Paris (ESA) Jun 02, 2021
Meet Hera, our very own asteroid detective. Together with two briefcase-sized Cubesats - Milani the rock decoder and Juventas the radar visionary - Hera is off on an adventure to explore Didymos and Dimorphos, an asteroid pair typical of the thousands that pose an impact risk to planet Earth. Planetary defence requires planetary cooperation. Hera is set to rendezvous with the asteroid pair

Washington (AFP) June 2, 2021
NASA announced two new missions to Venus on Wednesday that will launch at the end of the decade and are aimed at learning how Earth's nearest planetary neighbor became a hellscape while our own thrived. "These two sister missions both aim to understand how Venus became an inferno-like world, capable of melting lead at the surface," said Bill Nelson, the agency's newly-confirmed administrator

London, UK (SPX) Jun 03, 2021
Space firms are being invited to apply for a share of up to 800,000 pounds in funding from the UK Space Agency to develop ideas for space debris removal missions. One of the biggest global challenges facing the space sector is orbital congestion and space debris. There are currently an estimated 900,000 pieces of space debris including old satellites, spent rocket bodies and even tools dro

London, UK (SPX) Jun 03, 2021
Today hundreds of tiny worms are being flown to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of an experiment to understand more about human muscle loss and how to prevent it. Led by scientists from Nottingham and Exeter University, with hardware designed by Oxford-based Kayser Space, a research team aims to determine the causes of muscle changes during spaceflight and find ways to mitiga

Fairmont WV (SPX) Jun 03, 2021
TMC Technologies of West Virginia, a leading-edge technology services firm, is proud to announce it has been awarded a five-year, Blanket Purchase Agreement, with a ceiling value of $24 million, by NASA to provide advanced systems and software engineering services in support of the Katherine Johnson Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Facility, home of NASA's IV&V Program in Fairmont,

Europe’s Galileo satellite navigation constellation is set to grow. Later this year the first two out of 12 ‘Batch 3’ Galileo satellites will be launched by Soyuz from French Guiana. Their last step on the way to launch is situated beside sand dunes on the Dutch coast: the ESTEC Test Centre, which is Europe’s largest satellite test facility.

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jun 03, 2021
Although Earth and Venus are similar in size and location, they are very different worlds today. While Earth has oceans of water and abundant life, Venus is dry and fiercely inhospitable. Although it's somewhat closer to the Sun - about 70 percent of Earth's distance - Venus is much hotter, with temperatures at the surface high enough to melt lead. The scorched landscape is obscured by clouds of

Washington DC (SPX) Jun 03, 2021
NASA has selected two new missions to Venus, Earth's nearest planetary neighbor. Part of NASA's Discovery Program, the missions aim to understand how Venus became an inferno-like world when it has so many other characteristics similar to ours - and may have been the first habitable world in the solar system, complete with an ocean and Earth-like climate. These investigations are the final

Riverside CA (SPX) Jun 03, 2021
As its name suggests, dark matter - material which makes up about 85% of the mass in the universe - emits no light, eluding easy detection. Its properties, too, remain fairly obscure. Now, a theoretical particle physicist at the University of California, Riverside, and colleagues have published a research paper in the Journal of High Energy Physics that shows how theories positing the exis