Copernical Team
Trashing space begins in low earth orbit
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When we think of space, we think big and empty but when it comes to Earth's orbit, it's cluttered with millions of pieces of garbage that we call space junk.
The junk - or space debris - is made up of uncontrollable human-made items that remain in orbit long after they've served their original purpose. The scale of debris ranges from the very large including discarded stages from rocket an Axiom Space signs with SpaceX for 3 more private crew missions to ISS
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Axiom Space revealed Wednesday that it has finalized a deal with SpaceX for three additional Dragon flights, on which Axiom would fly its proposed private crews on its next three fully commercial missions to the International Space Station. The landmark agreement between the industry leaders in human spaceflight as well as orbital services and launch, respectively, ensures the nascent commercial Russians end 7-hour spacewalk at International Space Station
NASA Selects 2 Missions to Study ‘Lost Habitable’ World of Venus
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NASA has selected two new missions to Venus, Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor. 2 Russian crew do spacewalk at International Space Station
The incredible adventures of the Hera mission
Space junk: Houston, we have a problem
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When we think of space, we think big and empty but when it comes to Earth's orbit, it's cluttered with millions of pieces of garbage that we call space junk.
The junk—or space debris—is made up of uncontrollable human-made items that remain in orbit long after they've served their original purpose. The scale of debris ranges from the very large including discarded stages from rocket and satellite launches, through to smaller metal pieces such as nuts and bolts, all the way down to particles such as paint flakes.
At its smallest, the space junk may only be one millimeter in size, but there are thousands of pieces bigger than a pizza box causing problems.
According to the latest European Space Agency statistical modeling, there are approximately 34,000 objects greater than 10 centimeters in orbit, but up to 128 million items between one millimeter and one centimeter floating around.
NASA's Lucy in the cleanroom
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L'Ralph is one of the Lucy spacecraft's three primary science instruments. The L'Ralph instrument is a multicolor camera which will gather information on the surface composition of the Trojan asteroids, including organics. The L'Ralph camera sits atop the spacecraft's Instrument Pointing Platform (IPP) that's used to aim Lucy's instruments in a specific direction—seen here in the clean room at Lockheed Martin in Denver, Colorado, in late January 2021.
Throughout its production, the Lucy spacecraft is maneuvered into different positions to accommodate the integration and test of various elements. The spacecraft is seen here in February 2021 on its rotation fixture in the Lockheed Martin clean room in Denver Colorado, as its Instrument Pointing Platform (left) with three core instruments was installed.
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Image: It's a wrap! Multi-layer satellite insulation
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Multi-layer insulation (MLI) is the reason that satellites often look as though they've been covered in shiny Christmas wrapping.
Satellite surfaces are sheathed in MLI made up of layers of very thin, metal-coated plastic film, along with low-conducting 'spacer' material such as silk, nylon or glass-fiber netting.
In the airlessness of space, objects can be hot and cold at the same time, especially if one side is in sunshine and another is in shade. In such conditions, thermal radiation is the main driver of temperature change (rather than convection or conduction), and reflective MLI serves to minimize it.
Thermal control specialists aim to maintain the temperature of the satellite within set limits, to keep electronic and mechanical parts working optimally and to prevent any temperature-triggered structural distortion.
Placing MLI blankets on a satellite body is a skilled art in itself, with complex shapes needing to be created to fit around around edges or joints.
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Creating exotic 'outer space' ice in the lab
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The search for life beyond Earth typically focuses on first looking for water, the basis for life as we know it. Whether the water is a gas, liquid, or solid, its presence and composition can tell researchers a lot about the planet, moon, comet, or asteroid on which it is detected and whether it could support life.
Because interstellar space is so cold and is primarily a vacuum, the water we detect from Earth is usually in the form of amorphous ice, meaning its atomic structure is not arranged neatly into a crystalline lattice like ice on Earth. How the transition between the crystalline and amorphous ice phases occurs on icy bodies like Europa or on Kuiper Belt Objects beyond Pluto, is difficult to study—unless you can mimic the cold, dark vacuum of outer space, under intense radiation, in a laboratory.