100% bio-sourced thermoset composites tested for space
Combining high strength with low weight, corrosion-resistant and shapeable into almost any form, composite materials are a key ingredient of modern life: employed everywhere from aviation to civil engineering, sports equipment to dentistry – and also a vital element of space missions. But they have some less desirable aspects: produced from petroleum products, they are non-renewable in nature and also non-recyclable. So ESA is working with Côte D’Azur University on a new breed of space-quality composites made from wholly sustainable sources.
ESA names first ‘astronaut’ to fly on the Artemis I lunar mission
The specially trained woolly astronaut, Shaun the Sheep, has been assigned a seat on the Artemis I mission to the Moon. Shaun’s assignment was announced by ESA’s Director for Human and Robotic Exploration Dr David Parker.
NASA revises requirements for ISS private astronaut missions
NASA is changing rules for future private astronaut missions to the International Space Station, including requiring such missions to be led by a former NASA astronaut.
The post NASA revises requirements for ISS private astronaut missions appeared first on SpaceNews.
Webb captures stellar gymnastics in the Cartwheel Galaxy
The Cartwheel Galaxy, a rare ring galaxy once shrouded in dust and mystery, has been unveiled by the imaging capabilities of the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. The galaxy, which formed as a result of a collision between a large spiral galaxy and another smaller galaxy, not only retained a lot of its spiral character, but has also experienced massive changes throughout its structure. Webb’s high-precision instruments resolved individual stars and star-forming regions within the Cartwheel, and revealed the behaviour of the black hole within its galactic centre. These new details provide a renewed understanding of a
Unveiling the distribution of dark matter around galaxies 12B years
A collaboration led by scientists at Nagoya University in Japan has investigated the nature of dark matter surrounding galaxies seen as they were 12 billion years ago, billions of years further back in time than ever before. Their findings, published in Physical Review Letters, offer the tantalizing possibility that the fundamental rules of cosmology may differ when examining the early history o Super-earth skimming habitable zone of red dwarf
A super-Earth planet has been found near the habitable zone of a red dwarf star only 37 light-years from the Earth. This is the first discovery by a new instrument on the Subaru Telescope and offers a chance to investigate the possibility of life on planets around nearby stars. With such a successful first result, we can expect that the Subaru Telescope will discover more, potentially even bette Northrop Grumman to lead Homeland Missile Defense Program for MDA
Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) has been awarded an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract with a maximum amount of $3,286,745,005 by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) Weapon System (GWS) program.
The GWS program defends the United States against intermediate and intercontinental ballistic missile attacks. Under this competiti Space Operations Center lifts comms performance using ViaLite HWDR links
ViaLite's Hyper Wide Dynamic Range (HWDR) links are providing enhanced performance at a teleport operations center in Kourou in South America. The L-Band HTS - HWDR links are being used to transfer high-speed data in LEOP (Launch and Early Orbit Phase) operations.
The industry leading links support frequencies between 400-2500 MHz while offering a Spurious-Free Dynamic Range (SFDR) of up t Modeling reveals how dwarf planet Ceres powers unexpected geologic activity
For a long time, our view of Ceres was fuzzy, said Scott King, a geoscientist in the Virginia Tech College of Science. A dwarf planet and the largest body found in the asteroid belt - the region between Jupiter and Mars speckled with hundreds of thousands of asteroids - Ceres had no distinguishable surface features in existing telescopic observations from Earth.
Then, in 2015, the hazy orb Rocky road ahead still not the good kind: Sols 3548-3550
For this 3-sol weekend plan, I worked as the Tactical Uplink Lead. This morning we came in to discover that the drive had stopped early due to high slip on the steep terrain, and our parking place was not a safe spot to unstow and use the arm. So we quickly switched gears and loaded up the plan with lots of remote science.
This terrain is particularly beautiful, so the opportunity to take 
