What the wreck of the Titan portends for commercial spaceflight
Thursday, 22 June 2023 21:46
With the loss of the submersible Titan and her five passengers garnering round-the-clock media attention, those working in the emergent private space travel industry should pay close attention
Video: BepiColombo's third Mercury flyby
Thursday, 22 June 2023 17:46
Watch Mercury appear from the shadows as the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo spacecraft sped by the planet's night side during its 19 June 2023 close flyby, and enjoy a special flyover of geologically rich terrain.
In the first part of the movie, composed of 217 images captured by BepiColombo's monitoring camera M-CAM 3, the planet's illuminated side quickly appears in the spacecraft's field of view, showing off a bounty of geological features on its surface. The planet's terminator—the divide between day and night—becomes more distinctive from afar, adding to the beauty of the image sequence. At one point Mercury momentarily appears to hang between the spacecraft's body and antenna before the spacecraft speeds away.
The image sequence starts from 19:46:25 UTC on 19 June 2023, at an altitude of 1,789 km above the planet's surface, and ends at 20:34:25 UTC on 20 June 2023, when BepiColombo was 331,755 km away.
A new mission will grab dead satellites and push them into the atmosphere to burn up
Thursday, 22 June 2023 17:32
Plenty of news stories have focused on the danger posed by Kessler syndrome. In this condition, space is made inaccessible by a cloud of debris surrounding our planet that would destroy any further attempts to get into orbit. Therefore, plenty of companies have sprung up to take care of the problem, from blasting derelict satellites with lasers to helping to refuel them—lots of business models have been created to capture this opportunity.
One of the farthest along is Astroscale. This British start-up is tackling the problem with one of the more conventional techniques—linking up with an existing satellite to deorbit it. And recently, they released a promotional video for their new project—the ELSA-M.
ELSA-M, which stands for End of Life Services by Astroscale-Multiple, is designed to couple with an existing satellite, force it into a lower orbit, and make it reenter more quickly. It will be the first satellite to boost itself up to another orbit for a second rendezvous and deorbit that second satellite as well.
SpiderOak demonstrates cybersecurity software on orbit
Thursday, 22 June 2023 12:15
Cybersecurity specialist SpiderOak reported successful on-orbit testing June 22 of its OrbitSecure software running on a Ball Aerospace payload.
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W-band on the run Top Secret NRO Spy Satellite launched on ULA's Delta IV Heavy Penultimate Flight
Thursday, 22 June 2023 10:42
An issue with a ground systems pneumatic valve caused a one-day delay of ULA's first launch of 2023; the launch was originally scheduled for June 21.
United Launch Alliance's (ULA) second-to-last flight of its Delta IV Heavy rocket lit the Florida Space Coast sky on the NROL-68 mission to haul a classified payload for the U.S. government's spy satellite agency, the National Reconnaissance SpaceLogistics continues satellite life-extension work with latest sale
Thursday, 22 June 2023 10:42
Northrop Grumman Corporation's (NYSE: NOC) SpaceLogistics has sold its third Mission Extension Pod (MEP), a propulsion "jet pack" that extends the life of legacy satellites, allowing them to operate longer and more profitably.
Under a purchase agreement with Intelsat, SpaceLogistics' Mission Robotic Vehicle (MRV), a servicing spacecraft equipped with robotic arms, will install the jet pack Space exploration company brings high-tech laser lab to the ocean floor
Thursday, 22 June 2023 10:42
On Friday, May 19, 2023, Impossible Sensing, along with a team of scientists and engineers from SETI Institute, NASA JPL, University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory and other institutions onboard Ocean Exploration Trust's Exploration Vessel Nautilus expedition, successfully launched InVADER Mission's Laser Divebot into the deep waters surrounding Kingman Reef and Palmyra Atoll. This e An amino acid essential for life is found in interstellar space
Thursday, 22 June 2023 10:42
Tryptophan is one of the 20 amino acids considered essential for the formation of proteins, which are key macromolecules for the development of life on Earth. This amino acid has many spectral features in the infrared, as had been previously characterized by Susana Iglesias Groth, an IAC researcher.
Using data from the Spitzer Space Observatory she identifies more than 10 emission bands of Seven US companies collaborate with NASA to advance space capabilities
Thursday, 22 June 2023 10:42
NASA will partner with seven U.S. companies to meet future commercial and government needs, ultimately benefitting human spaceflight and the U.S. commercial low Earth orbit economy.
Through unfunded Space Act Agreements, the second Collaborations for Commercial Space Capabilities-2 initiative (CCSC-2) is designed to advance commercial space-related efforts through NASA contributions of tec New study weighs the universe's supermassive black holes
Thursday, 22 June 2023 10:42
Near the center of the Milky Way Galaxy sits an immense object that astronomers call Sagittarius A*. This "supermassive" black hole may have grown in tandem with our galaxy, and it's not alone. Scientists suspect that similar behemoths lurk at the heart of almost all large galaxies in the cosmos.
Some can get really big, said Joseph Simon, postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Astro Evidence of the amino acid tryptophan found in space
Thursday, 22 June 2023 10:42
Using data from the Spitzer space observatory, Dr Susana Iglesias-Groth, a researcher from The Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC), has found evidence for the existence of the amino acid tryptophan in the interstellar material in a nearby star-forming region. The research is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
High amounts of tryptophan were detected in t Paris Air Show Live – Session on understanding Earth’s water and carbon cycles from space
Thursday, 22 June 2023 10:30
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By using concrete examples of the water and carbon cycles, the speakers in this session focus on the grand science questions and how we can turn them into answers and solutions most useful to decision-makers at the front line of the climate crisis. Earth is a highly dynamic system where the transport and exchanges of energy and matter are influenced by a multitude of processes and feedback mechanisms. Untangling these complex processes to better understand how Earth works as a system is a major challenge; a challenge that satellites, with their global view, are ideally positioned to
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The Zero Debris Charter Space Force missile-warning satellites drawing congressional attention
Thursday, 22 June 2023 09:28
Strategic communications and missile warning satellites “represent a fundamental departure from how DoD has historically carried out these critical missions,” says a new report by the Aerospace Corp.