NASA facility in Ohio named for native son Neil Armstrong
Thursday, 12 August 2021 13:52
A NASA research facility in Ohio has been renamed after astronaut Neil Armstrong, who was born in the state and returned shortly after he became the first man to walk on the moon.
Ohio's U.S. senators led the efforts to change the name of the NASA Plum Brook Station in Sandusky to the Neil A. Armstrong Test Facility.
Republican Rob Portman said he raised the idea with Armstrong in 2012, shortly before Armstrong's death, but he wasn't comfortable with the attention it would bring.
"It was never about him. It was about the mission," Portman said Wednesday at a ceremony marking the name change.
NASA and Armstrong's family supported renaming the research center, Portman said.
Armstrong's son, Mark Armstrong, said the early space missions showed people across the world that they could do things they could never imagine.
"That is more empowering than any scientific advancement," he said. "It's more empowering than the transistor. It's more empowering than the computer. Because it's unlimited. And that's what we have to remind people."
Armstrong was born just outside Wapakoneta in 1930, took flying lessons at a nearby airstrip and made his first solo flight at age 16.
U.S. Army brigade teaches military forces about the value of space
Thursday, 12 August 2021 13:02
Without satellites in space, military forces on the ground cannot shoot, move or communicate. That is the mantra that the Army’s 1st Space Brigade tries to instill with troops around the world.
Analysis can predict individual differences in cardiovascular responses to altered gravity
Thursday, 12 August 2021 12:46
With recent forays into space travel by business moguls like Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, visiting the edge of space has never been more within the grasp of commercial travel. However, at these altitudes, passengers experience weightlessness, or more generally, altered gravity, that can affect the body's normal physiology.
In a study, Texas A&M University researchers have used a simulation-based approach to accurately predict the effects of altered gravity on an individual-by-individual basis. Their approach precludes the need for simultaneously testing hundreds of parameters for estimating the cardiovascular state of an individual; rather, it focuses on a handful of significant factors, increasing accuracy and saving time.
"Understanding human physiological responses in altered gravity environments becomes absolutely necessary if we want to push toward new frontiers in space travel," said Dr. Ana Diaz-Artiles, assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering. "But no two people are alike, and we need to develop tools to individualize physiological predictions quickly and precisely. Our study addresses that gap."
The researchers have reported the results of their study in The Journal of Applied Physiology.
Wildfires ravage Greek island of Evia
Thursday, 12 August 2021 12:15
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Parts of the Mediterranean and central Europe have experienced extreme temperatures this summer, with wildfires causing devastation on the Greek island of Evia. This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image shows the extent of the burned area in the northern part of the island. South Korea’s Hanwha enlarges space focus with $300 million OneWeb investment
Thursday, 12 August 2021 12:04
Satellite broadband startup OneWeb has secured $300 million of strategic investment from Hanwha, the South Korean conglomerate with plans for its own megaconstellation.
Astra announces launch contract with Spire
Thursday, 12 August 2021 12:00
Small launch vehicle developer Astra Space announced Aug. 12 it has a contract with Spire Global to launch some of that company’s smallsats.
Satellite operators to test a new collaboration tool designed to help prevent collisions
Thursday, 12 August 2021 11:00
OneWeb, Spire Global and Orbit Fab will test a new collaboration platform developed by Slingshot Aerospace to help satellite operators share space traffic information.
Shareholders approve Momentus SPAC deal
Thursday, 12 August 2021 09:54
Shareholders of a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) approved a merger with in-space transportation company Momentus Aug. 11, the first of several such deals expected to close in the next month.
BepiColombo’s close Venus encounter
Thursday, 12 August 2021 09:00
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A stunning sequence of 89 images taken by the monitoring cameras on board the European-Japanese BepiColombo mission to Mercury, as the spacecraft made a close approach of Venus on 10 August 2021.
The sequence includes images from all three Monitoring Cameras (MCAM) onboard the Mercury Transfer Module, which provides black-and-white snapshots in 1024 x 1024 pixel resolution. It is not possible to image with the high-resolution camera suite during the cruise phase. The images have been lightly processed to enhance contrast and use the full dynamic range. A small amount of optical vignetting is seen in the corners
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Flying by Venus OSIRIS-REx helps scientists model the orbit of hazardous asteroid Bennu
Thursday, 12 August 2021 08:22
The half-a-kilometer-wide asteroid Bennu is already one of the most well-studied asteroids prior to the OSIRIS-REx mission.
By ysing positional data collected over the course of the two-year sample return mission, however, scientists were able to improve their knowledge of Bennu's trajectory by a factor of 20, NASA scientists said at a press briefing.
"The OSIRIS-REx mission coll Hermeus fully-funded to flight with US Air Force Partnership
Thursday, 12 August 2021 08:22
Hermeus has signed a $60 million U.S. Air Force partnership for flight testing its first Marc 5 aircraft - Quarterhorse.
Quarterhorse will validate the company's proprietary turbine-based combined cycle (TBCC) engine, based around the GE J85 turbojet engine, and is the first in a line of autonomous high-speed aircraft. By the end of the flight test campaign, Quarterhorse will be the fastes Netflix plans series on historic SpaceX Inspiration4 mission
Thursday, 12 August 2021 08:22
Netflix plans to cover the upcoming SpaceX launch of the first all-private orbital spaceflight in September, Inspiration4, with a five-part docuseries.
The series would offer closeup footage of the entire mission "from training to launch to landing," according to Netflix. It would give viewers a unique perspective on a historic spaceflight and break ground for the leading streaming serv Commander offers strategies for deterring aggression from China and Russia
Thursday, 12 August 2021 08:22
The commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command described threats from Russia and China and ways to mitigate those threats.
Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck spoke at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium, in Huntsville, Alabama.
Besides battling wildfires, hurricanes, cyberattacks and COVID-19, NORAD and Northcom are engaged in deterring threats f Space Force reluctant to spearhead Pentagon's UFO Investigation Program
Thursday, 12 August 2021 08:22
A former US intelligence official reportedly said that it "makes perfect sense" for the Space Force to handle the UFO-related matters since it "doesn't have a geographic boundary."
The US Space Force is "conflicted" over the prospect of leading the country's effort to collect information about UFOs, Politico reports.
According to the media outlet, while the Pentagon is contemplating