Copernical Team
Air leak in Russia's ISS Zvezda module still unresolved
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The air leak from the intermediate chamber of the Russian Zvezda module of the International Space Station (ISS) is still unresolved, despite two cracks being sealed off, according to the call between the ISS crew and the ground control broadcast by NASA on Saturday.
At about 07:00 GMT on Saturday, ISS cosmonaut Sergei Ryzhikov told a specialist at the Mission Control Center, located near NASA astronauts complete spacewalk
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Astronauts Mike Hopkins and Victor Glover, Jr., completed a nearly 7-hour spacewalk outside of the International Space Station on Saturday afternoon.
The astronauts wrapped their spacewalk at 3:01 p.m. EST, according to NASA's Twitter feed, which also live streamed the event.
Hopkins and Glover captured video of the walk using helmet cameras, allowing the public to see from their SpaceX launches 22nd cluster of Starlink satellites
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SpaceX launched its 22nd cluster of Starlink communication satellites before dawn Sunday from Florida.
Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket came at 6:01 a.m. EDT, just hours after clocks move ahead for Daylight Saving Time, from Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center.
After the main engine cutoff, the Falcon 9 first stage landed on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship, completing the ARTES (Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems)
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ARTES is ESA's (European Space Agency) long-running, large-scale program to support the development of advanced satcom products and services. The ARTES program facilitates research and development activities as well as providing a framework for partnerships within the industry with goal of contributing to the development of European and Canadian industries. It assists them in the development of advanced technologies and concepts that form the basis for competitive products and services.
Satellite communications is the economic engine of the space industry, accounting for two thirds of overall space industry revenue. Worldwide data traffic is estimated to grow 800% by 2019, making broadband and data communications services leading growth segments. ESA’s Directorate of Telecommunications and Integrated Applications (TIA) keeps European and Canadian industry at the leading edge of this fiercely competitive global market by nurturing innovation. 1) 2) 3) 4)
Through ESA’s support, industry can pursue research and development that would otherwise not be economically viable. Growing new space-enabled applications and services stimulates the wider economy, creating new business and jobs across almost every sector.
Spacewalkers take extra safety precautions for toxic ammonia
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Spacewalking astronauts had to take extra safety precautions Saturday after possibly getting toxic ammonia on their suits from the International Space Station's external cooling system.
Russia deploys giant space telescope in Lake Baikal
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Russian scientists on Saturday launched one of the world's biggest underwater space telescopes to peer deep into the universe from the pristine waters of Lake Baikal.
The deep underwater telescope, which has been under construction since 2015, is designed to observe neutrinos, the smallest particles currently known.
Dubbed Baikal-GVD, the telescope was submerged to a depth of 750-1,300 meters (2,500-4,300 feet), around four kilometres from the lake's shore.
Neutrinos are very hard to detect and water is an effective medium for doing so.
The floating observatory consists of strings with spherical glass and stainless steel modules attached to them.
On Saturday, scientists observed the modules being carefully lowered into the freezing waters through a rectangular hole in the ice.
"A neutrino telescope measuring half a cubic kilometre is situated right under our feet," Dmitry Naumov of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research told AFP while standing on the lake's frozen surface.
Astronauts plan Saturday spacewalk at space station
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Two NASA astronauts are scheduled for the fifth spacewalk of the year Saturday at the International Space Station.
Michael Hopkins and Victor Glover will exit the station's Quest airlock about 7:30 a.m. EST to conduct space-based maintenance on the orbiting platform for about 6 1/2 hours.
Hopkins and Glover will attempt to connect power cables for the new European science platfor Mechanical cosmos recreated inside world's first analogue computer
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Scientists have reconstructed a cosmological model to fit the complex arithmetic of the Antikythera Mechanism, the world's first analogue computer.
One of the most sophisticated engineering feats to have survived from the ancient world, the 2,000-year-old Antikythera Mechanism was used by Greek astronomers to calculate the positions of the sun, moon and planets, as well as predict lunar Arecibo telescope collapse may complicate NASA asteroid mission
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The destructive collapse in December of the world's most powerful radar telescope, Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, will make some observations of an upcoming asteroid mission difficult, according to NASA.
The primary goal of the asteroid experiment, or DART mission, is to crash a spacecraft into a small moon that circles asteroid Didymos in 2022, and to observe how the impact affect International Space Station images trace bird migrations
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Those who see Earth from the International Space Station often say it provides a new appreciation of our planet. The Avian Migration Aerial Surface Space project, or AMASS, takes advantage of thousands of images captured by astronauts to give people an appreciation of the migrations many birds undertake across the planet.
Also called Space for Birds, the project maps the routes taken by seven endangered or threatened bird species, highlighting along those routes habitat changes caused mainly by human activities. After more than four years, astronauts now have captured images of key locations along the migratory paths of all seven species. The Roberta Bondar Foundation sponsors AMASS in collaboration with NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The foundation is a research and education effort started by Bondar, the first Canadian woman to fly in space.