Help is a long way away: The challenges of sending humans to Mars
Tuesday, 02 March 2021 14:30
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On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin stepped out a lunar lander onto the surface of the moon. The landscape in front of him, which was made up of stark blacks and grays, resembled what he later called "magnificent desolation."
When it comes to desolation, however, the moon may have nothing on Mars.
The red planet circles the sun at an average distance of about 140 million miles from Earth. When people eventually visit this world—whether that's in 20 years or 50—they may face a journey lasting 1,000 days or longer. The entire Apollo 11 mission, in contrast, lasted just a little over eight days. If future Mars astronauts get lonely, or if something more serious goes wrong, help is a long way away.
For researchers who study how human bodies and minds respond to the rigors of space travel, the scenario poses a lot of unknowns.
China to develop two super-heavy launchers for moon missions
Tuesday, 02 March 2021 13:26 Write a comment
HELSINKI — China will work on development of two types of super-heavy launch vehicles for future lunar projects, a senior official said Wednesday.
Jiang Jie, chief designer of the Long March 3A series of hypergolic launchers, told press (Chinese) in Beijing March 3 that the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT) would continue development of both a heavy launch vehicle and a new generation crew launch vehicle over the next five years.
Electronic Data Sheets: a common language for space
Tuesday, 02 March 2021 13:15 Write a comment
Designing and building equipment for space is hard enough; then comes the writing of its accompanying documentation. Creating a working space mission involves putting together a vast number of elements correctly, so such guidelines need to be clear and easy to understand. ESA is leading efforts to create standardised ‘Electronic Data Sheets’ for common use across the space industry.
Eastern Range looks for ways to support additional launches
Tuesday, 02 March 2021 12:32 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — As launch activity grows on the Eastern Range in Florida, companies and government agencies are looking at ways to add capacity, largely through incremental improvements.
In a panel discussion at the 47th Spaceport Summit Feb.
Media event: Second spaceflight for Samantha Cristoforetti
Tuesday, 02 March 2021 12:30 Write a comment
Video:
01:17:00
Watch the replay of the briefing to media representatives to learn more about the next spaceflight of ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti.
During the event, Samantha was joined by ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher, ESA Director of Human and Robotic Exploration David Parker, and Italian space agency president Giorgio Saccoccia.
Samantha is a member of ESA’s astronaut class of 2009. During her firsission ‘Futura’ in 2014t m–15, she spent 200 days in space, carrying out science and operations on the International Space Station as a flight engineer for Expeditions 42 and 43. She now looks forward to returning to the
Long March 6A maiden flight due this year, report says
Tuesday, 02 March 2021 11:28 Write a comment
China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, the nation's leading space contractor, announced on Wednesday that it plans to conduct the maiden flight of the Long March 6A carrier rocket before the end of this year.
The State-owned conglomerate said in an annual report on its space activities that the medium-lift Long March 6A will consist of a 50-meter, liquid-propelled core booster and fo CSO Raymond and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson discuss future of the Space Force
Tuesday, 02 March 2021 11:28 Write a comment
Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. "Jay" Raymond was virtually interviewed by renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson during the Air Force Association's Aerospace Air Warfare Symposium Feb. 25, 2021.
As the Space Force perseveres through its second year as the newest branch of service, the two discussed the value, threats and complex challenges that accompany the mission of protect SES Government solutions provides high-throughput loopback services to US Dept of Defense
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SES Government Solutions (SES GS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of SES, in close partnership with a key U.S. Government customer, designed, developed and is fielding an O3b Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) loopback capability to provide greatly improved mission-critical communications for Department of Defense operations in remote locations in Southwest Asia.
The awarded task order is against the sin Laser-cooled plasma-in-a-bottle could answer many questions
Tuesday, 02 March 2021 11:28 Write a comment
Rice University physicists have discovered a way to trap the world's coldest plasma in a magnetic bottle, a technological achievement that could advance research into clean energy, space weather and astrophysics.
"To understand how the solar wind interacts with the Earth, or to generate clean energy from nuclear fusion, one has to understand how plasma - a soup of electrons and ions - beha Russia launches its first Arctic monitoring satellite
Tuesday, 02 March 2021 11:28 Write a comment
A Soyuz rocket blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Sunday carrying Russia's first satellite for monitoring the Arctic's climate, the Roscosmos space agency said.
Video published by the Russian space agency showed the Soyuz blaster launching against grey skies at 0655 GMT, carrying an Arktika-M satellite.
Space agency chief Dmitry Rogozin wrote on Twitter later tha NASA Awards Launch Service Contract for TROPICS Mission to Study Storm Processes
Tuesday, 02 March 2021 11:28 Write a comment
NASA has selected Astra Space Inc. to provide a launch service for the agency's Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation Structure and Storm Intensity with a Constellation of SmallSats (TROPICS) mission.
The TROPICS mission consists of a constellation of six CubeSats and will increase the scientific community's understanding of storm processes.
The launch service contract for the Scientists begin building highly accurate digital twin of our planet
Tuesday, 02 March 2021 11:28 Write a comment
To become climate neutral by 2050, the European Union launched two ambitious programmes: "Green Deal" and "DigitalStrategy". As a key component of their successful implementation, climate scientists and computer scientists launched the "Destination Earth" initiative, which will start in mid-021 and is expected to run for up to ten years. During this period, a highly accurate digital model of the Microbes deep beneath seafloor survive on byproducts of radioactive process
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February 26, 2021 - A team of researchers from the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography and their collaborators have revealed that the abundant microbes living in ancient sediment below the seafloor are sustained primarily by chemicals created by the natural irradiation of water molecules.
The team discovered that the creation of these chemicals is amplified signifi NASA, LAPAN launch Ozonesonde from Indonesian site
Tuesday, 02 March 2021 11:28 Write a comment
Up, up, and ... back down! On Jan. 27, scientists on an island in Indonesia launched a weather balloon carrying an ozonesonde - an instrument that measures ozone throughout the layers of Earth's atmosphere. Ozonesondes collect valuable data that scientists use to understand Earth's atmosphere, improve air quality predictions, and validate satellite measurements.
The Indonesian space agency Artificial "molecules" open door to ultrafast polaritonic devices
Tuesday, 02 March 2021 11:28 Write a comment
Researchers from Skoltech and the University of Cambridge have shown that polaritons, the quirky particles that may end up running the quantum supercomputers of the future, can form structures behaving like molecules - and these "artificial molecules" can potentially be engineered on demand. The paper outlining these results was published in the journal Physical Review B Letters.
Polariton