More than 5,000 tons of extraterrestrial dust fall to Earth each year
Thursday, 08 April 2021 12:49
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Every year, our planet encounters dust from comets and asteroids. These interplanetary dust particles pass through our atmosphere and give rise to shooting stars. Some of them reach the ground in the form of micrometeorites. An international program conducted for nearly 20 years by scientists from the CNRS, the Universite Paris-Saclay and the National museum of natural history with the support o Contained confinement
Thursday, 08 April 2021 12:01 Write a comment
Image:
ESA-sponsored medical doctor Nick Smith snapped this photo of the storage containers at Concordia research station in Antarctica shortly before sunset, 8 April 2021. The dark blue line at the horizon is the shadow of the Earth.
The containers store food, recycling and the scientific samples of blood, saliva, and stool that Nick routinely takes. The units on the right are part of the summer camp, during which researchers sleep in tents.
Science for the benefit of space exploration does not only happen off planet. While some studies require the weightless isolation of the International Space Station, Antarctica also provides the
Soyuz launches new crew to International Space Station
Thursday, 08 April 2021 11:45 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — A Soyuz spacecraft carrying two Russian cosmonauts and one American astronaut arrived at the International Space Station April 9, a few hours after its launch from Kazakhstan.
A Soyuz-2.1a rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 3:42 a.m.
Different neutron energies enhance asteroid deflection
Thursday, 08 April 2021 11:14
Liftoff! Pioneers of space
Thursday, 08 April 2021 08:27 Write a comment
Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space 60 years ago next week.
He was one of several stars of the Cold War space race between the Soviet Union and the United States who would became heroes to millions.
But the technology that sent them into orbit had less glorious origins in the dying days of Nazi Germany.
The Germans
Many of the key rocket scientists behind both the American and Soviet space programmes were Germans, who had worked on Adolf Hitler's "secret weapons", the V-1 and V-2 rockets.
Some 1,600 German rocket experts were secretly taken to the US in the dying days of World War II, while the Russians rounded up about 2,000 in one night at gunpoint and sent them to work in the Soviet Union.
Wernher von Braun
The inventor of Hitler's V-2 rocket—the world's first guided ballistic missile—was the architect of the US Apollo programme that would put a man on the Moon.
Brought across the Atlantic with his brother Magnus, he came up with the Saturn V rocket that powered the American lunar missions.
Three-man Soyuz flight honouring Gagarin blasts off for ISS
Thursday, 08 April 2021 08:21 Write a comment
A three-man crew blasted off to the International Space Station Friday in a capsule honouring the 60th anniversary of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becoming the first person in space.
Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei lifted off from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at the expected time of 0742 GMT, footage broadcast by NASA TV showed, with docking expected at 1107 GMT.
A NASA commentator citing Russian Mission Control reports confirmed that the Soyuz capsule had entered orbit, with all stages of the flight proceeding as expected.
"Hey, Expedition 64 –- set the dinner table... Can't wait to join you on @Space_Station in a few hours!" Vande Hei tweeted to the crew on board the ISS before blast-off.
The launch came just ahead of Monday's anniversary of Gagarin's historic flight on April 12, 1961.
Three-man crew docks at ISS after flight honouring Gagarin (Update)
Thursday, 08 April 2021 08:21 Write a comment
A three-man crew blasted off to the International Space Station Friday in a capsule honouring the 60th anniversary of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becoming the first person in space.
Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei lifted off from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at the expected time of 0742 GMT, footage broadcast by NASA TV showed, with docking expected at 1107 GMT.
A NASA commentator citing Russian Mission Control reports confirmed that the Soyuz capsule had entered orbit, with all stages of the flight proceeding as expected.
"Hey, Expedition 64 –- set the dinner table... Can't wait to join you on @Space_Station in a few hours!" Vande Hei tweeted to the crew on board the ISS before blast-off.
The launch came just ahead of Monday's anniversary of Gagarin's historic flight on April 12, 1961.
Earth from Space: Bucharest, Romania
Thursday, 08 April 2021 08:00 Write a comment
The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over Bucharest – the capital and largest city of Romania.
OneWeb continues to study offering navigation services
Thursday, 08 April 2021 00:16 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — The new chief executive of OneWeb says the company is still pursuing some kind of navigation capability for its broadband satellite constellation, although a full-fledged service may have to wait until a second-generation system.
U.S. intelligence report predicts heightened space competition between U.S. and China
Wednesday, 07 April 2021 19:40 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — The Office of the Director of National Intelligence in a new report released April 8 projects that by 2040 China will be the most significant rival to the United States in space, competing on commercial, civil and military fronts.
Rep. Lieu praises move to establish Space Force acquisitions command in Los Angeles
Wednesday, 07 April 2021 17:31 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — Congressman Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) hailed the April 8 announcement that Los Angeles Air Force Base will be the permanent home of the U.S. Space Force procurement command.
“I’m very excited that Space Systems Command will be located at Los Angeles Air Force Base,” Lieu told SpaceNews.
Space Force to create ‘one-stop shop’ for launch procurement and operations
Wednesday, 07 April 2021 17:30 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force is consolidating oversight of space launch activities under a two-star general who will have broad responsibilities for the procurement of launch services and for the operations of the military’s launch ranges.
Space Force to establish a new command to oversee technology development and acquisition
Wednesday, 07 April 2021 17:30 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force on April 8 unveiled new details of its plan to establish a Space Systems Command in Los Angeles to oversee the development of next-generation technologies, and the procurement of satellites and launch services.
Phase Four wins Air Force contract for electric thruster development
Wednesday, 07 April 2021 16:30 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — Phase Four, a startup working on electric propulsion for satellites, has won an Air Force contract to test using an alternative propellant for its thrusters.
Phase Four announced April 8 it received a $750,000 Phase 2 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award from the U.S.
Lunar brightness temperature for calibration of microwave humidity sounders
Wednesday, 07 April 2021 16:07 Write a comment
Calibration and validation (CAL/VAL) is a key technology for quantitative application of space-borne remote sensing data. However, the complex space environment can cause many uncertainties and degrade calibration accuracy. In-flight calibration is always needed. The thermal emission of the Moon is stable over hundreds of years because there is no atmosphere and no significant physical or chemical change on its surface. The deep space view of the Microwave Humidity Sounder onboard NOAA-18 has viewed the Moon many times every year. Under solar illumination, the lunar surface shows stable and periodical variation in microwave brightness temperature (TB). The Moon is a potential calibration source for thermal calibration
The related work was published in Science China Earth Sciences as "Calibration of the space-borne microwave humidity sounder based on real-time thermal emission from lunar surface." Based on the heat conductive equation, the temperature profiles of lunar regolith at different regions and local time are simulated numerically with the real-time solar radiance and angle of incidence.