Op-ed | Can we backhaul our way to space?
Saturday, 25 September 2021 03:04
If the market grows large enough, a dedicated lunar-to-LEO tanker industry could evolve – which might never happen if the infrastructure for supplying space facilities with lunar water had to be paid for up front and from scratch, before any water was delivered.
UN secretary-general criticizes “billionaires joyriding to space”
Friday, 24 September 2021 15:54
The secretary-general of the United Nations lumped space tourism alongside corruption and loss of freedoms as part of a “malady of mistrust” facing the world, another sign of the backlash in some quarters to private human spaceflight.
Orbit Fab to launch propellant tanker to fuel satellites in geostationary orbit
Friday, 24 September 2021 14:52
Orbit Fab, a startup offering a refueling service in space, will launch a propellant tanker to geostationary orbit on a SpaceX Falcon 9 lunar lander mission projected for late 2022 or early 2023.
Exotic mix in China's delivery of moon rocks
Friday, 24 September 2021 14:36
On 16 December 2020 the Chang'e-5 mission, China's first sample return mission to the Moon, successfully delivered to Earth nearly two kilograms of rocky fragments and dust from our celestial companion. Chang'e-5 landed on an area of the Moon not sampled by the NASA Apollo or the Soviet Luna missions nearly 50 years ago, and retrieved fragments of the youngest lunar rocks ever brought back for analysis in laboratories on Earth.
Scientists use seasons to find water for future Mars astronauts
Friday, 24 September 2021 14:35
For reasons by Vivaldi
Friday, 24 September 2021 12:10
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A female volunteer gets comfortable in her waterbed, as the dry immersion study to recreate some of the effects of spaceflight on the body kicks off this week in Toulouse, France. Called Vivaldi, or Validation of the Dry Immersion, the campaign features all female-participants in a European first.
Immersion begins when water covers the subject above the thorax, immobilised with legs and trunk covered with a cotton sheet. Only the arms and head remain free outside the tarp.
As a result, the body experiences ‘supportlessness’ – something close to what astronauts feel while floating on the International Space Station.
In weightlessness,
Week in images: 20 - 24 September 2021
Friday, 24 September 2021 12:00
Week in images: 20 - 24 September 2021
Discover our week through the lens
Wildfire Map wins top prize at App Camp
Friday, 24 September 2021 11:30
An app that uses satellite data to show the location and impact of wildfires took home the top prize at this year’s Space App Camp.
House committee presses NOAA on commercial weather data and space traffic management
Friday, 24 September 2021 10:47
Members of the House Science Committee asked the new administrator of NOAA to make more use of commercial satellite data and take action on space traffic management.
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Layered history What's behind Africa's increasing drive to launch satellites
Friday, 24 September 2021 08:37
Twenty-two years after putting the first African satellite into orbit, the continent's satellite fleet currently stands at 44. With Africa's most recent satellite launch taking place in June 2021, the next few years may see more launches on the continent.
The consultancy Space in Africa recently reported that 44 satellites have been sent into orbit by 13 African countries since the launch SpaceX satellite signals used like GPS to pinpoint location on Earth
Friday, 24 September 2021 08:37
Engineering researchers have developed a method to use signals broadcast by Starlink internet service satellites to accurately locate a position here on Earth, much like GPS does. It is the first time the Starlink system has been harnessed by researchers outside SpaceX for navigation.
The Starlink satellites, sent into orbit by Elon Musk's SpaceX, are designed to provide broadband internet The Biomass satellite and disappearing 'football fields'
Friday, 24 September 2021 08:37
Forests, especially tropical rainforests, are guardians against climate change. But our forests are burning. They are withering and dwindling. Our guardians are themselves threatened by climate change. A new European Space Agency (ESA) satellite mission, currently being built by Airbus, is set to investigate exactly how our forests are faring. The name says it all: Biomass.
Our forests and Exolaunch to facilitate launch of Lunasonde's Gossamer Satellite Constellation
Friday, 24 September 2021 08:37
Lunasonde, a startup that focuses on subsurface imaging from space, and Exolaunch, a global leader in rideshare launch, deployment and integration services for small satellites, announce the launch agreements to fly a portion of the Gossamer satellite constellation to a sun-synchronous orbit aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 Transporter missions in 2022.
Though resources such as water and minerals How to weigh a quasar
Friday, 24 September 2021 08:37
Astronomers of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy have, for the first time, successfully tested a new method for determining the masses of extreme black holes in quasars. This method is called spectroastrometry and is based on the measurement of radiation emitted by gas in the vicinity of supermassive black holes.
This measurement simultaneously determines the rotational velocity of th