recovery," Pitt said Wednesday.
Still, there's no guarantee there are any meteorites big enough to claim the payout.
Is the US in a space race against China?
Wednesday, 12 April 2023 17:24 Write a comment
Headlines proclaiming the rise of a new "space race" between the U.S. and China have become common in news coverage following many of the exciting launches in recent years. Experts have pointed to China's rapid advancements in space as evidence of an emerging landscape where China is directly competing with the U.S. for supremacy.
This idea of a space race between China and the U.S. sounds convincing given the broader narrative of China's rise, but how accurate is it? As a professor who studies space and international relations, my research aims to quantify the power and capabilities of different nations in space. When I look at various capacities, the data paints a much more complex picture than a tight space race between the U.S.
Ariane 5 VA 260 with Juice - Ready for launch
Wednesday, 12 April 2023 13:25 Write a comment
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Ariane 5 VA 260 with Juice ready for launch on the ELA-3 launch pad at Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana on 12 April 2023.
Juice – JUpiter ICy moons Explorer – is humankind’s next bold mission to the outer Solar System. This ambitious mission will characterise Ganymede, Callisto and Europa with a powerful suite of remote sensing, geophysical and in situ instruments to discover more about these compelling destinations as potential habitats for past or present life. Juice will monitor Jupiter’s complex magnetic, radiation and plasma environment in depth and its interplay with the moons, studying the Jupiter system as an archetype for gas giant
Delivering Data: What customers get wrong about the ground segment
Wednesday, 12 April 2023 13:24 Write a comment
Through packaged services, partnerships and APIs, ground segment providers aim to make communicating with satellites as easy as possible.
Juice? No charge
Wednesday, 12 April 2023 11:20 Write a comment
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Juice? No charge Op-ed | U.S. leadership of cislunar space hinges on foresight and planning
Wednesday, 12 April 2023 11:11 Write a comment
Fifty years after the conclusion of the Apollo program — arguably the greatest technological achievement in human history — the eyes of the entire world are once again fixed upon […]
Slingshot’s space-tracking network to extend coverage of low Earth orbit
Wednesday, 12 April 2023 11:00 Write a comment
Slingshot Aerospace, a space tracking and data analytics company, announced April 12 it is expanding its network of ground-based optical telescopes to increase coverage of low Earth orbit.
Ariane 5 ready to launch ESA’s JUICE mission to Jupiter
Wednesday, 12 April 2023 10:40 Write a comment
Europe’s first mission to Jupiter is ready to launch on the next to last flight of the Ariane 5 on April 13.
Mission control GO for Juice launch
Wednesday, 12 April 2023 10:30 Write a comment
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At ESA’s mission control, before the launch comes the pre-launch briefing – and the all-important group photo. This is the team that will fly Juice to Jupiter with four planetary flybys of Earth and Venus, then switching orbit from Jupiter to its largest moon, Ganymede, followed by a tour of the icy, complex Jovian system comprising a whopping 35 lunar flybys.
Never before has a mission switched orbit from a planet other than our own to one of its moons. Radiation at Jupiter will be extreme. Light at the
Juice electromagnetic fields and antennas aligned for Jupiter science
Wednesday, 12 April 2023 10:10 Write a comment
Flying instruments to Jupiter represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Europe’s space scientists. But that translated to a challenge for the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, mission: could all the varied instruments aboard, plus antennas and onboard systems, even end up working together properly without interference? Would in-situ instruments really be measuring the space around Jupiter, or just the influence of their host spacecraft?
Purdue offering new online Hypersonics Graduate Certificate
Wednesday, 12 April 2023 06:41 Write a comment
Purdue University, a wellspring for hypersonics research, is moving to help fill the need for people trained in the field with a new 100% online Hypersonics Graduate Certificate. The program is designed for working professionals in engineering and management who want to develop a competitive edge by gaining graduate-level knowledge in hypersonics.
"The demand for this kind of knowledge has NRO awards contract extension to Kleos
Wednesday, 12 April 2023 06:41 Write a comment
Kleos Space Inc. (Kleos), subsidiary of Kleos Space S.A. ASX: KSS, a space-powered defense and intelligence technology company, has been awarded the Stage Two option on its current contract with the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) as part of the Strategic Commercial Enhancements Broad Agency Announcement (SCE BAA) Framework.
The NRO is responsible for maintaining global vigilance in t NASA unveils 'Mars' habitat for year-long experiments on Earth
Wednesday, 12 April 2023 06:41 Write a comment
Four small rooms, a gym and a lot of red sand - NASA unveiled on Tuesday its new Mars-simulation habitat, in which volunteers will live for a year at a time to test what life will be like on future missions to Earth's neighbor.
The facility, created for three planned experiments called the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA), is located at the US space agency's massive r AFRL conducts first flight experiments for communications in terahertz band
Wednesday, 12 April 2023 06:41 Write a comment
Air Force Research Laboratory, or AFRL, researchers successfully conducted flight experiments Dec. 2- 6, 2022, in Rome, New York to prove the viability of communications at radio frequencies above 300 gigahertz, or GHz, known in research communities as terahertz, or THz, band. Over three days of flight experiments, researchers from AFRL's Information Directorate, in collaboration with Northrop G