Tempe AZ (SPX) Sep 08, 2021
Elon Musk announced a humanoid robot designed to help with those repetitive, boring tasks people hate doing. Musk suggested it could run to the grocery store for you, but presumably it would handle any number of tasks involving manual labor. Predictably, social media filled with references to a string of dystopian sci-fi movies about robots where everything goes horribly wrong. As tr

Image: EC Commissioner Breton visits ESTEC

Video: 00:02:27

Space is changing fast. ESA wants to open up space to start-ups, new companies, new actors – basically to everyone. Our aim today is to help European businesses to use space technology to innovate and grow services and products that ultimately will change all our lives. And, instead of doing everything ourselves, it means we at ESA can be customers too. Commercialisation marks a fundamental change to the traditional rules of the space game, with the market providing more of what we need, and competition slashing costs and sharpening efficiency. It’s already happening in everything from micro-launchers

Washington DC (UPI) Sep 7, 2021
A pandemic-related shortage of a key rocket propellant, liquid oxygen, could force rocket launches to be postponed in coming months, possibly delaying important scientific and national defense missions, industry observers said. In fact, NASA has pushed back the launch of its Landsat 9 climate and land use satellite from California one week to Sept. 23 because of delivery problems for re

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Sep 08, 2021
It's best not to look directly at the Sun, unless you're one of NASA's Sun-observing instruments. And even then, doing so will cause some damage. Exposure to the Sun degrades light sensors of all kinds, from the retinas in the human eye to instruments aboard NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite, or SDO. Fortunately, with periodic calibrations, the latter can continue transmitting high-qua

Beijing (Sputnik) Sep 08, 2021
The newly developed and recently unveiled prototype miniature helicopter drone, a possible means to support China's Mars missions, is designed to become a navigator for the Mars rover. It will greatly boost the latter's ability to explore valuable targets on the surface of the Red Planet, the project leader said on 6 September. The newly developed and recently unveiled prototype miniature

Houston TX (SPX) Sep 08, 2021
The Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) at Baylor College of Medicine has announced the first-of-its-kind research platform to study human health and performance in private spaceflight participants. Working with commercial spaceflight providers and their passengers, TRISH's EXPAND (Enhancing eXploration Platforms and Analog Definition) Program will collect in-flight health

Onna, Japan (SPX) Sep 08, 2021
Scientists from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) and Rutgers University have used simple concepts from granular physics to explain the curious diamond shapes of two "near Earth" asteroids. Asteroids are rocky bodies that orbit the sun. What makes them fascinating to researchers is that they are made up of leftover materials-the matter that didn't g

York Space Systems plans to rely on Exotrail electric propulsion for a mission to provide Earth-to-moon communications services from cislunar orbit.

SpaceNews

The U.S. Space Force’s launch enterprise awarded ManTech a $476 million contract to provide systems engineering and integration services for the next 10 years.

SpaceNews