Stratolaunch conducts second captive carry flight of Hypersonic Vehicle TA-1
Monday, 26 February 2024 18:17Stratolaunch, a pioneer in aerospace technologies, has announced the successful completion of its second captive carry flight involving the Talon-A hypersonic test vehicle, TA-1. This latest flight marks a significant step forward in the company's ambitious program to develop and launch hypersonic vehicles, offering a glimpse into the future of high-speed aviation and defense capabilities.
UK Space Industry to tackle skills shortage and defence roles at Space-Comm Expo
Monday, 26 February 2024 18:17Scheduled for 6-7 March 2024, Space-Comm Expo aims to enhance discussions within the UK's commercial and defence space sectors, providing a networking and collaboration platform. Following an industry-wide survey, the event highlights the sector's call for increased government support and strategies to address the skills shortage. The Space-Comm Expo's annual survey reveals critical insigh
Terran Orbital's Nanosatellite Surpasses 450 Days in Lunar Service for NASA
Monday, 26 February 2024 18:17Terran Orbital Corporation (NYSE: LLAP), a leader in small satellite technology, has achieved a significant milestone with its 12U nanosatellite, which has now exceeded 450 days in orbit around the moon. This achievement is part of the CAPSTONE (Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment) mission, in collaboration with Advanced Space, to support NASA's
Ubotica's CogniSAT-6 Mission to Deliver Real-Time Earth Intelligence from Space
Monday, 26 February 2024 18:17Ubotica is gearing up for the launch of CogniSAT-6, a mission that signifies a significant advancement in Earth Observation (EO) technology, with a scheduled departure aboard SpaceX's Transporter 10 in early March. Distinguished by its onboard AI and capability for real-time data processing and communication, CogniSAT-6 aims to bridge the gap between data collection in space and actionable intel
Blue Origin prepares New Glenn for maiden launch
Monday, 26 February 2024 18:17Blue Origin marked a significant milestone in its space exploration endeavors with the first rollout and vertical positioning of its New Glenn rocket at Launch Complex 36 (LC-36). This event unveils the advanced heavy-lift vehicle to the public, showcasing its capability to support a wide range of missions, including contributions to NASA's Artemis program for lunar exploration. The New Gl
Biden hails US lunar landing as space milestone
Monday, 26 February 2024 18:17President Joe Biden on Saturday hailed the landing of a US spacecraft on the Moon as a historic achievement in space research led by the United States. The uncrewed Odysseus lander, built by a private company and funded by NASA, landed near the lunar south pole Thursday, more than 50 years since the agency's last Apollo 17 mission to Earth's cosmic neighbor. Biden called the landing "a t
From City Streets to Remote Peaks: Thuraya's SKYPHONE Promises Global Connectivity
Monday, 26 February 2024 18:17Thuraya Telecommunications Company has introduced at Mobile World Congress 2024 the SKYPHONE by Thuraya. This innovative device is heralded as the world's most powerful consumer smartphone, offering unparalleled satellite connectivity for both consumers and businesses. The launch marks a pivotal moment in mobile telecommunications, blending the everyday functionality of a smartphone with the exp
Multi-Orbit Strategy Takes Flight as Avanti and Telesat Sign Groundbreaking MOU
Monday, 26 February 2024 18:17In a significant stride toward revolutionizing global broadband connectivity, Avanti Communications has announced a strategic partnership with Telesat (NASDAQ and TSX: TSAT), a leading name in satellite services. This collaboration, formalized through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), is set to spearhead the development and testing of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) services, marking a pivotal componen
Steward Observatory balloon mission breaks NASA record 22 miles above Antarctica
Monday, 26 February 2024 16:58Fifty-eight days ago, on a nearly windless morning on the Ross Ice Shelf, a stadium-size balloon took flight above Antarctica, carrying with it far infrared technology from the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory in search of clues about the stellar life cycle in our galaxy and beyond.
GUSTO—short for the Galactic / Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory—has now broken the record as NASA's longest-flying heavy-lift balloon mission, which previously stood at 55 days, 1 hour and 34 minutes. Currently, the enormous zero-pressure balloon is riding stratospheric air currents 120,000 feet above the Antarctic continent, collecting far infrared radio emissions from the matter between stars. GUSTO surpassed the previous record at 10:22 a.m. Saturday Tucson time.
The faint terahertz signals that GUSTO seeks—with frequencies up to a million times higher than the waves emitted by an FM radio—are easily absorbed by water vapor in the Earth's atmosphere before they can reach ground-based telescopes.
Intuitive Machines expects early end to IM-1 lunar lander mission
Monday, 26 February 2024 16:45Sideways moon landing cuts mission short, private US lunar lander will stop working Tuesday
Monday, 26 February 2024 16:25A private U.S. lunar lander is expected to stop working Tuesday, its mission cut short after landing sideways near the south pole of the moon.
A capsule with antiviral drugs grown in space returns to earth
Monday, 26 February 2024 16:25On Wednesday, February 21st, at 01:40 p.m. PST (04:40 p.m. EST), an interesting package returned to Earth from space. This was the capsule from the W-1 mission, an orbital platform manufactured by California-based Varda Space Industries, which landed at the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR). Even more interesting was the payload, which consisted of antiviral drugs grown in the microgravity environment of Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The mission is part of the company's goal to develop the infrastructure to make LEO more accessible to commercial industries.
Founded in 2020 by former SpaceX employees and Silicon Valley venture capitalists, Varda is part of a burgeoning space industry (aka NewSpace) that is taking advantage of the declining cost of sending payloads to space. In particular, the company's vision is to develop pharmaceuticals and other products in space and return them to Earth via their proprietary reentry capsules.
The countdown to NASA's Jupiter mission is on. This JPL engineer is helping it happen
Monday, 26 February 2024 15:57Think of meticulously handcrafted objects and certain things come immediately to mind: fine art, exotic cars, luxury timepieces.
But Pasadena native Steve Barajas spends his days building a bespoke item that's on another level entirely: NASA's Europa Clipper.
The 13,000-pound behemoth, with a solar-array wingspan the length of a basketball court, is one of the agency's most ambitious efforts. It's on an October countdown to launch to Jupiter and its moon Europa, atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, to find out if life exists in the deep ocean believed to lie beneath Europa's icy exterior.
The central body of the $5-billion Europa Clipper arrived in June 2022 at the Pasadena campus of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the painstaking final assembly of components shipped from across the U.S. and Europe. That's where Barajas comes in.
Barajas, 35, is a mechanical engineer leading a team that, in coordination with other JPL specialists, installs crucial hardware for the ambitious mission. Barajas describes some high points with a parental flair: There's the magnetometer that could confirm whether an ocean exists beneath the Europa ice; the mass spectrometer that will analyze gases in Europa's atmosphere; the infrared cameras that will map the moon's surface composition, temperature and roughness; and the solar panels that will help power the spacecraft instruments.
DART impact might have reshaped Hera's target asteroid
Monday, 26 February 2024 15:00ESA’s Hera spacecraft for planetary defence is being prepared for a journey to the distant asteroid moon Dimorphos orbiting around its parent body Didymos. One of the first features Hera will look for is the crater left on Dimorphos by its predecessor mission DART, which impacted the asteroid to deflect its orbit. Yet a new impact simulation study reported in Nature Astronomy today suggests no crater will be found. The DART impact is likely to have remodelled the entire body instead – a significant finding for both asteroid science and planetary defence.
Satellites are burning up in the upper atmosphere—what impact could this have on the Earth's climate?
Monday, 26 February 2024 14:54Elon Musk's SpaceX has announced it will dispose of 100 Starlink satellites over the next six months, after it discovered a design flaw that may cause them to fail. Rather than risk posing a threat to other spacecraft, SpaceX will "de-orbit" these satellites to burn up in the atmosphere.
But atmospheric scientists are increasingly concerned that this sort of apparent fly-tipping by the space sector will cause further climate change down on Earth. One team recently, and unexpectedly, found potential ozone-depleting metals from spacecraft in the stratosphere, the atmospheric layer where the ozone layer is formed.
The relative "low earth orbit" where satellites monitoring Earth's ecosystems are found is increasingly congested—Starlink alone has more than 5,000 spacecraft in orbit. Clearing debris is therefore a priority for the space sector. Newly launched spacecraft must also be removed from orbit within 25 years (the US recently implemented a stricter five-year rule) either by moving upwards to a so-called "graveyard orbit" or down into the Earth's atmosphere.
Lower orbiting satellites are usually designed to use any remaining fuel and the pull of the Earth's gravity to re-enter the atmosphere.