Washington DC (UPI) Dec 16, 2021
Elon Musk's SpaceX launched two high-power broadband satellites for a Luxembourg firm's new communications system toward orbit Friday evening from Florida. The Falcon 9 rocket's second stage was to place the first two O3b mPOWER satellites into orbit to join Luxembourg-based SES's 20 first-generation O3b Internet satellites. SES is a satellite telecommunications network with 67 c

Beijing (XNA) Dec 18, 2022
China launched a Long March 11 carrier rocket early on Friday afternoon to transport an experimental satellite into space, according to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, the country's leading space contractor. The rocket blasted off at 2:17 pm at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwestern China's Sichuan province and soon placed the Shiyan 21 satellite into its preset o

New Orleans LA (SPX) Dec 18, 2022
NASA conducted the first test of the newly redesigned RS-25 engine for future flights of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket Dec. 14, completing 209.5 seconds of a scheduled 500 second hot fire at the agency's Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. The hot fire test was shut down early by a non-flight system used to monitor the engine. NASA and Space Launch System lead engi

Houston TX (SPX) Dec 18, 2022
AstroAccess, a project dedicated to promoting disability inclusion in space, announced the successful completion of its first formal research flight 'AA2' onboard Zero-G Corporation's aircraft. The flight included 14 disabled crew members from five different countries: Australia, Brazil, Germany, Spain, and the US. The Zero-G aircraft ascended to an altitude of 25,000 feet, at which point

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Dec 18, 2022
Much like how familiar landmarks can give travelers a sense of direction when their smart phones lose their lock on GPS signals, a NASA engineer is teaching a machine to use features on the Moon's horizon to navigate across the lunar surface. "For safety and science geotagging, it's important for explorers to know exactly where they are as they explore the lunar landscape," said Alvin Yew,

Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 18, 2022
In the coming days, NASA's Perseverance rover is expected to begin building the first sample depot on another world. This will mark a crucial milestone in the NASA-ESA (European Space Agency) Mars Sample Return campaign, which aims to bring Mars samples to Earth for closer study. The depot-building process starts when the rover drops one of its titanium sample tubes carrying a chalk-size c

Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain (SPX) Dec 18, 2022
"Nature seems bent on showing us that Earth-like planets are very common. With these two we now know 7 in planetary systems quite near to the Sun" explains Alejandro Suarez Mascareno, an IAC researcher, who is the first author of the study accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics. The newly discovered planets orbit the star GJ 1002, which is at a distance of less than 16 ligh

Montreal, Canada (SPX) Dec 18, 2022
A team led by researchers at the University of Montreal has found evidence that two exoplanets orbiting a red dwarf star are "water worlds," where water makes up a large fraction of the entire planet. These worlds, located in a planetary system 218 light-years away in the constellation Lyra, are unlike any planet found in our solar system. The team, led by Caroline Piaulet of the Trottier

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover will soon start depositing a cache of samples that it has collected since landing last year as part of efforts to eventually return those samples to Earth.

The post Perseverance prepares to deposit Mars sample cache appeared first on SpaceNews.

NASA is delaying a spacewalk at the International Space Station by two days to support the Russian investigation into a coolant leak on a Soyuz spacecraft docked there.

The post NASA postpones spacewalk to support Soyuz investigation appeared first on SpaceNews.