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A beautiful sequence of 56 images taken by the monitoring cameras on board the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission as the spacecraft made its second close flyby of its destination planet Mercury on 23 June 2022.

The compilation includes images from two monitoring cameras (MCAM) onboard the Mercury Transfer Module, which provides black-and-white snapshots at 1024 x 1024 pixel resolution. The MCAMs also capture parts of the spacecraft: MCAM-2 sees the Mercury Planetary Orbiter’s medium-gain antenna and magnetometer boom, while the high-gain antenna is in the MCAM-3 field-of-view.

The image sequences lasted about 15 minutes starting soon after closest approach

Image: The Po River, the longest river in Italy, is hitting record low water levels after months without heavy rainfall. This Copernicus Sentinel-2 animation reveals how the river has significantly shrunk between June 2020 and June 2022.

Tempe AZ (SPX) Jun 24, 2022
Astronomers discovered a rocket body heading toward a lunar collision late last year. Impact occurred March 4, with NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter later spotting the resulting crater. Surprisingly the crater is actually two craters, an eastern crater (18-meter diameter, about 19.5 yards) superimposed on a western crater (16-meter diameter, about 17.5 yards). The double crater was unex

Washington DC (SPX) Jun 24, 2022
An independent assessment team will review possible options for next steps, including estimated costs. NASA announced Friday the Psyche asteroid mission, the agency's first mission designed to study a metal-rich asteroid, will not make its planned 2022 launch attempt. Due to the late delivery of the spacecraft's flight software and testing equipment, NASA does not have sufficient time to c

Huntsville AL (SPX) Jun 24, 2022
NASA science research on the International Space Station reached an extraordinary milestone June 14. The vital, versatile EXPRESS Racks - properly known as "EXpedite the PRocessing of Experiments to the Space Station" multipurpose payload shelving units - logged 1 million hours of combined powered duty on station. That's the equivalent of nearly 115 years' worth of scientific research comp

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jun 24, 2022
The MSL team is very happy this week, because our first drill attempt since last November was successful! This Front Hazcam image shows the drill being extracted from the new drill hole, which is surrounded by drill tailings as expected. This is one of several times in MSL's mission that drilling had to be re-designed to overcome an anomaly, again requiring lots of careful planning and tes

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Jun 24, 2022
Low earth orbit (LEO) satellites are being increasingly used for environmental monitoring of the earth, as well for logistic purposes, such as the navigation of maritime vessels. The data transmitted from the satellite terminals to the receivers on Earth, known as "downlink," is steadily increasing and, as a result, requires new frequency domains. In this regard, the Ka band for satellite

The British government announced a series of measures June 23, from regulations to funding active debris removal projects, intended to make the country a leader in space sustainability.

The post U.K. government announces new space sustainability measures appeared first on SpaceNews.

Frank Calvelli, assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration, told SpaceNews one of his priorities is to impose discipline in procurement programs

The post New head of Space Force acquisitions looks to get back to basics appeared first on SpaceNews.

Telespazio intends to play a key role in the future in-orbit servicing market, providing customers seeking satellite relocation, refueling, repair or removal with the necessary space and ground-based capabilities.

The post Telespazio to play key role in satellite servicing market appeared first on SpaceNews.