Open Day online programme
Wednesday, 29 September 2021 10:25
Here is the programme for our virtual ESA Open Day 2021 on Sunday 3 October. Click on the link sent to your email to enter the Live Lobby where your introduction to the Open Day will take place from 1300 CEST. From there, you can choose which talks or events to attend across the various ‘rooms’ listed below. All times listed below are in CEST. (To attend the virtual Open Day you have to register - registrations close at 1200 CEST on Saturday).
After technical demonstrations, satellite servicing grapples other issues
Wednesday, 29 September 2021 09:39
With the technical feasibility of satellite servicing now being demonstrated, companies and other organizations in the field are now grappling with other issues, from legal and regulatory challenges to the development of standards.
Europe night timelapse
Wednesday, 29 September 2021 08:00
Video:
00:01:11
Timelapse video made during ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet’s second mission to the International Space Station, “Alpha”. The camera is setup to take pictures at intervals of two a second, and the pictures are then edited into this video that plays at 25 pictures a second. The video is around 12 times faster than real speed.
Thomas shared this video on social media with the caption:
“Timelapse Tuesday: Approaching Europe at night, the Madeira islands seem to act as beacons that Portugal and Spain are on the horizon under the green hue of our atmosphere. The voyage continues over a
NASA's Lucy mission to probe Jupiter's mysterious Trojan asteroids
Wednesday, 29 September 2021 07:04
NASA is poised to send its first spacecraft to study Jupiter's Trojan asteroids to glean new insights into the solar system's formation 4.5 billion years ago, the space agency said Tuesday.
The probe, called Lucy after an ancient fossil that provided insights into the evolution of human species, will launch on October 16 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Its mission is to investigate the group of rocky bodies circling the Sun in two swarms, one preceding Jupiter in its orbital path and the other trailing behind it.
Euclid telescope ready for extreme space environment
Wednesday, 29 September 2021 07:00
ESA’s Euclid mission has reached a new milestone in its development with successful testing of the telescope and instruments showing that it can operate and achieve the required performance in the extreme environment of space.
Tiger Team solves mystery of Euclid’s galaxy speed camera
Wednesday, 29 September 2021 06:59
When tested in space-like conditions, the instrument on ESA’s Euclid space telescope set to measure the velocities of fast-receding galaxies abruptly stopped operating. Blindsided, the mission team feared it might take weeks or even months of extra time to uncover the reason why. Then a newly-convened ESA Tiger Team came to their assistance, pinpointing the cause and keeping Euclid on its set launch schedule.
Starfish Space raises $7M to develop Space Tug
Wednesday, 29 September 2021 06:21
Starfish Space, a satellite servicing company founded by former Blue Origin engineers, has raised a $7M funding round co-led by NFX and MaC Venture Capital, with participation from PSL Ventures, Boost VC, Liquid2 Ventures, and Hypothesis.
Up until now, missions to service existing satellites on-orbit, like the Hubble Space Telescope, have been too large and expensive to be commercially via Lucy mission prepares for launch to Trojan asteroids
Wednesday, 29 September 2021 06:21
NASA has tested the functions of Lucy, the agency's first spacecraft to study Jupiter's Trojan asteroids, filled it with fuel, and is preparing to pack it into a capsule for launch Saturday, Oct. 16.
Named after characters in Greek mythology, these asteroids circle the Sun in two swarms, with one group leading ahead of Jupiter in its path, the other trailing behind it. Lucy will be the fir Ariane 6 launch complex inaugurated at Europe's Spaceport
Wednesday, 29 September 2021 06:21
The new launch complex built for Europe's upcoming Ariane 6 rocket is inaugurated at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana.
With this, ESA celebrates another important milestone in the Ariane 6 roadmap as it forges ahead with combined tests between launch vehicle and launch base and preparations towards the first launch campaign.
Clearly visible from space, the facilities feature remar Global missile defense from space got more affordable
Wednesday, 29 September 2021 06:21
The Defense Department hopes, within the decade, to have a meshed network of low Earth orbit satellites - linked together and to warfighters - providing real-time global awareness of missile threats and the ability to respond.
However, that goal was once considered cost prohibitive, said the director of the Space Development Agency.
Derek M. Tournear participated in a Defense One vir SpaceX CRS-23 Dragon returns experiments on brain, muscles, liver to Earth
Wednesday, 29 September 2021 06:21
The 23rd SpaceX commercial resupply services mission returns samples from scientific experiments on the International Space Station. Back on Earth, scientists anticipate quick access to their experiments for additional observations and analyses.
Dragon undocks from the space station Sept. 30 and is scheduled for splashdown near NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida hours later.
b>T China opens Shenzhou-12 return capsule at ceremony
Wednesday, 29 September 2021 06:21
China held a ceremony Monday to open the capsule of the Shenzhou-12 spacecraft which carried three astronauts back to Earth on Sept. 17.
Space officials, including Hao Chun, director of the China Manned Space Agency, and China's first astronaut Yang Liwei handed over the items taken out of the capsule to various representatives.
Hao said that the Shenzhou-12 crewed mission included m MDA releases first details of its next generation commercial earth observation mission
Wednesday, 29 September 2021 06:21
MDA Ltd has released new details about its next industry leading Earth observation (EO) mission. Leveraging legendary RADARSAT heritage, the new system will include a large C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite operating in a mid-inclination orbit. Capable of covering a 700 km swath in a single pass, the new system will provide the broadest area coverage on the market, changing how, wh Bare Super-Earths offer clues to evolution of hot atmospheres
Wednesday, 29 September 2021 06:21
A group of astronomers from the Astrobiology Center, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, the University of Tokyo, and other institutes, discovered two rocky super-Earth exoplanets lacking thick primordial atmospheres in very close orbits around two different red dwarf stars. These planets provide a chance to investigate the evolution of the atmospheres of hot rocky planets.
In Spin test a success, but Ingenuity Flight 14 delayed until after conjunction
Wednesday, 29 September 2021 06:21
It's been an eventful several Martian days, or sols, since our last blog post, so we wanted to provide everyone with an update on where things stand on Mars. In our last post, we explained that we were getting ready to begin flying with a higher rotor speed to compensate for decreasing atmospheric density caused by seasonal changes on Mars.
Increasing the rotor speed is a significant chang