The Making of JUICE - Episode 5
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 08:00The ESA Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) team has been working very hard to prepare the spacecraft for the first test in the one-year long environmental test campaign. This is the so-called Thermal Balance Thermal Vacuum (TBTV) test.
Juice is in the Large Space Simulator (LSS), a unique facility in Europe (run by the European Test Center, at ESA/ESTEC in the Netherlands) that can simulate the vacuum and cold and hot temperature conditions in space, and also the Sun itself!
The TBTV started on 17 June with the closure of the LSS and the "pumping-down", meaning the removal of
International Space Station update: June in orbit
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 05:35Just over two months into his Alpha mission, ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet has performed three spacewalks and supported numerous European and international experiments in microgravity. As the International Space Station crew embark on another busy month in low-Earth orbit, we reflect on some highlights from June.
Methane in the plumes of Saturn's moon Enceladus: Possible signs of life?
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 04:32An unknown methane-producing process is likely at work in the hidden ocean beneath the icy shell of Saturn's moon Enceladus, suggests a new study published in Nature Astronomy by scientists at the University of Arizona and Paris Sciences and Lettres University. Giant water plumes erupting from Enceladus have long fascinated scientists and the public alike, inspiring research and speculatio
What does it take to do a spacewalk
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 04:32On June 25, astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Thomas Pesquet successfully completed an almost seven-hour EVA (extravehicular activity, or spacewalk) to install solar panels on the International Space Station. What does it take to don a spacesuit and venture out on such a technical and dangerous mission? Surprisingly, one of the main criteria (besides the years of astronaut training) is body size.
Skyroot Aerospace completes Series A funding
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 04:32Skyroot Aerospace, India's leading private space launch company, is set to take the global stage with help from its recent $11 million Series A capital raise. The funding will be used to acquire new talent and complete the development of its Vikram-1 launch vehicle. The company aims to reach orbit, with 90 percent less development cost than its competitors, as early as next year. This disr
Mars helicopter begins to scout for Perseverance rover with longest flight
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 04:32NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity has begun to scout missions for the Perseverance rover, completing its ninth and most challenging flight yet. NASA announced the "most challenging flight yet" was a success Monday via Twitter. Flight nine included a speed record for the aircraft at roughly 11 mph, which NASA called "a high-speed flight across unfriendly terrain, which will take us
Ancient diamonds show Earth was primed for life's explosion at least 2.7 billion years ago
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 04:32A unique study of ancient diamonds has shown that the basic chemical composition of the Earth's atmosphere which makes it suitable for life's explosion of diversity was laid down at least 2.7 billion years ago. Volatile gases conserved in diamonds found in ancient rocks were present in similar proportions to those found in today's mantle, which in turn indicates that there has been no fundamenta
Why does Mercury have a big iron core?
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 04:32Scientists from Tohoku University and the University of Maryland have pinpointed the strong magnetic field of the early sun as the reason behind the radial variation of rock and metal in rocky planets' cores. This magnetic field, which pulled small iron grains inward, explains Mercury's big iron core and why Mars has so little iron in its core. The details of their research were published
A meteorite witness to the solar system's birth
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 04:32In 2011, scientists confirmed a suspicion: There was a split in the local cosmos. Samples of the solar wind brought back to Earth by the Genesis mission definitively determined oxygen isotopes in the sun differ from those found on Earth, the moon and the other planets and satellites in the solar system. Early in the solar system's history, material that would later coalesce into planets ha
SwRI-led team addresses mystery of heavy elements in galactic cosmic rays
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 04:32Scientists have used data from the Southwest Research Institute-led Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission to explain the presence of energetic heavy elements in galactic cosmic rays (GCRs). GCRs are composed of fast-moving energetic particles, mostly hydrogen ions called protons, the lightest and most abundant elements in the universe. Scientists have long debated how trace amounts of heavy io
Satellite galaxies can carry on forming stars when they pass close to their parent galaxies
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 04:32Historically most scientists thought that once a satellite galaxy has passed close by its higher mass parent galaxy its star formation would stop because the larger galaxy would remove the gas from it, leaving it shorn of the material it would need to make new stars. However, for the first time, a team led by the researcher at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC), Arianna di Cintio, ha
Kepler telescope glimpses population of free-floating planets
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 04:32Tantalising evidence has been uncovered for a mysterious population of "free-floating" planets, planets that may be alone in deep space, unbound to any host star. The results include four new discoveries that are consistent with planets of similar masses to Earth, published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The study, led by Iain McDonald of the University of Manchester
Pathfinder satellite paves way for constellation of tropical-storm observers
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 04:32The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season was one of the most brutal on record, producing an unprecedented 30 named storms. What's more, a record-tying 10 of those storms were characterized as rapidly intensifying - some throttling up by 100 miles per hour in under two days. To provide a more consistent watch over Earth's tropical belt where these storms form, NASA has launched a test satellite,
Tiangong: astronauts are working on China's new space station - here's what to expect
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 04:32Three astronauts on China's new space station have just performed the country's first space walk and are busy configuring the module for future crews. Named Tiangong ("heavenly palace"), the station is the Chinese National Space Agency (CNSA)'s signature project to develop China's ambitions for having humans in orbit around Earth for a long amount of time. In planning since the late 1990s,
OneWeb names winners of 2021 Innovation Challenge
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 02:50SAN FRANCISCO – IRT Saint Exupéry, Mbryonics, Morpheus Space, Oledcomm and R3-IoT were the winners of OneWeb’s 2021 Innovation Challenge, a campaign to designed to “rethink satellite connectivity” and establish new partnerships, according to London-based OneWeb.
OneWeb announced the winners July 1 during an online event tracking the launch of 36 broadband communications satellites on an Arianespace Soyuz rocket from Russia’s Vostochny Cosmodrome.