Duneside view of ESA's technical heart
Friday, 23 July 2021 11:41
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Duneside view of ESA's technical heart With cutting-edge hypersonics, Russia leads in new arms race
Friday, 23 July 2021 11:37 Write a comment
The Avangard, the Kinzhal and now the Zircon - Russia is leading the race to develop a range of new hypersonic weapons that President Vladimir Putin has dubbed "invincible".
Moscow's latest step came this week with another successful test of the Zircon, a ship-launched hypersonic missile.
Fired from one of Russia's most powerful warships, the Admiral Gorshkov frigate, a Zircon travellin ALMA images moon-forming disk around alien world
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Astronomers have for the first time imaged a moon-forming disk around an exoplanet.
Scientists expect the discovery - made using the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimeter Array and detailed Thursday in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters - to aid the study of planet and moon formation in young solar systems.
"Our work presents a clear detection of a disc in which satelli Meet the Martian meteorite hunters
Friday, 23 July 2021 11:37 Write a comment
A team at the Natural History Museum (NHM), London is paving the way for future rovers to search for meteorites on Mars. The scientists are using the NHM's extensive meteorite collection to test the spectral instruments destined for the ExoMars rover Rosalind Franklin, and develop tools to identify meteorites on the surface of the red planet. The project is being presented today (23 July) at the Martian global dust storm ended winter early in the south
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A dust storm that engulfed the entire Red Planet in 2018 destroyed a vortex of cold air around the Martian south pole and brought an early spring to the hemisphere. By contrast, the storm caused only minor distortions to the polar vortex in the northern hemisphere and no dramatic seasonal changes. Dr Paul Streeter of The Open University's Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathemati MDA Tech bridges gap between disparate sensors, fire control systems
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The Missile Defense Agency-developed Joint Track Management Capability (JTMC) and Open Systems Gateway (OSG) linked multiple sensor and fire control systems from multiple services into one integrated network during a July 15 flight test at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.
The integration led to the successful engagement of a cruise missile target by an Army Patriot Advanced Capabilit A machine learning breakthrough: using satellite images to improve human lives
Friday, 23 July 2021 11:37 Write a comment
More than 700 imaging satellites are orbiting the earth, and every day they beam vast oceans of information - including data that reflects climate change, health and poverty - to databases on the ground. There's just one problem: While the geospatial data could help researchers and policymakers address critical challenges, only those with considerable wealth and expertise can access it.
No Week in images: 19 - 23 July 2021
Friday, 23 July 2021 11:30 Write a comment
Week in images: 19 - 23 July 2021
Discover our week through the lens
Mini radar could scan the moon for water and habitable tunnels
Friday, 23 July 2021 11:12 Write a comment
A miniature device that scans deep below ground is being developed to identify ice deposits and hollow lava tubes on the moon for possible human settlement.
The prototype device, known as MAPrad, is just one-tenth the size of existing ground penetrating radar systems, yet can see almost twice as deeply below ground—more than 100 meters down—to identify minerals, ice deposits, or voids such as lava tubes.
Local start-up CD3D PTY Limited has now received a grant from the Australian Space Agency's moon to Mars initiative to further develop the prototype with RMIT University, including testing it by mapping one of Earth's largest accessible systems of lava tubes.
CD3D CEO and RMIT Honorary Professor, James Macnae, said their unique geophysical sensor had several advantages over existing technology that made it more suitable for space missions.
Counting carbon
Friday, 23 July 2021 11:00 Write a comment
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The Paris Agreement adopted a target for global warming not to exceed 1.5°C. This sets a limit on the additional carbon we can add to the atmosphere – the carbon budget. Only around 17% of the carbon budget is now left. That is about 10 years at current emission rates.
Each country reports its annual greenhouse gas emissions to the United Nations. Scientists then set these emissions against estimates of the carbon absorbed by Earth’s natural carbon sinks. This is known as the bottom-up approach to calculating the carbon budget.
Another way to track carbon sources and sinks is
Senators push for action on space traffic management
Friday, 23 July 2021 10:49 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — Members of a Senate space subcommittee argued that the Commerce Department was not doing enough to implement policies on space traffic management (STM) or staffing the office responsible for it.
At the July 22 hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee, senators said they were worried that slow action by the Commerce Department to set up a civil STM system as outlined in Space Policy Directive (SPD) 3 in 2018 threatened U.S.
Starliner cleared for second uncrewed test flight
Friday, 23 July 2021 09:46 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — NASA approved plans July 22 for the launch of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft on a second uncrewed test flight that seeks to demonstrate that the company has corrected the problems seen on the first.
At the conclusion of the flight readiness review, NASA gave the go-ahead for a July 30 launch of Starliner on the Orbital Flight Test (OFT) 2 mission.
Better understanding of Earth’s atmospheric chemistry from studying Mars?
Friday, 23 July 2021 08:00 Write a comment
Long-term studies of ozone and water vapour in the atmosphere of Mars could lead to better understanding of atmospheric chemistry for the Earth. A new analysis of data from ESA's Mars Express mission has revealed that our knowledge of the way these atmospheric gases interact with each other is incomplete.
Earth from Space: Tarso Toussidé, Chad
Friday, 23 July 2021 07:00 Write a comment
The Tarso Toussidé volcanic massif is featured in this false-colour composite image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission.
Space Force extends Parsons’ contract for satellite ground services
Thursday, 22 July 2021 20:35 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — Braxton Technologies, a company recently acquired by Parsons Corp., received a $139.4 million contract to continue development and prototyping of the U.S. Space Force’s next-generation ground system for satellite operations.