DoD space agency to award multiple contracts for up to 150 satellites
Wednesday, 03 March 2021 20:40
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WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s Space Development Agency will solicit bids for an upcoming procurement of up to 150 satellites to be launched in late 2024, agency director Derek Tournear said March 4.
S. Korea’s Kencoa Aerospace expands space business in U.S. with new capital
Wednesday, 03 March 2021 19:08 Write a comment
SEOUL, South Korea — Kencoa Aerospace Corp., a South Korean aircraft assembler and parts supplier that has NASA, SpaceX and Blue Origin as clients, is planning to expand its U.S. parts manufacturing plant in Georgia.
The company raised 30 billion won ($26.6 million) in February by issuing convertible bonds to domestic institutional investors and will use a third of the newly raised fund for the expansion of its Eastman, Georgia-based affiliate, Kencoa Aerospace LLC, said a Kencoa investor relations manager.
Organic materials essential for life on Earth are found for the first time on the surface of an asteroid
Wednesday, 03 March 2021 14:56 Write a comment
New research from Royal Holloway, has found water and organic matter on the surface of an asteroid sample returned from the inner Solar System. This is the first time that organic materials, which could have provided chemical precursors for the origin of life on Earth, have been found on an asteroid.
The single grain sample was returned to Earth from asteroid Itokawa by JAXA's first Hayabusa mission in 2010. The sample shows that water and organic matter that originate from the asteroid itself have evolved chemically through time.
The research paper suggests that Itokawa has been constantly evolving over billions of years by incorporating water and organic materials from foreign extra-terrestrial material, just like the Earth. In the past, the asteroid will have gone through extreme heating, dehydration and shattering due to catastrophic impact. However, despite this, the asteroid came back together from the shattered fragments and rehydrated itself with water that was delivered via the in fall of dust or carbon-rich meteorites.
Testing instruments for Artemis astronauts
Wednesday, 03 March 2021 14:55 Write a comment
NASA's Artemis program will establish a sustainable presence at the Moon as we prepare to venture on to Mars. To empower the success of these missions, terrestrial engineers must furnish astronauts with the tools they need to make new discoveries on their journeys.
To ensure that these instruments will work in the vacuum of space or on the rocky plains of a distant celestial body, NASA must test them in analog environments that mimic these settings. Examples of these environments include thermal vacuum chambers—where engineers can subject tools to extreme temperatures and pressures—or the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, an enormous swimming pool at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston—where astronauts can practice for spacewalks on the International Space Station.
These testing environments aren't always custom-built to match their counterparts in space. Engineers and scientists also take their instruments into the field, finding places on Earth analogous to areas of scientific interest on the lunar surface or the Red Planet.
Volcanoes might light up the night sky of this exoplanet
Wednesday, 03 March 2021 14:55 Write a comment
Until now, researchers have found no evidence of global tectonic activity on planets outside our solar system. Under the leadership of the University of Bern and the National Center of Competence in Research NCCR PlanetS, scientists have now found that the material inside planet LHS 3844b flows from one hemisphere to the other and could be responsible for numerous volcanic eruptions on one side of the planet.
Chinese volunteers live in Lunar Palace 1 closed environment for 370 days
Wednesday, 03 March 2021 14:55 Write a comment
Volunteer students at Beihang University have reportedly lived in the Lunar Palace 1 biosphere environment for 370 days. Media outlets have reported that two groups of students took turns living in the biosphere over the course of 370 days, and required minimal supplies from the outside.
Many groups have tried building and living in biospheres over the years. The goal has always been to find out if it is possible to build a self-sustaining ecosystem that could be used on another planet. The most well-known was Biosphere 2—it was built in the Arizona desert and hosted people for two years, but ultimately failed in its goal to remain self-supporting. However, such efforts have led to a better understanding of how a real biosphere might work and how plants might be grown beyond Earth.
Over the past several years, the Chinese government has made it clear that they plan to send people to the moon in the coming years. They also plan to build a permanent colony there, to be shared with other countries, as soon as it is feasible. As part of that effort, they have been planning, building and testing biospheres since 2014.
Falcon 9 launches Starlink satellites, lands booster
Wednesday, 03 March 2021 09:52 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — A SpaceX Falcon 9 launched a new set of Starlink satellites and landed the booster March 4, two and a half weeks after the landing failed on the previous launch.
The Falcon 9 lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center at 3:24 a.m.
Careers at ESA homepage link
Wednesday, 03 March 2021 09:49 Write a comment
Careers at ESA
Chinese astronauts training for space station crewed flights
Wednesday, 03 March 2021 09:02 Write a comment
SpaceX Starship lands upright, then explodes in latest test
Wednesday, 03 March 2021 09:00 Write a comment
Monitoring methane emissions from gas pipelines
Wednesday, 03 March 2021 09:00 Write a comment
For the first time, scientists, using satellite data from the Copernicus Sentinel missions, are now able to detect individual methane plumes leaking from natural gas pipelines around the globe.
SpaceX Starship makes upright landing, but rocket explodes minutes later
Wednesday, 03 March 2021 07:39 Write a comment
Elon Musk's SpaceX notched the first upright landing of the company's deep-space Starship rocket after a test flight early Wednesday evening in Boca Chica, Texas - but the rocket exploded minutes later.
A live feed showed the stainless steel rocket soaring above the South Texas shoreline, flipping over and decelerating to a gentle touchdown at a slight angle on the landing pad.
But a fire NASA prepares Dragon capsule for first reuse with astronauts
Wednesday, 03 March 2021 07:39 Write a comment
NASA is preparing for the first time to reuse a SpaceX Dragon capsule, the Endeavor, on a crewed mission in April.
The capsule previously took astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station in May. The upcoming Crew 2 mission is planned for launch no earlier than April 20 from Kennedy Space Center.
NASA gave a detailed update this week about the capsule's r Green Run Update: Engineers Repair Valve for Mid-March Hot Fire Test
Wednesday, 03 March 2021 07:39 Write a comment
Engineers have successfully repaired a liquid oxygen valve on the Space Launch System rocket's core stage with subsequent checks confirming the valve to be operating properly.
The team plans to power up the core stage for remaining functional checks later this week before moving forward with final preparations for a hot fire test in mid-March at NASA's Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Lou China's commercial rocket SD-3 to make maiden flight in 2022
Wednesday, 03 March 2021 07:39 Write a comment
Smart Dragon-3 (SD-3), the third member of China's Dragon series commercial carrier rockets family, will make its maiden flight in 2022, its developer said Wednesday.
A four-stage solid-propellant rocket, the SD-3 will be the largest and have the highest carrying capacity among the Dragon series, according to the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology.
With a maximum diameter of