Australia scraps billion-dollar satellite program
Friday, 30 June 2023 09:29
Australia on Friday said it was axing a billion-dollar plan to develop a series of space satellites, as it tries to cut costs amid an economic slowdown and cost-of-living crisis.
The Aus$1.2 billion (US$770 million) National Space Mission for Earth Observation was unveiled just last year and hailed as a key plank in developing an Australian space industry.
The programme's aim was to desi Australia-first communications network paves the way for high-speed data in space
Friday, 30 June 2023 09:29
The $6.5 million project, which has received a $4.4 million grant from the Australian Space Agency, $500,000 each from the Western Australian Government and The University of Western Australia, will employ a new technology that uses super-fast lasers to talk to satellites and spacecraft.
It's called 'free-space optical communications', and it's 1000 times faster than the radio communicatio Hera Propulsion Module leak test – time-lapse
Friday, 30 June 2023 09:00
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ESA’s Hera mission for planetary defence will perform a close-up survey of the Dimorphos asteroid in deep space. But first Hera needs to cross millions of kilometres of space to get there. That is the task of Hera’s Propulsion Module, forming around half of the overall spacecraft, which has been prepared by Italy’s Avio company. Formed of a central tube plus a supporting structure, the Module has been fitted with propellant tanks, piping and thrusters (inside the red protective covers). But before it can be joined to Hera’s other element, the Core Module, this Propulsion Module had
Space to empower rural food producers
Friday, 30 June 2023 08:00
ESA has strengthened their partnership with the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to help vulnerable small-scale food producers not only increase their ability to grow food but adapt to climate change by using state-of-the-art Earth observation data.
Euclid: preparing for launch
Friday, 30 June 2023 07:49
ESA’s mission Euclid is getting ready for lift-off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral in Florida, USA, with a target launch date of 1 July 2023.
Imagine walking on Hera’s asteroid
Friday, 30 June 2023 07:28
The team working on ESA’s Hera asteroid mission has glimpsed its destination. Last September NASA’s DART mission returned images of the boulder-strewn Dimorphos moonlet just before impacting it, in an audacious and ultimately successful attempt to shift its orbit around its parent asteroid Didymos.
Following on from DART, Hera will carry with it a pair of shoebox-sized ‘CubeSats’ that conclude their own observations by landing on Dimorphos. Team members have been using DART images to help visualise this process of touchdown. And in the process they can't help but imagine: what would it be like for human
Gravity goes lunar: putting LESA to the test
Friday, 30 June 2023 07:19
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Testing the Lunar Equipment Support Assembly (LESA) investigation during a partial gravity parabolic flight. Earth from Space: Southwest Netherlands
Friday, 30 June 2023 07:00
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Rotterdam and part of the Zeeland province in southwest Netherlands are featured in this radar image acquired by Copernicus Sentinel-1. Vega C suffers setback in return to flight effort
Friday, 30 June 2023 02:38
A solid rocket motor for Europe’s Vega C rocket malfunctioned during a static-fire test June 28, likely pushing back the vehicle’s return to flight to 2024.
Virgin Galactic finally takes its first paying customers to space
Friday, 30 June 2023 00:05
Virgin Galactic successfully flew its first paying customers to the final frontier Thursday, a long-awaited achievement that puts it back on track in the emerging private spaceflight sector.
Italian Air Force officers unfurled their nation's flag and peered out windows at the curve of Earth while enjoying a few minutes of weightlessness at 52.9 miles (85.1 kilometers) above sea level.
"I SpaceX Dragon begins return to Earth with experiments, samples from ISS
Friday, 30 June 2023 00:05
A SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft left the International Space Station on Thursday to return to Earth with NASA experiments and samples dating back as far as six years.
The spacecraft left the ISS's Harmony module at 12:30 p.m. EDT and is set to make a parachute-assisted splashdown off the coast of Florida at about 10:30 a.m. on Friday.
The spacecraft is carrying more than 3,600 p Long history and bright future of space sample deliveries
Friday, 30 June 2023 00:05
When NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft releases a capsule with material from asteroid Bennu onto the Utah desert on Sept. 24, it will become the latest in a line of missions to gather samples from space and deliver them to Earth. Collecting material from space is a challenging feat that requires teams of dedicated scientists and engineers, innovative technology, and patience. But the scientific break Gullies on Mars could have been formed by recent periods of liquid meltwater
Friday, 30 June 2023 00:05
A study led by Brown University researchers offers new insights into how water from melting ice could have played a recent role in the formation of ravine-like channels that cut down the sides of impact craters on Mars.
The study, published in Science, focuses on Martian gullies, which look eerily similar to gullies that form on Earth in the Dry Valleys of Antarctica and are caused by wate ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 Set for Mid-July Launch, Reveals ISRO Chief
Friday, 30 June 2023 00:05
The Indian Space Research Agency (ISRO) is preparing for the anticipated launch of its third lunar expedition, dubbed Chandrayaan-3. Officials from the agency disclosed that the mission is tentatively scheduled for mid-July.
A high-ranking ISRO official mentioned, "We have the launch window between July 12 and July 19. The exact date has not been finalised."
The Chairman of ISRO and Up up up and finally over: Sols 3873-3875
Friday, 30 June 2023 00:05
We made it! We are peeking up over the edge of the ridge that we have been trying to climb for a few weeks now. The view ahead is spectacular but it's worth pausing for a minute to look back down into the canyon. You can faintly see rover tracks in the centre of the image, left behind as we slowly made our way up the hill. Lots of slipping and sliding, and drives ending too soon or terminating o