NASA sending four astronauts to ISS on Sunday
Wednesday, 27 October 2021 16:24
NASA is teaming up with SpaceX once more to send four astronauts to the International Space Station on Sunday, including three first-timers.
The crew of mission "Crew-3" will spend six months on the orbital outpost, conducting research in areas including material sciences, health, and botany, to help inform future deep space exploration and benefit life on Earth.
Making Martian rocket biofuel on Mars
Wednesday, 27 October 2021 14:01
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a concept that would make Martian rocket fuel, on Mars, that could be used to launch future astronauts back to Earth.
The bioproduction process would use three resources native to the red planet: carbon dioxide, sunlight, and frozen water. It would also include transporting two microbes to Mars. The first would be cyanobacteria (algae), which would take CO2 from the Martian atmosphere and use sunlight to create sugars. An engineered E. coli, which would be shipped from Earth, would convert those sugars into a Mars-specific propellant for rockets and other propulsion devices. The Martian propellant, which is called 2,3-butanediol, is currently in existence, can be created by E. coli, and, on Earth, is used to make polymers for production of rubber.
Physics experiment in Earth's atmosphere could help improve GPS performance
Wednesday, 27 October 2021 13:56
The Earth's atmosphere has been used as a 'laboratory' to carry out a physics experiment, in research collaboration involving the University of Strathclyde which could help to improve the performance of GPS.
The study displays a new method of remotely monitoring the plasma in the ionosphere and of controlling wave modes in a way which could help GPS make better calculations in the face of extreme space weather.
The researchers conducted a controlled radar wave experiment by injecting radio waves into the ionosphere, at slightly different frequencies.
The returned signal was then recorded and analyzed. The researchers found that plasma waves were excited in the ionosphere and non-linear waves were mixed, leading to a wide spectrum of non-linear frequencies in the returned signal.
Plasma in the ionosphere plays a significant role in reflecting and modifying radio waves used for communication and radio navigation systems such as GPS, but the accuracy of these can be affected by 'space weather' events such as solar storms.
The experiment was carried out at the EISCAT facility near Tromsø, Norway and the research has been published in the journal Nature Communications.
US-South Korea joint space drills to focus on space situational awareness
Wednesday, 27 October 2021 13:36
“What we urgently need is ‘eyes’ to look at what’s happening in outer space,” said ROK Air Force Col. Park Ki-tae, inaugural chief of the air force’s Space Operations Center, during the Seoul International Aerospace and Defense Exhibition 2021.
Crew-3 say cheese
Wednesday, 27 October 2021 13:09
Image:
ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer and his NASA crew mates Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron are all smiles as they arrive at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA on 26 October 2021.
Collectively, the astronauts make up Crew-3 and will travel to the International Space Station on the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft “Endurance”. The first launch opportunity for Crew-3 is 07:21 CET (06:21 GMT, 02:21 EDT) Sunday 31 October 2021, with a backup date of 3 November.
The Dragon will dock with the Space Station 22 hours after launch, allowing for a short overlap with the Crew-2 members who
‘ESA Champions’ award initiative launched
Wednesday, 27 October 2021 11:20
Whether you are hosting a YouTube channel about space or volunteering to speak at your local school, we want to recognise and reward your passion and advocacy for space.
China sets new national launch record with Kuaizhou-1A mission
Wednesday, 27 October 2021 11:16
China set a new national record for orbital launches in a calendar year with the launch of a commercial remote sensing satellite on a Kuaizhou-1A solid rocket Wednesday.
Euclid spacecraft integration
Wednesday, 27 October 2021 11:00
Video:
00:00:19
The Euclid payload and service module are currently at Thales Alenia Space in Torino, Italy, where they will be integrated to form the final, finished spacecraft.
In this video Euclid’s service module is being transferred onto a support near the payload module, in order to prepare it for further integration activities.
Euclid is ESA’s mission to map the geometry of the Universe and better understand the mysterious dark matter and dark energy.
SpaceX to launch Emirati imaging satellite
Wednesday, 27 October 2021 09:59
SpaceX has won a contract to launch an Emirati high-resolution imaging satellite on a Falcon 9 rideshare mission in 2023.
ESA acts to make air travel greener
Wednesday, 27 October 2021 08:00
Air passengers will soon be able to cut their carbon footprint when travelling on flights that are routed using satellites.
Poland signs Artemis Accords
Wednesday, 27 October 2021 07:49
Poland has joined the U.S.-led Artemis Accords for space exploration, hoping to use the agreement as a means of enhancing space cooperation between the two nations.
BeiDou-based monitoring system in operation at world's highest dam
Wednesday, 27 October 2021 06:16
A dam deformation monitoring system based on BeiDou Navigation Satellite System has been put into operation in Usoi Dam in Tajikistan, according to China's National Time Service Center (NTSC) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
Sarez Lake, located in the Pamir region in eastern Tajikistan, has an altitude of 3,263 meters above sea level. It was naturally created in 1911 when an ea Astrophysicists reveal largest-ever suite of universe simulations
Wednesday, 27 October 2021 06:16
Collectively clocking in at nearly 60 trillion particles, a newly released set of cosmological simulations is by far the biggest ever produced. The simulation suite, dubbed AbacusSummit, will be instrumental in extracting secrets of the universe from upcoming surveys of the cosmos, its creators predict. They present AbacusSummit in several papers published October 25 in Monthly Notices of the Ro New galaxy images reveal a fitful start to the Universe
Wednesday, 27 October 2021 06:16
New images have revealed detailed clues about how the first stars and structures were formed in the Universe and suggest the formation of the Galaxy got off to a fitful start. An international team of astronomers from the University of Nottingham and Centro de Astrobiologia (CAB, CSIC-INTA) used data from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), the so-called Fron Hubble gives unprecedented, early view of a doomed star's destruction
Wednesday, 27 October 2021 06:16
Like a witness to a violent death, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope recently gave astronomers an unprecedented, comprehensive view of the first moments of a star's cataclysmic demise. Hubble's data, combined with other observations of the doomed star from space- and ground-based telescopes, may give astronomers an early warning system for other stars on the verge of blowing up.
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