L3Harris and Raytheon win contracts to define future geostationary imagers
Sunday, 11 April 2021 19:54
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SAN FRANCISCO – L3Harris Technologies and Raytheon Intelligence & Space won NASA contracts to carry forward studies of next-generation imagers for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Geostationary and Extended Orbits (GEO-XO) satellites.
The one-year, firm-fixed price contracts worth about $6 million apiece set the stage for the two weather sensor leaders to compete to build infrared and visible-imaging instruments for the NOAA satellites to follow the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite R (GOES-R) series.
Why primordial asteroids that avoided massive collisions all seem to be about the same size
Sunday, 11 April 2021 13:42 Write a comment
Planetary systems form out of the remnant gas and dust of a primordial star. The material collapses into a protoplanetary disk around the young star, and the clumps that form within the disk eventually become planets, asteroids, or other bodies. Although we understand the big picture of planetary formation, we've yet to fully understand the details. That's because the details are complicated.
Take, for example, the mystery of asteroids and collisions. You would think that planets and asteroids formed gradually: small clumps colliding with others to make bigger clumps. As an object gets bigger, it would be more likely to attract other bodies, and thus be more likely to experience collisions. But as a recent study shows, that isn't always the case with asteroids.
Many asteroids can be grouped into families, groups that are similar in their chemical composition.
New laser to help clear the sky of space debris
Sunday, 11 April 2021 12:10 Write a comment
Researchers at the Australian National University (ANU) have harnessed a technique that helps telescopes see objects in the night sky more clearly to fight against dangerous and costly space debris.
The researchers' work on adaptive optics—which removes the haziness caused by turbulence in the atmosphere—has been applied to a new 'guide star' laser for better identifying, tracking and safely moving space debris.
Space debris is a major threat to the $US700 billion of space infrastructure delivering vital services around the globe each day. With laser guide star adaptive optics, this infrastructure now has a new line of defense.
The optics that focus and direct the guide star laser have been developed by the ANU researchers with colleagues from Electro Optic Systems (EOS), RMIT University, Japan and the U.S. as part of the Space Environment Research Centre (SERC).
EOS will now commercialize the new guide star laser technology, which could also be incorporated in tool kits to enable high-bandwidth ground to space satellite communications.
The laser beams used for tracking space junk use infrared light and aren't visible.
Russians celebrate 60 years since Gagarin's spaceflight
Sunday, 11 April 2021 11:55 Write a comment
Russians on Monday celebrate the 60th anniversary of the first manned flight to space carried out by cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin as the Soviet hero remains one of the most admired figures in the country.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is due to travel to Engels, a city in the south of the country on the banks of the Volga river, to the site of the cosmonaut's landing where a memorial stands to UAE selects new astronauts, including first woman
Sunday, 11 April 2021 11:30 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — The United Arab Emirates doubled the size of its astronaut corps April 10 with the selection of two new astronauts, including the first woman, who will train at NASA starting later this year.
How do we know if an asteroid headed our way is dangerous?
Sunday, 11 April 2021 09:15 Write a comment
There are a lot of things that pose a threat to our planet—climate change, natural disasters, and solar flares, for example. But one threat in particular often captures public imagination, finding itself popularised in books and films and regularly generating alarming headlines: asteroids.
In our solar system there are millions of space rocks known as asteroids. Ranging in size from a few metres to hundreds of kilometres, these objects are mostly left over from the formation of our planets 4.6 billion years ago. They are building blocks that didn't quite make it into fully fledged worlds.
Asteroids and other objects that make a closest approach to our sun of less than 1.3 astronomical units (1 astronomical unit, AU, is the Earth-Sun distance) are known as
Five things to know about Gagarin's journey to space
Sunday, 11 April 2021 08:23 Write a comment
Sixty years ago on Monday cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space, securing victory for Moscow in its race with Washington and marking a new chapter in the history of space exploration.
Decades later, his journey has become shrouded in myth after many details about the historic mission were for years kept secret by the Soviets.
Here are five things to know about Gagarin's legendary flight:
'Let's go!'
A trained steel worker turned military pilot, Gagarin was selected from thousands of candidates to undergo the rigorous training required for a space flight.
Apart from showing excellent results in his tests, Gagarin, then aged 27, also reportedly stood out by removing his shoes before entering the Vostok spacecraft designated for the mission, a custom in Russia when entering a home.
On April 12, 1961, as Gagarin's flight took off from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan, he exclaimed his iconic catchphrase "Poekhali!", or "Let's go!" in Russian.
Risky business
The flight lasted just 108 minutes as the Vostok completed one loop around the Earth.
Once Gagarin safely returned home, the success of his mission outshone the fact that not everything went according to plan.
Exolaunch entering orbital debris market with eco-friendly space tugs
Sunday, 11 April 2021 08:00 Write a comment
TAMPA, Fla. — German launch services provider Exolaunch is developing a line of eco-friendly space tugs called Reliant, designed to clean up debris after sending satellites to custom orbits.
Flight tests will start in the second half of 2022 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare mission with customer payloads, according to Exolaunch vice president of launch services Jeanne Medvedeva.
Soviet cosmonaut made pioneering spaceflight 60 years ago
Sunday, 11 April 2021 07:49 Write a comment
Coverage set for NASA's SpaceX Crew-2 Briefings, Events, Broadcasts
Saturday, 10 April 2021 14:27 Write a comment
NASA will provide coverage of the upcoming prelaunch and launch activities for the agency's SpaceX Crew-2 mission with astronauts to the International Space Station. This is the second crew rotation flight of the SpaceX Crew Dragon and the first with two international partners. The flight follows certification by NASA for regular flights to the space station as part of the agency's Commercial Cr Rocket Lab to recover Electron Booster on next mission
Saturday, 10 April 2021 14:27 Write a comment
Rocket Lab reports that on its next mission the company will attempt to bring a rocket back from space, slowing the Electron launch vehicle down from speeds of >Mach 8 as it re-enter's Earth's atmosphere before splashing the rocket down in the ocean.
The complex mission is the next major step toward making Electron the first orbital-class reusable small launch vehicle, enabling rapid-turna Progress MS-16 docking in February failed due to nose cone issues
Saturday, 10 April 2021 14:27 Write a comment
A malfunction in the nose cone of the Soyuz launch vehicle led to an incident during the docking of Russia's Progress MS-16 cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) in February, the general director of the Progress space rocket centre, Dmitry Baranov, said on Saturday.
"The commission will work until 30 April. The problem is in the nose cone", Baranov told reporters. Acting NASA Administrator Statement on Agency FY 2022 Discretionary Request
Saturday, 10 April 2021 14:27 Write a comment
The Biden-Harris Administration submitted to Congress Friday the president's priorities for fiscal year 2022 discretionary spending. The following is a statement from acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk on the funding request:
"This $24.7 billion funding request demonstrates the Biden Administration's commitment to NASA and its partners who have worked so hard this past year under diff CO2 mitigation on Earth and magnesium civilization on Mars
Saturday, 10 April 2021 14:27 Write a comment
Excessive CO2 emissions are a major cause of climate change, and hence reducing the CO2 levels in the Earth's atmosphere is key to limit adverse environmental effects. Rather than just capture and store CO2, it would be desirable to use it as carbon feedstock for fuel production to achieve the target of "net-zero-emissions energy systems".
The capture and conversion of CO2 (from fuel gas o The European Hexa-X project for the development of 6G technology starts
Saturday, 10 April 2021 14:27 Write a comment
The Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) is participating in the development of the European Hexa-X project, through the Network Technologies research group and coordinated by Nokia, to promote the development of technologies that will make up 6G from Europe.
This project, funded by the European Commission within the framework of the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, also