Year in images 2020
Our year through the lens: a selection of our favourite images for 2020
A-68A iceberg thinning at 2.5 cm per day
Latest images reveal that the A-68A iceberg has shattered into multiple pieces, with two large fragments of ice breaking off from the main berg and floating away in the open ocean. Scientists using satellite data have not only been monitoring the iceberg’s journey across the South Atlantic Ocean, but have been studying the iceberg’s ever-changing shape.
Voyager Space Holdings to acquire majority stake in Nanoracks
WASHINGTON — Voyager Space Holdings, a company that has acquired several space ventures, is taking a majority stake in commercial space station company Nanoracks, the two firms announced Dec. 23.
Voyager announced it would take a majority stake in XO Markets, the parent company of Nanoracks.
On National Security | Space acquisition reform awaits Biden’s Pentagon team
The Pentagon’s overseers in Congress have been consistently critical of how the military acquires space hardware. Frustration with space procurements was in fact one of the catalysts for the creation of the U.S.
Earthlings and astronauts chat away, via ham radio
The International Space Station cost more than $100 billion. A ham radio set can be had for a few hundred bucks.
Perhaps that explains, in part, the appeal of having one of humankind's greatest scientific inventions communicate with Earth via technology that's more than 100 years old. But perhaps there's a simpler explanation for why astronauts and ham radio operators have been talking, and talking, for years.
NASA astronaut Doug Wheelock was just a few weeks into his six-month mission at the space station when feelings of isolation began to set in.
Wheelock would be separated from loved ones, save for communication via an internet phone, email or social media. At times, the stress and tension of serving as the station's commander could be intense.
One night, as he looked out a window at the Earth below, he remembered the space station's ham radio. He figured he'd turn it on—see if anyone was listening.
"Any station, any station, this is the International Space Station," Wheelock said.
A flood of voices jumbled out of the airwaves.
Astronauts aboard the space station often speak to students via ham radio, which can also be used in emergencies, but those are scheduled appearances.
Using AI to count and map craters on the moon
A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in China, one from Italy and one from Iceland has used a machine-learning artificial intelligence application to count and note the location of over 100,000 craters on the moon. In their paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the group describes programming their system to recognize craters by training it with data collected by Chinese lunar orbiters.
Prior work identifying and mapping craters on the moon has tended to be a slow process—it has generally been done by hand, with researchers studying photographs and transferring those observations to maps or moon globes. In this new effort, the researchers have found a way to dramatically speed up the process by teaching a computer to identify craters and then to count them.
Teaching a computer to recognize craters on the moon has been a difficult process due to the many forms craters can take. Not all are round, and they are of different ages, which means defining characteristics have eroded over long periods of time.
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Firefly Aerospace's debut Alpha launch set to demonstrate Space Electric Thruster System
Space Electric Thruster System (SETS), a Noosphere Ventures aerospace company, will undergo field testing in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) as part of the debut launch of the Firefly Aerospace Alpha rocket, which is scheduled for the beginning of 2021 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, U.S.A.
"The goal of the first SETS mission is to demonstrate and confirm the space worthiness and perfo Voyager Space Holdings to buy all of Nanoracks
Voyager Space Holdings has announced its intent to acquire a majority stake in XO Markets and its largest subsidiary Nanoracks. Nanoracks is the world's leading provider of commercial space services, offering low-cost, high-quality solutions to the most pressing needs for satellite deployment and basic and educational research in more than 30 nations worldwide.
As part of the transaction, Long March 8 rocket makes maiden flight
Five days after China concluded its historic 23-day Chang'e 5 lunar mission, Chinese space engineers made a new achievement with the debut flight of the country's newest carrier rocket.
The Long March 8, the latest in China's Long March launch vehicle fleet, lifted off at 12:37 pm on Tuesday from a coastal launchpad at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in southern China's Hainan province. 
