New Phoebus contract paves the way for development of future lightweight composite rocket stages
Tuesday, 18 May 2021 08:03
The European Space Agency (ESA) and ArianeGroup, lead contractor and design authority for Ariane 6, have signed a new technological development contract in the field of carbon composites. The PHOEBUS (Prototype of a Highly OptimizEd Black UpperStage) program will increase the maturity of the technologies needed to lower both the manufacturing cost and the weight of the Ariane 6 upper stage. Kayla Barron joins NASA's SpaceX Crew-3 mission to Space Station
Tuesday, 18 May 2021 08:03
NASA has assigned Kayla Barron to serve as a mission specialist for the agency's SpaceX Crew-3 mission to the International Space Station, which is targeted to launch as early as Oct. 23.
This will be the first spaceflight for Barron, who became a NASA astronaut in January 2020 after completing two years of training. She will join NASA astronauts Raja Chari and Tom Marshburn, as the missio Scientists will peer at first galaxies with James Webb telescope
Tuesday, 18 May 2021 08:03
The most powerful telescope ever built, the James Webb Space Telescope, is fully booked to peer at other planets and the origins of the universe for more than a year after its planned launch in October.
About 400 studies that could reveal secrets about the oldest galaxies, inhabitable planets and even the dawn of the universe already are scheduled, scientists said.
"It's a totall New evidence of how and when the Milky Way came together
Tuesday, 18 May 2021 08:03
New research provides the best evidence to date into the timing of how our early Milky Way came together, including the merger with a key satellite galaxy.
Using relatively new methods in astronomy, the researchers were able to identify the most precise ages currently possible for a sample of about a hundred red giant stars in the galaxy.
With this and other data, the researchers wer BDS-3 system facilitates public transportation in east China's Nanchang
Tuesday, 18 May 2021 08:03
High-resolution terminal devices of China's BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) have been installed in public buses in the city of Nanchang, east China's Jiangxi Province, local authorities said Thursday.
Installation of the sub-meter level positioning equipment, which took less than 10 minutes on each bus, is expected to offer real-time information with high accuracy.
In remote LatConnect 60 partners with SSTL in first UK-Australia 'Space Bridge' industry partnership
Tuesday, 18 May 2021 08:03
Smart satellite provider LatConnect 60 and Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) have announced the first partnership under the UK-Australia 'Space Bridge', a program launched earlier this year by the Australian Space Agency and UK Space Agency to boost investment and knowledge across both countries' space sectors.
Under the partnership, Perth-based LatConnect 60 will provide high resolut Robotic Navigation Tech Will Explore the Deep Ocean
Tuesday, 18 May 2021 08:03
Terrain-relative navigation helped Perseverance land - and Ingenuity fly - autonomously on Mars. Now it's time to test a similar system while exploring another frontier.
On May 14, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ship Okeanos Explorer will depart from Port Canaveral in Florida on a two-week expedition led by NOAA Ocean Exploration, featuring the technology demons Monitoring coastal changes in Greece
Tuesday, 18 May 2021 06:50
Hundreds of satellite images spanning over 25 years have been compiled to show the evolution of Greece’s ever-changing coastlines.
NASA launches rocket in search of aurora answers
Tuesday, 18 May 2021 04:44
NASA launched one of its largest sounding rockets Sunday from an East Coast facility in an experiment led by a University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute space physics professor.
The four-stage Black Brant XII rocket carrying the KiNET-X experiment of principal investigator Peter Delamere lifted off from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia at 8:44 p.m. Eastern time. The ascent of the rocket, which flew on an arc into the ionosphere before beginning its planned descent over the Atlantic Ocean near Bermuda, could be seen along the East Coast.
The experiment seeks to understand how a large mass of plasma such as the solar wind interacts at the particle level with, for example, the plasma of Earth's space environment.
NASA adds astronaut to commercial crew mission
Tuesday, 18 May 2021 01:46
WASHINGTON — NASA announced May 17 it has assigned another astronaut to the next commercial crew mission to the International Space Station, a sign that NASA no longer expects to complete a seat barter agreement with Roscosmos in time for that flight.
Tyvak satellite on SpaceX rideshare mission carries tiny space telescope
Monday, 17 May 2021 19:53
WASHINGTON — The Tyvak-0130 rideshare payload that flew to orbit May 15 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 carries a miniature space telescope for possible commercial use.
The technology was developed by Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under a four-year agreement to advance compact telescopes for commercial applications, Tyvak’s CEO Christian “Boris” Becker said in an interview with SpaceNews.
Space law protects you from falling debris, but there are no legal penalties for leaving junk in orbit
Monday, 17 May 2021 13:23
On May 8, 2021, a piece of space junk from a Chinese rocket fell uncontrolled back to Earth and landed in the Indian Ocean near the Maldives. A year ago, in May 2020, another Chinese rocket met the same fate when it plummeted out of control into the waters off the West African coast. No one knew when or where either of these pieces of space junk were going to hit, so it was a relief when neither crashed on land or injured anyone.
Space debris is any nonfunctional human-made object in space.As a professor of space and society focused on space governance, I've noticed that there are three questions the public always asks when falling space debris gets into the news.
Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) starts 5-year survey
Monday, 17 May 2021 13:14
A five-year quest to map the universe and unravel the mysteries of "dark energy" is beginning officially today, May 17, at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona. To complete its quest, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) will capture and study the light from tens of millions of galaxies and other distant objects in the universe.
DESI is an international science collaboration managed by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, or Berkeley Lab, with primary funding from DOE's Office of Science.
By gathering light from some 30-million galaxies, project scientists say DESI will help them construct a 3D map of the universe with unprecedented detail.
60 years later, is it time to update the Drake equation?
Monday, 17 May 2021 12:41
On November 1, 1961, a number of prominent scientists converged on the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia, for a three-day conference. A year earlier, this facility had been the site of the first modern SETI experiment (Project Ozma), where famed astronomers Frank Drake and Carl Sagan used the Green Bank telescope (aka "Big Ear") to monitor two nearby sun-like stars—Epsilon Eridani and Tau Ceti.
While unsuccessful, Ozma became a focal point for scientists who were interested in this burgeoning field known as the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). As a result, Drake and Sagan were motivated to hold the very first SETI conference, wherein the subject of looking for possible extraterrestrial radio signals would be discussed. In preparation for the meeting, Drake prepared the following heuristic equation:
N = R* • fp • ne • fl • fi • fc • L
This would come to be known as the "Drake equation," which is considered by many to be one of the most renowned equations in the history of science.
Space Force to spend years and billions of dollars to convert data into knowledge
Monday, 17 May 2021 12:22
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force plans to spend billions of dollars over the next decade to convert huge amounts of data that resides in separate systems into a digital enterprise architecture.