Ariane 6 stands tall for launch
Thursday, 02 May 2024 15:00
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Video:
00:02:59
Last week, Ariane 6’s central core – the main body of the rocket – was stood tall at the launch zone and connected to its two solid-fuel boosters. This exciting moment means only one thing: it’s the start of the first launch campaign.
The main stage and upper stage make up the core stage, and they were autonomously driven at 3 km/h from the rocket assembly building to the launch pad, 800 m away. Then lifted by a crane, the Ariane 6 core was stood upright on the launch table.
The two boosters were transported to the launch pad
China set to blast off to the far side of the moon—here's what it could discover
Thursday, 02 May 2024 14:56 Write a comment
China is attempting to recover the first ever soil and rock samples from the lunar far side. The surface mission, Chang'e 6, named after the Chinese moon goddess Chang'e, is a successor to the successful sample return mission, Chang'e 5, and a part of the Chinese lunar exploration program.
The mission is set for launch using a long March 5 rocket at the Wenchang satellite launch center in Hainan province on May 3. The spacecraft due to land on the moon is projected to weigh 3,200kg carrying scientific equipment from France, Italy and the European Space Agency.
Chang'e 5 was the first lunar sample-return mission since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 in 1976. Chang'e 5 was hugely successful, returning 2kg of material from the near side. This material led to important scientific discoveries, such as the youngest lunar material ever discovered. Previously we only had much older samples returned from the Apollo missions and sampled meteorites.
Intercropping viable for optimizing vegetable production on Mars
Thursday, 02 May 2024 14:20 Write a comment
A group of crop systems analysts at Wageningen University and Research, in the Netherlands, has found evidence that intercropping on Mars could be a viable option for optimizing vegetable production.
In their study, reported in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, Rebeca Gonçalves, G. W. Wieger Wamelink, Peter van der Putten and Jochem B. Evers, grew test plants in simulated Martian soil in a greenhouse.
If humans are ever to going to build colonies on Mars, colonists will need to grow most of their own food sustainably. Hauling soil or fertilizer from Earth to prevent depletion of nutrients in soil is considered to be unsustainable by most in the habitability field. For this new study, the research team looked at the possibility of intercropping as a way to optimize vegetable production.
Astroscale Japan Advances to Next Stage in JAXA's Orbital Debris Removal Initiative
Thursday, 02 May 2024 12:07 Write a comment
Astroscale Japan Inc., part of Astroscale Holdings Inc., has been chosen by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to participate in Phase II of the Commercial Removal of Debris Demonstration (CRD2) program. This initiative is among the first globally to focus on the removal of large-scale space debris.
"We are deeply honored to have been selected as the commercial partner of the ne Exolaunch facilitates NASA's ACS3 satellite deployment into orbit
Thursday, 02 May 2024 12:07 Write a comment
Exolaunch has provided its deployment services for NASA's Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) satellite, marking the company's first satellite deployment for NASA and its 28th mission overall. The event took place on April 23 at 1000 NZT / 2200 UTC from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in Mahia, New Zealand, utilizing Rocket Lab's "Beginning of the Swarm" mission.
The ACS3 satellite, bu Pulsed plasma rocket development accelerates manned missions to Mars
Thursday, 02 May 2024 12:07 Write a comment
Advancements in space technology may soon allow humans and cargo to travel to Mars efficiently and quickly. Existing spacecraft require significant velocities due to the vast distances in space, necessitating propulsion systems with both high thrust and high specific impulse. Current technologies fall short of these requirements.
Howe Industries is developing a propulsion system capable of The Great Observatory for Long Wavelengths Initiative
Thursday, 02 May 2024 12:07 Write a comment
The Great Observatory for Long Wavelengths (GO-LoW) seeks to unveil the elusive low-frequency radio sky, previously inaccessible to ground-based telescopes due to the Earth's ionosphere and challenging for traditional space missions because of the requirement for enormous telescopes to capture meter- to kilometer-scale wavelengths. These low frequencies are vital for studying exoplanetary and st Microsoft announces Thai datacenter region, AI training
Thursday, 02 May 2024 12:07 Write a comment
Microsoft said Wednesday it would create Thailand's first data centre region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 Thais to develop tech.
Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry.
Thailand had an "incredible opportunity to build a NASA's Arctic Balloon Missions Set for 2024 Sweden Campaign
Thursday, 02 May 2024 12:07 Write a comment
In mid-May, NASA is slated to initiate the 2024 Sweden Long-Duration Scientific Balloon Campaign at the Esrange Space Center near Kiruna, Sweden, located north of the Arctic Circle. This endeavor will deploy four stadium-sized balloons, equipped with scientific missions and technology demonstrations, through early July.
"NASA's Balloon Program is excited to conduct our long-duration balloo NASA inspector general report highlights issues with Orion heat shield
Thursday, 02 May 2024 10:05
A year in training: ESA's new astronauts graduate
Thursday, 02 May 2024 09:00 Write a comment
Video:
00:05:16
ESA's newly graduated astronauts reach the end of one year of rigorous basic astronaut training. Discover the journey of Sophie Adenot, Rosemary Coogan, Pablo Álvarez Fernández, Raphaël Liégeois, Marco Sieber, and Australian Space Agency astronaut candidate Katherine Bennell-Pegg. Selected in November 2022, the group began their training in April 2023.
Basic astronaut training provides the candidates with an overall familiarisation and training in various areas, such as spacecraft systems, spacewalks, flight engineering, robotics and life support systems as well as survival and medical training. They received astronaut certification at ESA’s European Astronaut Centre on 22 April 2024.
Following certification,
The Sun’s fluffy corona in exquisite detail
Thursday, 02 May 2024 07:00 Write a comment
Video:
00:00:48
This otherworldly, ever-changing landscape is what the Sun looks like up close. ESA's Solar Orbiter filmed the transition from the Sun's lower atmosphere to the much hotter outer corona. The hair-like structures are made of charged gas (plasma), following magnetic field lines emerging from the Sun's interior.
The brightest regions are around one million degrees Celsius, while cooler material looks dark as it absorbs radiation.
This video was recorded on 27 September 2023 by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) instrument on Solar Orbiter. At the time, the spacecraft was at roughly a third of the Earth’s distance from the Sun, heading for a closest approach of 43 million km on 7 October.
On the same day that this video
