SpaceX launches 21st Starlink communications satellite cluster
Thursday, 11 March 2021 05:11
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SpaceX successfully launched 60 Starlink satellites early Thursday from Florida on a first-stage booster rocket that previously carried two astronauts into space.
Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket occurred as scheduled at 3:13 a.m. EST from Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
The launch was planned as SpaceX seeks permission from the Federal Communications Commission to beam St Canadian firm builds satellites to track space trash
Thursday, 11 March 2021 05:11 Write a comment
A Canadian startup plans to launch the first-ever commercial fleet of satellites designed to track dangerous space trash in 2022.
Montreal-based NorthStar Earth and Space has three of its Skylark satellites under construction for the new network, which eventually will number about 52 spacecraft.
The fleet would be the first of its kind to track space trash from space, rather than from gro Satellogic expanding U.S. footprint with eye on national security market
Wednesday, 10 March 2021 23:02 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — Earth observation company Satellogic is expanding its presence in the United States to compete in the government market. It is standing up a U.S. subsidiary specifically to work with national security agencies, Matthew Tirman, head of Satellogic North America, told SpaceNews.
China successfully launches new Long March 7A on second attempt
Wednesday, 10 March 2021 19:03 Write a comment
HELSINKI — China launched a new-generation Long March 7A rocket Thursday, sending a classified, experimental payload into geosynchronous transfer orbit.
Liftoff from the coastal Wenchang Satellite Launch Center occurred at 12:51 p.m.
Speedcast emerges from bankruptcy with clean balance sheet
Wednesday, 10 March 2021 18:10 Write a comment
TAMPA, Fla. — Satellite communications provider Speedcast emerged Thursday from nearly a year in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection under private equity ownership.
Centerbridge Partners, which manages about $28 billion of assets, has officially taken ownership of the company after completing all necessary regulatory and administrative requirements.
From the pandemic to going public: Space startups face hiring challenges
Wednesday, 10 March 2021 16:29 Write a comment
For many companies in the industry, filling job openings can seem as difficult as rocket science. For others, it simply involves rockets.
SpaceX often uses its launch webcasts as recruiting tools, taking advantage of an audience of thousands who will tune in at all hours to see a rocket launch and landing.
How the habitability of exoplanets is influenced by their rocks
Wednesday, 10 March 2021 15:28 Write a comment
The weathering of silicate rocks plays an important role to keep the climate on Earth clement. Scientists led by the University of Bern and the Swiss national center of competence in research (NCCR) PlanetS, investigated the general principles of this process. Their results could influence how we interpret the signals from distant worlds—including such that may hint towards life.
The conditions on Earth are ideal for life. Most places on our planet are neither too hot nor too cold and offer liquid water. These and other requirements for life, however, delicately depend on the right composition of the atmosphere.
A dose of Moonlight: A mission to to provide telecommunications and navigation services for the Moon
Wednesday, 10 March 2021 15:20 Write a comment
An orange pouch and a yellow cable are paving the way for missions to the moon. By monitoring space radiation and enabling faster communications, the Dosis-3D experiment and the Columbus Ka-band or ColKa terminal, respectively, are providing the insights needed to enable safer missions father out in space.
Orange Dosis-3D pouches are everywhere in the Columbus laboratory on the International Space Station. A series of active and passive dosimeters, they measure space radiation inside the module as well as how it penetrates the Space Station's walls.
Radiation levels in space are up to 15 times higher than on Earth. As soon as humans leave the protective shield that is Earth's atmosphere, space radiation becomes a serious concern.
The Columbus module is monitored by 11 passive dosimeters. The dosimeters are about the size of a pack of playing cards and attach to the walls of Columbus with Velcro. The detectors record how much radiation has been absorbed in total during the period they are in space.
This experiment has been monitoring radiation levels for a number of years and after each six-month crew rotation, the detectors are replaced to record changes in radiation.
The solar wind, explained
Wednesday, 10 March 2021 14:42 Write a comment
The solar wind is a flow of particles that comes off the sun at about one million miles per hour and travels throughout the entire solar system. First proposed in the 1950s by University of Chicago physicist Eugene Parker, the solar wind is visible in the halo around the sun during an eclipse and sometimes when the particles hit the Earth's atmosphere—as the aurora borealis, or northern lights.
While the solar wind protects Earth from other harmful particles coming from space, storms can also threaten our satellite and communications networks.
What is the solar wind?
The surface of the sun is blisteringly hot at 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit—but its atmosphere, called the corona, is more than a thousand times hotter. It is also incredibly active; those flares and loops are the halo you see around the sun when there's an eclipse.
The corona is so hot that the sun's gravity can't hold it, so particles are flung off into space and travel throughout the solar system in every direction. As the sun spins, burns and burps, it creates complex swirls and eddies of particles. These particles, mostly protons and electrons, are traveling about a million miles per hour as they pass Earth.
Gravity mission still unearthing hidden secrets
Wednesday, 10 March 2021 13:40 Write a comment
Despite ESA’s GOCE mission ending over seven years ago, scientists continue to use this remarkable satellite’s gravity data to delve deep and unearth secrets about our planet. Recent research shows how scientists have combined GOCE data with measurements taken at the surface to generate a new model of Earth’s crust and upper mantle. This is the first time such a model has been created this way – and it is shedding new light on processes of plate tectonics, which, in turn, are related to phenomena such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
New Vacuum Solar Telescope reveals acceleration of magnetic reconnection
Wednesday, 10 March 2021 13:29 Write a comment
Magnetic reconnection shows the reconfiguration of magnetic field geometry. It plays an elemental role in the rapid release of magnetic energy and its conversion to other forms of energy in magnetized plasma systems throughout the universe.
Researchers led by Dr. Li Leping from National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) analyzed the evolution of magnetic reconnection and its nearby filament.
Perseverance rover's SuperCam science instrument delivers first results
Wednesday, 10 March 2021 13:29 Write a comment
The first readings from the SuperCam instrument aboard NASA's Perseverance rover have arrived on Earth. SuperCam was developed jointly by the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico and a consortium of French research laboratories under the auspices of the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES). The instrument delivered data to the French Space Agency's operations center in Toulouse that includes the first audio of laser zaps on another planet.
"It is amazing to see SuperCam working so well on Mars," said Roger Wiens, the principal investigator for Perseverance's SuperCam instrument from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. "When we first dreamed up this instrument eight years ago, we worried that we were being way too ambitious.
Op-ed | Artemis will accelerate the commercial space sector
Wednesday, 10 March 2021 13:22 Write a comment
As the first flight of Artemis moves ever closer from Kennedy Space Center, critics continue to raise questions around the cost of the U.S. return to the moon by pointing to private sector alternatives as more expeditious and less resource intensive.
Industry groups advocate for Office of Space Commerce
Wednesday, 10 March 2021 12:04 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — Three space industry groups are asking the Commerce Department to commit to continued support and funding for the Office of Space Commerce.
In a March 9 letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, the Aerospace Industries Association, Commercial Spaceflight Federation and Satellite Industry Association called for the department to fund the small office at a level “reflective of its critical role” supporting the space industry.
SpaceX launches Starlink satellites and expands international service
Wednesday, 10 March 2021 10:01 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — A SpaceX Falcon 9 launched another set of 60 Starlink satellites March 11 as the company expanded international service in several countries.
The Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 3:13 a.m.