ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen will venture outside the International Space Station to install a new camera and prepare an experiment for a future upgrade on his first spacewalk on 12 October, starting at 16:00 CEST (15:00 BST).

For all registered visitors for Sunday 8 October’s ESA Open Day at ESTEC in the Netherlands, the programme brochure for the day is now available to read through and plan your visit.

Estonia’s next satellite will fly aboard Europe’s Vega VV23 launcher later this week. While largely designed and built by undergraduate students, the shoebox-sized ESTCube-2 has ambitious goals in mind, including surveys of Estonian vegetation and the first successful in-orbit demonstration of ‘plasma brake’ technology. Deployment of a charged microtether will slow the CubeSat’s orbit, proving the prospect of helping to keep space clear of dangerous debris in the future.

Washington (AFP) Oct 3, 2023
US authorities have issued a "breakthrough" first-ever fine over space debris, officials said Monday, slapping a $150,000 penalty on a TV company that failed to properly dispose of a satellite. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) came down on Dish for "failure to properly deorbit" a satellite called EchoStar-7, in orbit since 2002. "This marks a first in space debris enforcement

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Oct 02, 2023
An international research team has taken a decisive step toward a new generation of atomic clocks. At the European XFEL X-ray laser, the researchers have created a much more precise pulse generator based on the element scandium, which enables an accuracy of one second in 300 billion years - that is about a thousand times more precise than the current standard atomic clock based on caesium. The t