In an astonishing feat of endurance, explorers Justin Packshaw and Jamie Facer Childs are a quarter of the way through a 3600-km kitesurf trek that takes them across the desolate heart of Antarctica. They are not pushing their physical and mental limits to the brink, facing howling gales and temperatures of –55°C just for the sake of adventure. They are gathering information to help scientists better understand how the body responds to extremes and taking unique measurements of their ice environment that will help complement ESA’s CryoSat mission to better understand how this giant ice

Washington DC (UPI) Dec 15, 2021
NASA has regained its radio link with the Mars helicopter Ingenuity and plans its 18th flight on the Red Planet as early as Wednesday, the agency announced. NASA had lost radio contact - except for very brief transmissions - after Ingenuity's Flight 17 on Dec. 5. Hills between the helicopter and the Perseverance rover blocked the link. But the Mars helicopter's team said in a p

Bonn, Germany (SPX) Dec 15, 2021
An international team of researchers from ten countries led by Michael Kramer from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, has conducted a 16-year long experiment to challenge Einstein's theory of general relativity with some of the most rigorous tests yet. Their study of a unique pair of extreme stars, so called pulsars, involved seven radio telescopes across the globe an

Duesseldorf, Germany (SPX) Dec 15, 2021
How did the first chemical reactions get started at the origin of life and what was their source of energy? Researchers at the Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf (HHU) have reconstructed the metabolism of the last universal common ancestor, LUCA. They found that almost all chemical steps used by primordial life to piece together the molecular building blocks of cells are energy releasing react

Hanover NH (SPX) Dec 15, 2021
Nearly a century after Italian physicist Ettore Majorana laid the groundwork for the discovery that electrons could be divided into halves, researchers predict that split photons may also exist, according to a study from Dartmouth and SUNY Polytechnic Institute researchers. The finding that the building blocks of light can exist in a previously-unimaginable split form advances the fundamen

Washington DC (UPI) Dec 15, 2021
Three years after it was launched, NASA's Parker Solar Probe has become the first spacecraft in history to "touch" the sun, officials said. NASA said the probe flew through the sun's upper atmosphere, the corona, and took some particle samples. The agency called it a "monumental" moment and a "giant leap for solar science." Because it's closer to the sun than any man-made craft h

ESA’s Vega-C launch vehicle will fly in the second quarter of 2022 offering more performance to all orbits and extended mission flexibility at a similar cost to the current Vega. A new contract aims to widen these mission capabilities to capture new opportunities and satisfy emerging market needs to 2027.

Canada’s MDA is acquiring an X-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite from Iceye that will be part of its Chorus system intended to replace Radarsat-2.

SpaceNews

Honeywell announced Dec. 15 it has teamed with telecommunications startup Skyloom to produce optical crosslink terminals for commercial and military satellites.

SpaceNews

President Biden nominated Frank Calvelli to be assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition, the White House announced Dec. 15.

SpaceNews