China's astronauts make spacewalk to upgrade robotic arm
Friday, 20 August 2021 06:01
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Chinese astronauts edged into space on Friday to add the finishing touches to a robotic arm on the Tiangong space station.
The foray, the second spacewalk in two months and relayed on state television, is part of China's heavily promoted space programme which has already seen the nation land a rover on Mars and send probes to the moon.
In June, three crew arrived at the station, where they are set to remain in space for a total of three months in China's longest crewed mission to date.
Blue Origin suit stops work on NASA HLS contract with SpaceX
Thursday, 19 August 2021 21:45 Write a comment
NASA will stop work on a Human Landing System award to SpaceX through the end of October as a federal court takes up a suit filed by Blue Origin protesting the contract.
Netflix announces documentary series on Inspiration4 space mission
Thursday, 19 August 2021 19:52 Write a comment
Netflix will soon premiere a documentary series chronicling Inspiration4, the world's first all-civilian space mission, the streaming service said Thursday.
The five-episode show will air in September and will depict how the four-member crew is preparing and then launching into space aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, in near real time.
The mission, scheduled for September 15, is financed and run by Jared Isaacman, the 38-year-old founder of payment processing company Shift4 Payments and the latest wealthy businessman to take advantage of the growing space tourism industry.
Isaacman has invited three "everyday" people along with him for the ride: a medical worker, a college professor and an engineer.
The show, titled "Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission To Space" will "take viewers behind the scenes with the four crew members—from their unconventional selection and intensive months-long commercial astronaut training, through the intimate and emotional moments leading up to liftoff," Netflix said in a statement.
Space surveillance sensor supplier Geost acquired by private equity firm
Thursday, 19 August 2021 18:51 Write a comment
Geost, a company that supplies space surveillance sensors to the U.S. military and intelligence agencies, has been acquired by ATL Partners, a private equity firm.
SpaceX wants to give Starship lead role in revised second-gen Starlink plan
Thursday, 19 August 2021 18:27 Write a comment
SpaceX is proposing to use Starship to rapidly deploy its second-generation Starlink constellation, providing denser rural coverage without needing more than the 30,000 satellites it previously envisioned for the follow-on network.
Japan aims to bring back soil samples from Mars moon by 2029
Thursday, 19 August 2021 13:37 Write a comment
Japanese space agency scientists said Thursday they plan to bring soil samples back from the Mars region ahead of the United States and China, which started Mars missions last year, in hopes of finding clues to the planet's origin and traces of possible life.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, plans to launch an explorer in 2024 to land on Phobos, a Martian moon, to collect 10 grams (0.35 ounce) of soil and bring it back to Earth in 2029.
The rapid return trip is expected to put Japan ahead of the United States and China in bringing back samples from the Martian region despite starting later, project manager Yasuhiro Kawakatsu said in an online news conference.
Startup raises funding to provide high-resolution imagery from balloons
Thursday, 19 August 2021 13:00 Write a comment
A Colorado startup has raised a seed round of funding to further develop a system that can provide imagery from high-altitude balloons at much higher resolution than satellites.
South Korea to invest $13.6 billion to bolster defenses capabilities in outer space
Thursday, 19 August 2021 11:00 Write a comment
South Korea will invest 16 trillion won ($13.6 billion) over the next 10 years in bolstering its defense capabilities in outer space. This includes 1.6 trillion won to be used to develop “core technologies” for military satellites.
Redwire opens digital engineering facility aimed at national security space agencies
Thursday, 19 August 2021 11:00 Write a comment
Redwire is opening a digital engineering facility where government agencies and aerospace companies can prototype hardware, design space architectures and concepts of operations.
Blue Origin to perform first New Shepard launch under updated license
Thursday, 19 August 2021 10:31 Write a comment
Blue Origin will conduct its next New Shepard suborbital mission Aug. 25 with a set of research payloads, but not people, on board on the vehicle’s first flight under a revised launch license.
BRICS to set up remote-sensing satellite network
Thursday, 19 August 2021 06:57 Write a comment
China will work with Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa to establish a network of remote-sensing satellites to help to deal with global challenges such as climate change, major disasters and environmental deterioration.
The heads of national space agencies in BRICS countries met on Wednesday via video link and signed the Agreement on the Cooperation on BRICS Remote Sensing Satellite Co Cloud data bursts from space move astronauts closer to Mars
Thursday, 19 August 2021 06:57 Write a comment
When Michael Collins peeked out a portal on the Apollo 11's command module, orbiting the moon alone while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made their historic lunar walk below, he saw a blue and white planet with no borders. It struck him that humans would have a better future if political leaders also could see the world that way - as a whole globe - and learn to collaborate.
But he wouldn' Mapping the Universe's Earliest Structures with COSMOS-Webb
Thursday, 19 August 2021 06:57 Write a comment
When NASA's James Webb Space Telescope begins science operations in 2022, one of its first tasks will be an ambitious program to map the earliest structures in the universe. Called COSMOS-Webb, this wide and deep survey of half-a-million galaxies is the largest project Webb will undertake during its first year.
With more than 200 hours of observing time, COSMOS-Webb will survey a large pat Firefly Aerospace selects Redwire as key mission partner in 2023 Lunar lander mission
Thursday, 19 August 2021 06:57 Write a comment
Redwire, a leader in mission critical space solutions and high reliability components for the next generation space economy, has been awarded a subcontract from Firefly Aerospace to provide avionics and critical navigation systems for their Blue Ghost lunar lander.
Firefly Aerospace was awarded a contract to deliver a suite of 10 science investigations and technology demonstrations to the NASA awards grants in Break the Ice Lunar Challenge
Thursday, 19 August 2021 06:57 Write a comment
As NASA prepares to go to the Moon with the Artemis program, in-situ resource utilization is paramount, and there is no hotter commodity than water. To that effect, 13 teams from across the United States have won a share of a $500,000 prize in a competition that asked for ideas for digging and hauling icy Moon "dirt" - or regolith.
NASA's Break the Ice Lunar Challenge opened in November 20