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Paris, France (SPX) Aug 26, 2024
Starfish International, an organization committed to empowering girls in The Gambia, recently welcomed a second delegation from One Planet Group to experience firsthand the significant impact of their programs. Starfish International focuses on delivering quality education and mentorship to Gambian girls, helping them develop into confident, well-educated,

Juice’s lunar-Earth flyby: the movie

Tuesday, 27 August 2024 14:30
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Video: 00:01:23

On 19–20 August 2024, Juice successfully completed a world-first lunar-Earth flyby, with flight controllers guiding the spacecraft first past the Moon, then past Earth. The gravity of the two changed Juice’s speed and direction, sending it on a shortcut to Jupiter via Venus.

The closest approach to the Moon was at 23:15 CEST on 19 August, deflecting Juice towards a closest approach to Earth just over 24 hours later at 23:56 CEST on 20 August. In the hours before and after both close approaches, Juice’s two monitoring cameras captured photos, giving us a unique ‘Juice eye view’ of

Sentinel-2C in the Vega launch tower

Tuesday, 27 August 2024 12:49
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Sentinel-2C in the Vega launch tower Image: Sentinel-2C in the Vega launch tower
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Falcon 9 rocket
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Billionaire Jared Isaacman could make history for all the right reasons during his Polaris Dawn mission when the hatch opens on a SpaceX Crew Dragon and he ventures out into the vacuum of space.

He's sold on its safety, especially the sheer amount of development time in the new extravehicular activity suits all four members of the crew will have to wear during what would be the first walk in history.

"I mean, an absolutely extensive amount of time has gone into it," he said during a press conference after arriving to KSC last week. "It is rightfully. Why would it be the riskiest part? Because you're throwing away all the safety of your vehicle, right? And it now comes down to your suit becomes your spaceship."

Isaacman and crewmates Scott Poteet, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon are set to launch in the Crew Dragon Resilience atop a Falcon 9 rocket from KSC's Launch Pad 39-A early Tuesday, targeting liftoff at 3:38 a.m. Eastern time during a roughly four-hour window.

Poteet is a former Air Force pilot, while Gillis and Menon are SpaceX employees as the Polaris Program, which will feature up to three spaceflights including this one, is a partnership between Isaacman and Elon Musk's company to push the boundaries for commercial space.

Webb peeks into Perseus

Tuesday, 27 August 2024 07:00
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Webb peeks into Perseus Image: Webb peeks into Perseus
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Solar panels for NASA's Roman Space Telescope pass key tests
Both versions of the Solar Array Sun Shield for NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope appear in this photo, taken in the largest clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The flight version lies flat in the foreground, while the qualification assembly stands upright in the background. The flight panels will shade the mission's instruments and power the observatory.
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Washington DC (UPI) Aug 22, 2024
NASA has taken the next critical step in preparing for the launch of its first crewed Artemis space mission, the agency announced Thursday. On Wednesday, crews rolled out a key piece of space flight hardware, a cone-shaped launch vehicle stage adapter, that will connect the rocket's core stage to its upper one, protecting the engines that will help propel the Artemis II in a test flight
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China proposes magnetic launch system for sending resources back to Earth
Visualization of the ILRS from the CNSA Guide to Partnership (June 2021). Credit: CNSA

In his famous novel "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress," Robert A. Heinlein describes a future lunar settlement where future lunar residents ("Loonies") send payloads of wheat and water ice to Earth using an electromagnetic catapult.

In the story, a group of Loonies conspire to take control of this catapult and threaten to "throw rocks at Earth" unless they recognize Luna as an independent world. Interestingly enough, scientists have explored this concept for decades as a means of transferring lunar resources to Earth someday.

Given that space agencies are planning on sending missions to the moon to create permanent infrastructure, there is renewed interest in this concept. In a recent paper, a team of scientists from China's Shanghai Institute of Satellite Engineering (SAST) detailed how a magnetic launcher on the could provide a cost-effective means of sending resources back to Earth.

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