...the who's who,
and the what's what 
of the space industry

Space Careers

news Space News

Search News Archive

Title

Article text

Keyword

Image: Proba-V's plus one

Tuesday, 09 February 2021 13:17
Write a comment
Image: Proba-V’s plus one
Credit: ESA-P. de Maagt

This satellite mockup, seen during antenna testing, shows the shape of ESA's new Proba-V Companion CubeSat, which is due for launch at the end of this year.

The mission is a 12-unit CubeSat—a small, low-cost built up from standardized 10-cm boxes. It will fly a cut-down version of the vegetation-monitoring instrument aboard the Earth-observing Proba-V to perform experimental combined observations with its predecessor.

A pair of antennas for the CubeSat, mounted in this 'structural and thermal model' underwent testing at ESA's Compact Antenna Test Range at the ESTEC technical center in the Netherlands.

"The white patch is a directional high-data rate antenna, needed to downlink large amounts of imagery to users," explains Xavier Collaud of Aerospacelab in Belgium, developing the mission for ESA. "Then the brown patch is an omnidirectional antenna, that—combined with a similar antenna on the other side—allows the reception and transmission of lower-data rate signals in any direction, enabling the control of the mission.

"These antennnas are commercial off the shelf equipment, allowing the building up of small satellites in an affordable, modular manner.

China’s Tianwen-1 enters orbit around Mars

Tuesday, 09 February 2021 12:59
Write a comment
An image of Mars returned from Tianwen-1 from 2.2 million kilometers, ahead of Mars orbit insertion.

HELSINKI — China’s first interplanetary mission, Tianwen-1, successfully entered Mars orbit Feb.

ESA's Solar Orbiter ducks behind the sun

Tuesday, 09 February 2021 12:37
Write a comment
ESA’s Solar Orbiter ducks behind the sun
Solar Orbiter’s first view of the sun. Credit: Solar Orbiter/EUI Team/ESA & NASA; CSL, IAS, MPS, PMOD/WRC, ROB, UCL/MSSL

Name: Solar Orbiter, or "Solo' as the mission control team fondly call it, is one of the European Space Agency's pluckiest missions and is now cruising toward the sun.

Age: One year old! We launched on 10 February 2020. Granted, it was first powered up on Earth at some point during construction, but launch is 'when it came alive."

What's it doing out there? It's imaging our star, observing the and unraveling mysteries of the solar cycle. It's already returned some of the best images of ol'Sol ever, revealing omnipresent miniature , dubbed 'campfires," near the surface.

Anything else? Well, it uses prehistoric cave pigment as a coating to withstand temperatures up to 520°C. The sun's pretty darn hot, you know.

So, what's happening now? The spacecraft's orbit is taking it behind the sun, and starting a few days ago the apparent angle, as seen from Earth, between Solar Orbiter and the sun started falling below 5 degrees.

Write a comment
Washington DC (SPX) Feb 10, 2021
A rotating crew of NASA and international astronauts have called the International Space Station home for more than 20 years. To ensure a consistent U.S. presence on the space station through the years, NASA has implemented safeguards to ensure crew transportation is always available. NASA now is considering obtaining a supplemental seat on the upcoming spring Soyuz crew rotation mission f
Write a comment
Washington DC (SPX) Feb 10, 2021
NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for the agency's Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO), the foundational elements of the Gateway. As the first long-term orbiting outpost around the Moon, the Gateway is critical to supporting sustainable astronauts missions under the agency's Ar
Write a comment
Sparks NV (SPX) Feb 10, 2021
Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), the global aerospace and national security company owned by Eren and Fatih Ozmen, is a step closer to landing the world's first commercial spaceplane on U.S. soil. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) awarded the re-entry site license to Cape Canaveral Spaceport Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) in Florida at requ
Write a comment
New Delhi (Sputnik) Feb 10, 2021
"Gaganyaan" - India's first human spaceflight programme - is due to take off in December 2021. Four of its astronauts are currently undergoing rigorous 11-month training in Russia. From lip-smacking upma and poha for breakfast to biryani for lunch, and korma with chapatis for dinner, Indian scientists have prepared a special menu of popular Indian dishes to tickle the tastebuds of Indian a
Write a comment
Tucson AZ (SPX) Feb 09, 2021
Areas featuring subsurface frozen water ice that could benefit future human explorers have been identified in the northern mid-latitudes of Mars, a new paper led by Planetary Science Institute Senior Scientist Gareth A. Morgan says. Through the integration of orbital datasets from several NASA spacecraft - Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, and Mars Global Surveyor - in concert with new
Write a comment
Zurich, Switzerland (SPX) Feb 09, 2021
The "planet-hunting" mission PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) of the European Space Agency (ESA) is a space-based observatory to find and study extrasolar planetary systems with emphasis on the properties of terrestrial planets in the habitable zone around solar-like stars. It is scheduled to launch in 2026. Mid-January RUAG Space, a leading supplier to the space indust
Write a comment
Boston MA (SPX) Feb 09, 2021
Astronomers may have found our galaxy's first example of an unusual kind of stellar explosion. This discovery, made with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, adds to the understanding of how some stars shatter and seed the universe with elements critical for life on Earth. This intriguing object, located near the center of the Milky Way, is a supernova remnant called Sagittarius A East, or Sg
Write a comment
Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Feb 09, 2021
Betelgeuse is normally one of the brightest, most recognizable stars of the winter sky, marking the left shoulder of the constellation Orion. But lately, it has been behaving strangely: an unprecedentedly large drop in its brightness has been observed in early 2020 (Figure 1), which has prompted speculation that Betelgeuse may be about to explode. To find out more, an international team of
Write a comment
Moscow (Sputnik) Feb 08, 2021
While the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has disavowed an interest in militarizing space, several members of the alliance, including the US, UK, and France, have oriented themselves toward conflict in the space domain in recent years. The North Atlantic alliance has selected the French city of Toulouse to host its new higher education center for military space affairs. NAT
Write a comment
Washington DC (SPX) Feb 08, 2021
As commercial space companies increase the cadence of successful rocket launches, access to space is becoming more routine for both government and commercial interests. But even with regular launches, modern rockets impose mass and volume limits on the payloads they deliver to orbit. This size constraint hinders developing and deploying large-scale, dynamic space systems that can adapt to change

China tests its missile interception equipment

Tuesday, 09 February 2021 12:30
Write a comment
Beijing (XNA) Feb 08, 2021
China conducted a land-based, midcourse missile interception test on Thursday-the fifth land-based, anti-ballistic missile test the country has publicly announced. The Defense Ministry said in a brief statement late on Thursday that the test had achieved its goals, and the operation was defensive in nature, not targeting any other country. Before the latest operation, China had succe
Write a comment
Moscow (Sputnik) Feb 09, 2021
An award-winning composite material that has proven effective against radiation in nuclear submarines will be sent to the orbital outpost for further testing this year, the Russian space agency said on Monday. "Space is known for its elevated radiation levels... The invention has already been tested in nuclear subs. If the space experiment proves to be equally successful the material will
Page 1790 of 1861