From space, astronaut sounds the alarm about climate crisis
Thursday, 04 November 2021 16:12
Smart focus on Mars
Thursday, 04 November 2021 15:32
From panoramas to close-ups, from 3D maps to a wheel selfie, the Earth-bound twin of ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover is testing the wide range of photo settings that will deliver the greatest science possible during the ExoMars mission on the Red Planet.
Mind the stars
Thursday, 04 November 2021 14:48
Image:
Space can be a cruel mistress, but she is a beautiful one.
As we await the launch of ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer and the return of Thomas Pesquet, let us marvel at the fact that humans live and work in space, an environment so inhospitable to us.
As Thomas nears the end of his six-month mission Alpha on the Space Station, he took this image, noting that living on the International Space Station “really feels like flying on a spaceship into the cosmos… or wait… that’s what we do.”
While astronauts are often pointing their cameras down to Earth, Thomas looked
Federal court rules against Blue Origin in HLS lawsuit
Thursday, 04 November 2021 14:42
The Court of Federal Claims has ruled against Blue Origin in its suit about the agency’s selection of SpaceX for a single Human Landing System award.
Astrophysics decadal survey recommends a program of flagship space telescopes
Thursday, 04 November 2021 14:01
A long-awaited report on the future of astrophysics research recommended NASA pursue a series of flagship observatories, starting with a large space telescope estimated to cost $11 billion but which would not fly until the early 2040s.
Melt
Thursday, 04 November 2021 13:00
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00:31:09
Glaciers across the globe have lost over nine trillion tonnes of ice in half a century. How will glaciers look over the coming decades? “It all depends on what humans are doing now in terms of greenhouse gas emissions:” this is the message one scientist delivered during an ESA-led expedition to the Gorner Glacier in Switzerland – one of the biggest ice masses in the Alps.
As world leaders gather for the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of Parties, watch the exclusive premiere of the documentary that follows ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano, along with a team of glaciologists
Quantum technologies' journey to space seen in patent survey
Thursday, 04 November 2021 12:50
Tipped to change the world, quantum technologies – employing special properties of matter that manifest at the very tiniest of scales – are heading to space too. To highlight the space applications of this emerging sector, ESA has supported the European Patent Office and the European Space Policy Institute in a survey of the past two decades of related patent filings.
China is planning a complex Mars sample return mission
Thursday, 04 November 2021 11:55
China is working on a complex mission to collect Mars rock samples and deliver them to Earth by building on the successes of recent moon and Mars missions.
Video: Best of Alpha mission timelapse
Thursday, 04 November 2021 11:26
A collection of the best timelapse videos made during ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet's second mission to the International Space Station, "Alpha" in 2021. The camera is setup to take pictures at intervals of two a second, and the pictures are then edited into this video that plays at 25 pictures a second. Most videos around 12 times faster than real speed.
Thomas shared this video on social media with the caption:
"Probably the last the timelapse from space, and fittingly here is a special edition "best of" montage: aurora, lightning, spacewalks, day views and spacecraft reentry in less than five minutes. Get comfy, cast it to your largest screen in the house and enjoy!"
Over 200 experiments are planned during Thomas' time in space, with 40 European ones and 12 new experiments led by the French space agency CNES.
Explore further
Space Station call with French President Emmanuel Macron
Thursday, 04 November 2021 09:00
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00:20:53
ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet had a call with the French President Emmanuel Macron on 4 November 2021 from the International Space Station. The call came at the end of Thomas’s second mission to space called Alpha.
Over 200 experiments are planned during Thomas’ time in space, with 40 European ones and 12 new experiments led by the French space agency CNES.
Latest updates on the Alpha mission can be found via @esaspaceflight on Twitter, with more details on ESA’s exploration blog via thomaspesquet.esa.int.
Background information on the Alpha mission is available at www.esa.int/MissionAlpha with a brochure at www.esa.int/AlphaBrochure.
Explore ESA’s interactive Climate Change Kit
Thursday, 04 November 2021 08:10
Arguably, humankind has never been more aware of the jeopardy we and the planet face because of climate change. As world leaders at COP26 work to accelerate action towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions to keep the goal of 1.5°C temperature rise within reach, we bring you a new easy-to-use guide on what ESA is doing to understand and monitor climate change from space – data that are essential for policy-makers.
Space Force launches ‘Orbital Prime’ program to spur market for on-orbit services
Thursday, 04 November 2021 06:00
The U.S. Space Force is kicking off a new initiative, called Orbital Prime, to fund commercial technologies for in-space operations
Boeing gets OK for satellite grid to provide internet from space
Thursday, 04 November 2021 04:36
Boeing on Wednesday gained US authorization for a project to launch satellites that will provide internet services from space.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said in a statement it had approved a license for the aerospace giant "to construct, deploy, and operate a satellite constellation" that will "provide broadband and communications services for residential, commercial, inst NASA, Intuitive Machines announce landing site location for Lunar drill
Thursday, 04 November 2021 04:36
In late 2022, NASA will send an ice-mining experiment attached to a robotic lander to the lunar South Pole on a ridge not far from Shackleton crater - a location engineers and scientists have assessed for months. NASA and Intuitive Machines, an agency partner for commercial Moon deliveries, announced the location selection Nov. 3.
NASA data from spacecraft orbiting the Moon indicate this l Laboratory will illuminate formation, composition, activity of comets
Thursday, 04 November 2021 04:36
Comets are icy and dusty snowballs of material that have remained relatively unchanged since they first formed billions of years ago. Studying the small bodies provides clues about the formation of the solar system.
In Review of Scientific Instruments, by AIP Publishing, researchers from the Technische Universitat Braunschweig, the Austrian Academy of Science, the University of Bern, the G