24 April: watch Mission Alpha docking live
Wednesday, 21 April 2021 11:30
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French ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet is returning to the International Space Station on his second spaceflight. The mission, which is called Alpha, saw the first European to launch on a US spacecraft in over a decade. Thomas is flying on the Crew Dragon, alongside NASA astronauts Megan McArthur and Shane Kimbrough, and Japanese astronaut Aki Hoshide.
NASA's NICER probes the squeezability of neutron stars
Wednesday, 21 April 2021 10:49 Write a comment
Matter in the hearts of neutron stars—dense remnants of exploded massive stars—takes the most extreme form we can measure. Now, thanks to data from NASA's Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), an X-ray telescope on the International Space Station, scientists have discovered that this mysterious matter is less squeezable than some physicists predicted.
The finding is based on NICER's observations of PSR J0740+6620 (J0740 for short), the most massive known neutron star, which lies over 3,600 light-years away in the northern constellation Camelopardalis. J0740 is in a binary star system with a white dwarf, the cooling remnant of a Sun-like star, and rotates 346 times per second. Previous observations place the neutron star's mass at about 2.1 times the Sun's.
"We're surrounded by normal matter, the stuff of our everyday experience, but there's much we don't know about how matter behaves, and how it is transformed, under extreme conditions," said Zaven Arzoumanian, the NICER science lead at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Hide and seek: How NASA's Lucy mission team discovered Eurybates' satellite
Wednesday, 21 April 2021 10:49 Write a comment
On Jan. 9, 2020, NASA's Lucy mission officially announced that it would be visiting not seven, but eight asteroids. As it turns out, Eurybates, one of the asteroids along Lucy's path, has a small satellite.
Though searching for satellites is one of the mission's central goals, finding these tiny worlds before Lucy is launched gives the team the opportunity to investigate their orbits and plan for more detailed follow-up observations with the spacecraft.
China is developing plans for a 13,000-satellite megaconstellation
Wednesday, 21 April 2021 09:46 Write a comment
HELSINKI — China is to oversee the construction and operation of a national satellite internet megaconstellation through coordinating the country’s major space actors.
Recent comments by senior officials indicate that plans are moving ahead to alter earlier constellation plans by space sector state-owned enterprises and possibly make these part of a larger “Guowang” or “national network” satellite internet project.
Arrival of world-first test facility
Wednesday, 21 April 2021 09:39 Write a comment
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Arrival of world-first test facility 
20 years of Europeans on the Space Station
Wednesday, 21 April 2021 08:57 Write a comment
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20 years of Europeans on the Space Station NASA clears first reused SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule for astronaut launch
Wednesday, 21 April 2021 08:31 Write a comment
SpaceX and NASA plan to send four astronauts to the International Space Station on Thursday from Florida aboard the first reused Crew Dragon capsule to carry people.
Liftoff of the flight-proven spacecraft, Endeavour, and Falcon 9 rocket is planned for 6:11 a.m. EDT from Complex 39 at Kennedy Space Center. The space agency declared the mission "go for launch" after a launch readiness re New warp research dashes light speed travel but reveals stranger possibilities
Wednesday, 21 April 2021 08:31 Write a comment
In 1994, physicist Miguel Alcubierre proposed a radical technology that would allow faster than light travel: the warp drive, a hypothetical way to skirt around the universe's ultimate speed limit by bending the fabric of reality.
It was an intriguing idea - even NASA has been researching it at the Eagleworks laboratory - but Alcubierre's proposal contained problems that seemed insurmounta Space physicist explains why a helicopter flew on Mars is a big deal
Wednesday, 21 April 2021 08:31 Write a comment
Yesterday at 9pm Australian Eastern standard time, the Ingenuity helicopter - which landed on Mars with the Perseverance rover in February - took off from the Martian surface. More importantly, it hovered for about 30 seconds, three metres above the surface and came right back down again.
It may not sound like a huge feat, but it is. Ingenuity's flight is the first powered flight of an air Open Source on Mars: Community powers NASA's Ingenuity Helicopter
Wednesday, 21 April 2021 08:31 Write a comment
The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter departed Earth for its 293 million mile trip to Mars aboard the Perseverance Rover last July. However, Ingenuity's most important journey was only about 10 feet. That's the altitude the small helicopter hovered just above the surface of Mars, marking a major milestone for humanity: the launch was the first powered flight on another planet and proof that it's possibl American Pacific invests in Frontier Aerospace
Wednesday, 21 April 2021 08:31 Write a comment
American Pacific Corporation, a leading manufacturer of propulsion related materials for the Aerospace, Space and Defense industries, announced today that it has made a minority investment in Frontier Aerospace, a leader in the space propulsion industry. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Frontier Aerospace marks American Pacific's first investment since being acquired by AE Indu NASA Removes Rocket Core Stage for Artemis Moon Mission from Stennis Test Stand
Wednesday, 21 April 2021 08:31 Write a comment
Crews at NASA's Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, worked April 19-20 to remove the first flight core stage of the agency's Space Launch System rocket from the B-2 Test Stand in preparation for its transport to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Operations required crews to lift the core stage from its vertical placement in the stand and lower it to a horizontal position on the Arianespace to serve OneWeb's ambitions with 36 more satellites to be launched
Wednesday, 21 April 2021 08:31 Write a comment
The next Arianespace mission is planned from Vostochny Cosmodrome with Soyuz on April 26, to deliver 36 satellites into orbit.
By operating this fifth flight on behalf of OneWeb, Arianespace will bring the total fleet to 182 satellites in Low Earth Orbit. Arianespace is proud to share in the fulfilment of its customer's ultimate ambition: providing internet access for everyone, everywhere. First Module of Russia's New Space Station to Be Ready for Launch in 2025, Roscosmos Announces
Wednesday, 21 April 2021 08:31 Write a comment
The first module of Russia's new space station will be ready for launch in 2025, this will be the Science Power Module, originally intended for the International Space Station (ISS), Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin announced on Tuesday.
In mid-April, the Russian Academy of Sciences announced that Russia would terminate its participation in the ISS