India to try again to land spacecraft on the moon
Friday, 14 July 2023 05:14
After a disheartening 2019 moon landing failure, India's lunar exploration effort will resume Friday with the planned launch of Chandrayaan-3, a sophisticated, automated mission to touch down softly and demonstrate how its rover can navigate the surface.
Liftoff is planned for 5:05 p.m. EDT from the Satish Dhawan Space Station in Andhra province of Sriharikota just above Chennai on the sou ESA ground facilities support ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission
Friday, 14 July 2023 05:14
The European Space Agency (ESA) is set to support the Chandrayaan-3 mission, launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). This Moon mission features a lunar lander and a rover, tasked to perform scientific operations on the lunar surface for a period of 14 days. To ensure the mission's success, ground stations worldwide, coordinated by ESA and NASA, are se Astronomers find answers to mysterious action of ghost stars in our Galaxy
Friday, 14 July 2023 05:14
A collaboration of scientists from The University of Manchester and the University of Hong Kong have found a source for the mysterious alignment of stars near the Galactic Centre.
The alignment of planetary nebulae was discovered ten years ago by a Manchester PhD student, Bryan Rees, but has remained unexplained.
New data obtained with the European Southern Observatory Very Large Tel Astronomers identify the coldest star yet that emits radio waves
Friday, 14 July 2023 05:14
Astronomers at the University of Sydney have shown that a small, faint star is the coldest on record to produce emission at radio wavelength.
The 'ultracool brown dwarf' examined in the study is a ball of gas simmering at about 425 degrees centigrade - cooler than a typical campfire - without burning nuclear fuel.
By contrast, the surface temperature of the Sun, a nuclear inferno, is India is set to launch a lander and rover to explore the moon's south pole
Friday, 14 July 2023 05:05
Maxar unveils platform to speed up imagery access
Thursday, 13 July 2023 20:40
MGP platform is designed to simplify and speed up access to the Colorado company’s high-resolution Earth imagery.
The post Maxar unveils platform to speed up imagery access appeared first on SpaceNews.
Virgin Galactic plans its next commercial flight to the edge of space for August
Thursday, 13 July 2023 19:17
Astronauts' new rides for Artemis missions arrive at Kennedy Space Center
Thursday, 13 July 2023 19:12
While the next humans to fly to the moon will rely on the Orion spacecraft for the nearly half-million-mile trip next year on the Artemis II mission, the final 9 miles to the launch pad will come while riding in one of three new astronaut transports now parked at Kennedy Space Center.
Three curvy electric vehicles officially referred to as CTVs, as in crew transportation vehicles, were built by California-based Canoo Technologies and arrived to KSC on Tuesday. They will be used during training leading up to the Artemis II flight slated for no earlier than November 2024.
That mission will fly the crew of three NASA astronauts and one Canadian Space Agency astronaut on a 10-day mission around the moon, the first time humans will fly in the Orion capsule launching atop the powerful Space Launch System rocket. It will pave the way for Artemis III no earlier than 2025 that seeks to return humans including the first woman to the lunar surface for the first time since 1972.
The new zero-emission CTVs are equipped to bring the four crew suited up in their spacesuits along with support personnel including a spacesuit technician on the ride from the Neil A.
Centaur modifications push first Vulcan launch to fourth quarter
Thursday, 13 July 2023 17:07
United Launch Alliance is now planning a first launch of its Vulcan Centaur rocket in the fourth quarter after the company completes modifications to and testing of the upper stage.
Senate defense panel leaves National Security Space Launch unsecured
Thursday, 13 July 2023 16:54
Congress should listen to the Space Force and reject the Senate Armed Services Committee’s changes to the U.S. Space Force's National Security Space Launch procurement plans.
Decoding the impact flash created by high-velocity impacts
Thursday, 13 July 2023 13:46
In an experimental study published in PNAS Nexus, researchers explore the visible impact flash that is created by high-velocity impacts.
Impacts by debris and meteoroids pose a significant threat to satellites, space probes, and hypersonic craft. Such high-velocity impacts create a brief, intense burst of light, known as an impact flash, which contains information about both the target and the impactor.
Gary Simpson, K.T. Ramesh, and colleagues explored the impact flash by shooting stainless steel spheres into an aluminum alloy plate, at a speed of three kilometers per second—about 6,700 miles per hour, or more than nine times the speed of sound.
The resulting impact flashes were photographed using ultra-high-speed cameras and high-speed spectroscopy, which measures the color and brightness of the light. Immediately after impact, a luminous disk is seen expanding around the impacting sphere. Only a few millionths of a second later, the disk takes on an almost floral shape, as fragments ejected from the impact crater form an ejecta cone, with petal-like projections at the outer edge.
Saltzman urges allies to ‘collectively train like we fight’
Thursday, 13 July 2023 13:34
“Certainly the situation in Ukraine has demonstrated the critical importance of timely coordination among partners,” Gen.
Orbital Composites wins $1.7 million Space Force contract
Thursday, 13 July 2023 13:00
The Small Business Innovation Research contract, awarded through the SpaceWERX Orbital Prime program, gives an important boost to the startup’s plans for in-space servicing, assembly and manufacturing.
