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Recently, Andreas Mogensen, now getting ready for his ‘Huginn’ mission to the ISS in 2023, stopped by ESA’s ESOC mission control centre in Darmstadt, Germany, to meet with some of the experts who keep our satellites flying.

Andreas usually works at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston as an ISS ‘capcom’, and we don’t often see him in Europe. A few months back, while returning to Germany for some training at ESA’s Astronaut Centre in Cologne, we seized the opportunity to ask him if he’d like to stop over in Darmstadt for a look behind the

Seoul, South Korea (VOA) Dec 20, 2022
North Korea claimed Monday to have taken satellite photos of the South Korean cities of Seoul and Incheon, as its state media boasted of success toward developing its first military spy satellite. The state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported an "important final-stage test" involving a mock satellite that it said was launched Sunday from the Sohae Satellite Launching Station in

Nanjing, China (SPX) Dec 20, 2022
China's space-tracking ship, Yuanwang 3, set sail on Sunday for a new round of spacecraft monitoring missions. The ship, which is a second-generation vessel and responsible for monitoring high-, medium-, and low-orbit satellites, spaceships, and space station modules, has a long history of service. It was launched over 20 years ago and has completed more than 100 missions with a 100% success rat

Washington DC (SPX) Dec 20, 2022
For decades physicists have been hunting for a quantum-gravity model that would unify quantum physics, the laws that govern the very small, and gravity. One major obstacle has been the difficulty in testing the predictions of candidate models experimentally. But some of the models predict an effect that can be probed in the lab: a very small violation of a fundamental quantum tenet called the Pa

This beautifully crisp icy scene with a swirling ribbon of rusty red and white striped terrain connecting two large craters wraps up the year on Mars.

Tucson AZ (SPX) Dec 22, 2022
The mystery of whether microbial alien life might inhabit Enceladus, one of Saturn's 83 moons, could be solved by an orbiting space probe, according to a new study led by University of Arizona researchers. In a paper published in The Planetary Science Journal, the researchers map out how a hypothetical space mission could provide definite answers. When Enceladus was initially surveyed in 1

Hampton Va (SPX) Dec 22, 2022
NASA explores the unknown in space, bringing the secrets of our solar system home so we can apply that information for the benefit of humanity. In that spirit, NASA will explore Titan, Saturn's largest moon, to help advance humanity's search for the building blocks of life in the universe. A key component of the 8-rotor Dragonfly vehicle that will make that j

Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 22, 2022
The mission has concluded that the solar-powered lander has run out of energy after more than four years on the Red Planet. NASA's InSight mission has ended after more than four years of collecting unique science on Mars. Mission controllers at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California were unable to contact the lander after two consecutive attempts, leading them

Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 22, 2022
A titanium tube containing a rock sample is resting on the Red Planet's surface after being placed there on Dec. 21 by NASA's Perseverance Mars rover. Over the next two months, the rover will deposit a total of 10 tubes at the location, called "Three Forks," building humanity's first sample depot on another planet. The depot marks a historic early step in the Mars Sample Return campaign. P

Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 22, 2022
Slight change of plans! The drive that Curiosity was supposed to complete over the weekend was pulled from her plan, so the rover started the day at the Amapari drill site. We will recover our ChemCam and Mastcam coordinated observation of target "Aricama" to document the bedrock composition of the Marker Band. ChemCam will also acquire passive spectroscopy of the bedrock from the "Puraque" targ