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SpaceX launches Turksat 5A

Thursday, 07 January 2021 03:59
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Falcon 9 Turksat 5A

WASHINGTON — A SpaceX Falcon 9 launched a Turkish communications satellite Jan. 7 to start what may be the busiest year yet for the launch company.

The Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 9:15 p.m.

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Ariane 5 launch

WASHINGTON — The head of Arianespace asked European governments to provide his company with more support in order to balance what he called government support of American competitors “with no precedent.”

At a Jan. 7 press briefing, Stéphane Israël, chief executive of Arianespace, said the company completed 2020 with revenues of about one billion euros ($1.2 billion), approximately the same as 2019.

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WASHINGTON — Following a series of contract protests, the Space Development Agency again awarded SpaceX a $149 million contract and L3Harris a $193.5 million contract to each build four satellites to detect and track ballistic and hypersonic missiles

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WASHINGTON — Following a series of contract protests, the Space Development Agency again awarded SpaceX a $149 million contract and L3Harris a $193.5 million contract to each build four satellites to detect and track ballistic and hypersonic missiles

Image: The sun in 2020

Wednesday, 06 January 2021 16:19
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Image: The sun in 2020
Credit: ESA/Royal Observatory of Belgium

These 366 images of the sun were made by ESA's Proba-2 satellite in 2020.

This satellite is continuously monitoring the changing activity of the sun. One image was selected to represent each day of the year (including leap day 29 February in 2020). Click here for an animated version.

The images were taken by the satellite's SWAP camera, which works at extreme ultraviolet wavelengths to capture the sun's hot turbulent atmosphere (the corona) at temperatures of about a million degrees Celsius.

In two images—21 June and 14 December—a is visible from Proba-2's point-of-view.

2020 marked the start of a new solar activity cycle—cycle 25—which lasts about 11 years on average. At the beginning of the year the sun still showed low levels of activity, but at the end of the year it already showed signs of waking up.

In the images of November and December, multiple active regions are visible. These regions represent areas of intense magnetic that can produce some of the most dramatic space weather events, such as and .

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NASA, NSF Sign Agreement to Advance Space, Earth, Biological, Physical Sciences
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Gateway

ESA signed a contract today with Thales Alenia Space to start building the European module for the lunar Gateway that will provide the new human exploration facility with communications and refuelling.

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7 things to know about the NASA rover about to land on Mars
In a clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, engineers observed the first driving test for NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover on Dec. 17, 2019. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

With only about 50 million miles (80 million kilometers) left to go in its 293-million-mile (471-million-kilometer) journey, NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover is nearing its new planetary home. The spacecraft has begun its approach to the Red Planet and in 43 days, on Feb. 18, 2021, Perseverance will blaze through Mars' atmosphere at about 12,100 mph (19,500 kph), touching down gently on the surface about seven minutes later.

"We're working on our last adjustments to put Perseverance in perfect position to land in one of the most interesting places on Mars," said Fernando Abilleira, deputy mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

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A new NASA space telescope, SPHEREx, is moving ahead
This animation shows the preliminary design for the spacecraft, including hexagonal sun shields that will help keep the instruments cool. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA's upcoming space telescope, the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer, or SPHEREx, is one step closer to launch. The mission has officially entered Phase C, in NASA lingo. That means the agency has approved preliminary design plans for the observatory, and work can begin on creating a final, detailed design, as well as on building the hardware and software.

Managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, SPHEREx is scheduled to launch no earlier than June 2024 and no later than April 2025. Its instruments will detect near-, or wavelengths several times longer than the light visible to the human eye. During its , it will map the entire sky four times, creating a massive database of stars, galaxies, nebulas (clouds of gas and dust in space), and many other .

Image: A good GRASP on the New Year

Wednesday, 06 January 2021 12:53
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Image: A good GRASP on the New Year
Credit: ESA/NASA

NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins performs the Grasp experiment in the Columbus module of the International Space Station ahead of the New Year. The experiment studies how the central nervous system, specifically hand-eye coordination, adapts to microgravity.

Grasp stands for Gravitational References for Sensimotor Performance and seeks to better understand how the integrates information from different senses, such as sight, sound and touch, to coordinate hand movements and determine what role gravity plays.

How does the experiment work? Mike dons (VR) gear that is coupled with a laptop and driven by an audio/graphics system. The VR headset simulates a series of tasks for the him, while a 3-D motion tracker updates the display in real time in response to his hand, body and arm movements. Measurements are taken on ground and during spaceflight.

ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet was the first to use the VR gear to perform the experiment during his 2016 mission. ESA astronauts Alexander Gerst and Luca Parmitano followed suit during their respective missions. Watch a video of Alexander performing the experiment.

Researchers suspect that, on Earth, the brain uses gravity as a reference.

Momentus delays first Vigoride launch

Wednesday, 06 January 2021 11:48
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WASHINGTON — In-space transportation provider Momentus is delaying its first operational mission, which was to fly on a SpaceX Falcon 9 later this month, because of delays completing an interagency review.

In a Jan.

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Components of the Long March 5B (Y2) to launch the Chinese space station core module at a facility in Tianjin.

HELSINKI — China is preparing to launch three major missions in the next few months to initiate the construction phase of the country’s space station project.

The Sun in 2020

Wednesday, 06 January 2021 09:00
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The Sun in 2020 Image: The Sun in 2020

Warning: Neutron Star Collision Imminent

Wednesday, 06 January 2021 08:52
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Washington DC (SPX) Jan 07, 2021
On 17 August 2017, an alert went out roughly 40 minutes after the LIGO observatory detected gravitational waves from a pair of colliding neutron stars. This alert sent telescopes worldwide slewing rapidly in an all-hands-on-deck effort to image the fireworks show accompanying the merger. But what if that alert had gone out before the collision? b>When Stars Collide br> /b> When neu
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Long Beach CA (SPX) Jan 07, 2021
Rocket Lab, the global leader in dedicated small satellite launch, has announced its first Electron launch of the new year will be a dedicated mission for European space technology company OHB Group. This dedicated mission, named 'Another One Leaves the Crust,' is scheduled for lift-off during a 10-day launch window opening on January 16th NZT/UTC. Encapsulated inside Electron's fairing wi
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