Copernical Team
China to send 3 astronauts to space station
China will launch its seventh manned space mission on Thursday morning to deploy three astronauts to the core module of the nation's permanent space station, according to a project leader. Ji Qiming, assistant to the director of the China Manned Space Agency, told reporters at a news conference on Wednesday at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China's Inner Mongolia auton
Chinese rocket with manned crew to blast off Thursday
Astronauts blasting off on Thursday for China's first manned mission to its new space station will have a choice of 120 different types of food and "space treadmills" for exercise during their stay, China's space agency said.
The mission will be China's longest crewed space mission to date and the first in nearly five years, as Beijing pushes forward with its ambitious programme to establish itself as a space power.
The astronauts will spend three months onboard the station, which has separate living modules for each of them, as well as a shared bathroom, dining area, and a communication centre to send emails and allow two-way video calls with ground control.
The trio will be able to work off their range of dinner options—which officials assured reporters were all both nutritious and tasty—on the space treadmills or bicycles.
Space embrace
SMC stands up new Space Safari program office
Space Safari responds to high-priority, urgent space needs by rapidly acquiring, integrating and executing missions in support of USSPACECOM requirements and other combatant commander needs. These missions are not typically a part of an enduring program of record, but respond to high priority needs to deploy space systems quickly to respond to emerging threats. As a high-speed integrator
Ultra-cool test of Jupiter instrument
An instrument destined for Jupiter orbit undergoes eight days of cryogenic radio-frequency testing using a new test facility at ESA’s ESTEC technical centre in the Netherlands. The Submillimetre Wave Instrument of ESA’s Juice mission will survey the churning atmosphere of Jupiter and the scanty atmospheres of its Galilean moons.
Testing took place in ESA’s custom-built Low-temperature Near-field Terahertz chamber, or Lorentz. The first chamber of its kind, the 2.8-m diameter Lorentz chamber can perform high-frequency radio-frequency testing in realistic space conditions, combining space-quality vacuum with ultra-low temperatures.
Boundary of heliosphere mapped for the first time
For the first time, the boundary of the heliosphere has been mapped, giving scientists a better understanding of how solar and interstellar winds interact. "Physics models have theorized this boundary for years," said Dan Reisenfeld, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and lead author on the paper, which was published in the Astrophysical Journal today. "But this is the first tim
Dark matter is slowing the spin of the Milky Way's galactic bar
The spin of the Milky Way's galactic bar, which is made up of billions of clustered stars, has slowed by about a quarter since its formation, according to a new study by researchers at University College London (UCL) and the University of Oxford. For 30 years, astrophysicists have predicted such a slowdown, but this is the first time it has been measured. The researchers say it gives
Mars rover to move south after testing
China's Mars rover Zhurong will continue moving southward to explore the Red Planet, focusing on key scientific issues, such as potential locations of water and ice, as well as volcanic activities, according to a project leader. Liu Jianjun, chief designer of the Tianwen 1 mission's scientific system, said on Saturday that mission planners decided the rover would move south out of scientif
NASA is returning to Venus to learn how it became a hot poisonous wasteland
NASA is finally headed back to Venus. On June 2, 2021, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced that the agency had selected two winners of its latest Discovery class spacecraft mission competition, and both are headed to the second planet from the Sun. I'm a planetary scientist and a self-confessed Venus evangelist, and here's why I'm so excited that humanity is going back to Venus.
Lunar samples record impact 4.2 billion years ago
An international team of researchers led by The Open University (OU) has provided the first sample-based evidence, which they argue reflects the age of the Serenitatis Basin - one of the oldest craters on the Moon. The formation and ages of the lunar basins and craters, created during large collisional impact events during the first ~500 million years of the Solar System history, have fasc