Darmstadt, Germany (SPX) Apr 22, 2022
The European Commission has contracted IT service provider CGI as part of a consortium to contribute its expertise in the fields of space and cybersecurity for helping to build the independent European satellite constellation dubbed UN:IO. It is expected to begin operating commercial and institutional communication channels by 2025. ? The European Union's top priority is a secure, extremel

Cleveland OH (SPX) Apr 22, 2022
NASA selected six American satellite communications (SATCOM) providers on April 20 to begin developing and demonstrating near-Earth space communication services that may support future agency missions. For more than a year, the agency has been evaluating the feasibility of employing commercial SATCOM networks for near-Earth operations as it works to decommission its near-Earth satellite fl

Paris (ESA) Apr 22, 2022
The test version of a unique satellite navigation receiver has been delivered for integration testing on the Lunar Pathfinder spacecraft. The NaviMoon satnav receiver is designed to perform the farthest ever positioning fix from Earth, employing signals that will be millions of times fainter than those used by our smartphones or cars. "This engineering model of our NaviMoon receiver is the

London, Canada (SPX) Apr 22, 2022
A bright fireball was observed by a network of all-sky cameras across southern Ontario at 11:37pm on Sunday, April 17, 2022. Analysis of the video data suggests that fragments of the meteor are likely to have made it to the ground near the eastern shore of Lake Simcoe, just north of the town of Argyle. Western University's physics and astronomy department runs an all-sky camera network tha

Beijing (XNA) Apr 21, 2022
China's cargo spacecraft Tianzhou-3 separated from the country's space station core module Tianhe and redocked with the module on Wednesday. Tianzhou-3 detached from the rear docking port of Tianhe at 5:02 a.m. (Beijing Time), moved to the module's front port and completed a computer-orchestrated rendezvous and docking at 9:06 a.m., according to the China Manned Space Agency. It also

Westminster CO (SPX) Apr 22, 2022
Maxar Technologies (NYSE:MAXR) has announced a strategic investment in Blackshark.ai, a leading provider of AI-powered geospatial analytics services. The partnership represents Maxar's commitment to innovation within its 3D Earth Intelligence product portfolio. The Blackshark.ai platform processes petabytes of satellite imagery in hours, and it detects and segments objects, roads, vegetati

Leiden, Netherlands (SPX) Apr 22, 2022
Mercury harbors water ice in the shadows of the steepest craters around its poles. But it is unclear how those water molecules ended up on Mercury. Now a new simulation shows that incoming minor bodies such as asteroids, comets and dust particles carry enough water to account for all the ice sheets present. The study could form the basis for new research on water in exoplanetary systems. Publica

Cambridge MA (SPX) Apr 21, 2022
In some of the most crowded parts of the universe, black holes may be tearing apart thousands of stars and using their remains to pack on weight. This discovery, made with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, could help answer key questions about an elusive class of black holes. While astronomers have previously found many examples of black holes tearing stars apart, little evidence has been

Since 2016, ESA’s Space Debris Office has published an annual Space Environment Report to provide a transparent overview of global space activities and determine how well these and other international debris-reduction measures are improving the long-term sustainability of spaceflight.

Here are some of the key findings of the 2022 report.

Each year on 22 April, people across the planet join forces to raise awareness about the depleting quality of the environment, the unequivocal effects of climate change and the importance of protecting our planet for future generations. We celebrate Earth Day every day at ESA. This week, this spectacular image of Earth is brought to you by the Meteosat Second Generation series of missions.