Week in images: 26 - 30 April 2021
Friday, 30 April 2021 12:13
Week in images: 26 - 30 April 2021
Discover our week through the lens
NASA Wallops May 7 rocket launch exploring energy transport in space
Friday, 30 April 2021 11:54
A mission to explore energy transport in space using a NASA suborbital sounding rocket is scheduled to be conducted the evening of May 7 from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
Launch for the mission is scheduled for 7:58 p.m. EDT with a 40-minute launch window, Friday, May 7, 2021, on a NASA Black Brant XII sounding rocket. Backup launch days run through May 16. The launch may be visible in much of the eastern United States and Bermuda.
The mission, called the KiNETic-scale energy and momentum transport eXperiment, or KiNet-X, is designed to study a very fundamental problem in space plasmas, namely, how are energy and momentum transported between different regions of space that are magnetically connected?
For example, auroras. Auroras are formed when particles in the Earth's near-space environment interact with the atmosphere.
"The electrons in Earth's space environment and in the solar wind have relatively low energies. Yet the aurora is generated by very high energy electrons.
Stratolaunch aircraft returns to the skies after two-year hiatus
Friday, 30 April 2021 10:26
WASHINGTON — Stratolaunch flew its giant aircraft for the first time in more than two years April 29, marking the start of a new test flight campaign to prepare the plane to serve as a platform for hypersonic vehicles.
Huge rocket looks set for uncontrolled reentry following Chinese space station launch
Friday, 30 April 2021 10:04
HELSINKI — China launched the first module for its space station into orbit late Wednesday, but the mission launcher also reached orbit and is slowly and unpredictably heading back to Earth.
China wants new space station to be more international
Friday, 30 April 2021 08:35
China successfully launched the core module of its space station on Thursday, opening a new foothold for humanity in space.
China's space station, guided by the idea of building a community with a shared future for humanity, will become a common home transcending Earthly bonds and an outpost for countries worldwide to explore the universe through cooperation.
Tianhe, the name of the SpaceX successfully launches into space carrying 60 more Starlink satellites
Friday, 30 April 2021 08:35
Elon Musk's SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying an additional 60 Starlink Internet network satellites into space late Wednesday.
The two-stage, 70-meter rocket lifted off at 11:44 p.m. EDT as scheduled from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Some nine minutes after liftoff, SpaceX recovered its first-stage Falcon 9 booster upon the football field-size d Eutelsat invests in OneWeb, future SpaceX rival
Friday, 30 April 2021 08:35
A year after collapsing into bankruptcy, satellite operator OneWeb has revived its goal of providing broadband satellite internet service after European operator Eutelsat said Tuesday it would invest $550 million in the project.
Eutelsat's "roughly 24 percent" stake will allow OneWeb to position itself as a rival to Elon Musk's SpaceX as Eutelsat joins the British government and Indian multi Glacier avalanches more common than thought
Friday, 30 April 2021 08:00
One tends to think of mountain glaciers as slow moving, their gradual passage down a mountainside visible only through a long series of satellite imagery or years of time-lapse photography. However, new research shows that glacier flow can be much more dramatic, ranging from about 10 metres a day to speeds that are more like that of avalanches, with obvious potential dire consequences for those living below.
Earth from Space: Antofagasta, Chile
Friday, 30 April 2021 07:00
Antofagasta, a port city in northern Chile, is featured in this image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission.
How Zhurong will attempt to touch down on the red planet
Friday, 30 April 2021 03:28
For the first few months of 2021, the Martian atmosphere was buzzing with new visitors from Earth. First, it was the UAE Space Agency's Hope probe, followed by the Chinese Tianwen-1 entering orbit.
More recently Nasa landed the biggest-ever rover on Mars and its companion, an ingenious helicopter, both of which have been setting new milestones since.
The next visitor to the planet wi Space tourism - 20 years in the making - is finally ready for launch
Friday, 30 April 2021 03:28
For most people, getting to the stars is nothing more than a dream. On April 28, 2001, Dennis Tito achieved that lifelong goal - but he wasn't a typical astronaut. Tito, a wealthy businessman, paid US$20 million for a seat on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to be the first tourist to visit the International Space Station. Only seven people have followed suit in the 20 years since, but that number is FAA Authorizes SpaceX Starship SN15, SN16 and SN17
Friday, 30 April 2021 03:28
The FAA has authorized the next three launches of the SpaceX Starship prototype. The agency approved multiple launches because SpaceX is making few changes to the launch vehicle and relied on the FAA's approved methodology to calculate the risk to the public. The FAA authorized the launches on Wednesday, April 28.
Prior to the launch of SN15, the FAA will verify that SpaceX implemented cor China wants news space station to be more internatioal
Friday, 30 April 2021 03:28
China successfully launched the core module of its space station on Thursday, opening a new foothold for humanity in space.
China's space station, guided by the idea of building a community with a shared future for humanity, will become a common home transcending Earthly bonds and an outpost for countries worldwide to explore the universe through cooperation.
Tianhe, the name of the China plans four Tiangong Space Station launches in 2021
Friday, 30 April 2021 03:28
China plans to launch two cargo spaceships and two manned spacecraft for building its own orbit station within this year, Hao Chun, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) director, said on Thursday.
Earlier in the day, the country successfully sent off the core module of China's new space station Tiangong, which means "heavenly palace," by launching a rocket from Wenchang spaceport, locate Top Things to Know about Space Station Crew Handovers
Friday, 30 April 2021 03:28
The International Space Station is our home in low-Earth orbit. Humans have been living and working continuously on the station for more than 20 years. Astronauts and cosmonauts visiting the space station have arrived on the space shuttle, the Russian Soyuz, and now, the SpaceX Crew Dragon, with Boeing's CST-100 Starliner to be added to the mix. With these new flights on U.S. commercial spacecra