NASA to unveil first images of historic asteroid sample
Wednesday, 11 October 2023 07:29
NASA is set to reveal on Wednesday the first images of the largest asteroid sample ever collected in space, something scientists hope will yield clues about the earliest days of our solar system and perhaps the origins of life itself.
The OSIRIS-REx mission collected rock and dust from the asteroid Bennu in 2020, and a capsule containing the precious cargo successfully returned to Earth a little over two weeks ago, landing in the Utah desert.
Evolution Space to produce and test solid rocket motors at Stennis
Wednesday, 11 October 2023 05:42
NASA's Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, joined with Evolution Space on Oct. 10 to announce plans for the aerospace company to establish production and testing operations for solid rocket motors onsite.
"This is another great addition to south Mississippi's commercial space engagement," Center Director Dr. Rick Gilbrech said. "Evolution Space gains access to critical NA Source of electron acceleration and X-ray aurora of Mercury
Wednesday, 11 October 2023 05:42
Since Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun among the solar system planets, it is strongly influenced by the solar wind, a high-speed (several hundred km/s) stream of plasma blowing from the Sun. Explorations of Mercury was first carried out by the Mariner 10 spacecraft in 1974 and 1975, which revealed that Mercury has a magnetic field, and thus a magnetosphere, similar to that of Earth. In t Tracing the origin and energization of plasma in the heliosphere
Wednesday, 11 October 2023 05:42
Imagine that you have a secret decoder ring that you can use to decipher a secret message with important clues about things around you: where they came from, why they are there, and what will become of them in the future. Now imagine that the secret decoder ring is actually a sensor that can be flown in space to unravel secrets about the matter in the solar system. Where did this matter originat Finding explanation for Milky Way's warp
Wednesday, 11 October 2023 05:42
The Milky Way is often depicted as a flat, spinning disk of dust, gas, and stars. But if you could zoom out and take an edge-on photo, it actually has a distinctive warp - as if you tried to twist and bend a vinyl LP.
Though scientists have long known through observational data that the Milky Way is warped and its edges are flared like a skirt, no one could explain why.
Now, Harvard Momentus customer satellites integrated and shipped to SpaceX launch site
Wednesday, 11 October 2023 05:42
Momentus Inc. (NASDAQ: MNTS) has integrated its customers launching on the SpaceX Transporter-9 mission and shipped the payloads to Vandenberg Space Force Base for integration with Falcon 9 ahead of launch, which is targeted for no earlier than November 2023.
Momentus will use a deployer to place five satellites into Low-Earth Orbit for four different customers:
The b>AMAN-1 /b> Ear Planet's Pelican tech demonstration satellite ready for launch
Wednesday, 11 October 2023 05:42
Planet Labs PBC (NYSE: PL) reports that its Pelican tech demonstration satellite, Pelican-1, along with 36 SuperDoves, have arrived at Vandenberg Space Force Base in preparation for launch next month. Pelican-1, designed and manufactured by Planet, is the first tech demonstration of Planet's next-generation, high-resolution fleet, which is expected to replenish and improve upon Planet's existing 
5 things to know about NASA's deep space optical communications
Tuesday, 10 October 2023 20:05
Slated to launch on Oct. 12 with the Psyche mission, DSOC will demonstrate technologies enabling the agency to transmit higher data rates from deep space.
NASA's pioneering Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) experiment will be the first demonstration of laser, or optical, communications from as far away as Mars.
NASA's Roman mission gears up for a torrent of future data
Tuesday, 10 October 2023 19:53
ESA’s Euclid space telescope obtaining “magnificent” test images despite a few finetuning hiccups
Tuesday, 10 October 2023 19:43
'Ring of fire' solar eclipse will slice across Americas on Saturday with millions along path
Tuesday, 10 October 2023 16:48
Want to explore Neptune? Use Triton's atmosphere to put on the brakes
Tuesday, 10 October 2023 16:16
Aerobraking is commonly used to slow down spacecraft when they arrive at various planetary systems. It requires a spacecraft to dip into the atmosphere of a celestial body in the planetary system, such as a moon or the planet itself, and use the resistance from that atmosphere to shed some of its velocity. That slow-down would then allow it to enter an orbit in the planetary system without carrying the extra fuel required to do the maneuvers through powered flight, thereby saving weight on the mission and reducing its cost.
Unfortunately, saying the orbital dynamics of such a maneuver are complicated is an understatement. But ultimately, for any aerobraking to be viable, someone has to do the math. And that's just what Jakob Brisby and Jame Lyne, a graduate student and professor at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, did for some of the least visited planetary systems in the solar system—Neptune.
More eyes in the sky: NRO building new satellites to deliver ‘10 times more signals and images’
Tuesday, 10 October 2023 15:30
