Antennas and radio frequency systems for space are growing larger and more powerful, so to keep pace ESA’s ground-based test facilities are scaling up too. A construction project underway beside the dunes of the North Sea marks the expansion of the ESTEC technical centre in the Netherlands with the addition of Europe’s largest antenna and radio-frequency payload test chamber – Hertz 2.0.

Loft Orbital has ordered an additional 15 satellite buses from Airbus OneWeb Satellites to meet growing demand for its standardized space platforms.

China has invited Venezuela to join its lunar research station project as the country works to gain partners for the endeavor.

Baltimore MD (SPX) Apr 07, 2023
The planet Uranus is an oddball in our solar system, tilted on its side as it orbits the sun, causing extreme seasons. While the planet's atmosphere appeared nearly featureless when visited by the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1986, subsequent observations from the ground and in space have shown turbulent storms. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope recently observed Uranus, and the resulting image

Lausanne, Switzerland (SPX) Apr 06, 2023
The Universe is expanding - but how fast exactly? The answer appears to depend on whether you estimate the cosmic expansion rate - referred to as the Hubble's constant, or H0 - based on the echo of the Big Bang (the cosmic microwave background, or CMB) or you measure H0 directly based on today's stars and galaxies. This problem, known as the Hubble tension, has puzzled astrophysicists and cosmol

Pasadena CA (JPL) Apr 06, 2023
After spending over 700 sols (Martian days) exploring the crater floor and delta front, Perseverance is making tracks up the front of the Jezero fan, climbing across stratigraphic layers, up and out of the ancient Jezero lakebed. This ascent begins the extended portion of the Mars 2020 mission, where Perseverance will continue on to the rim of Jezero Crater and beyond, collecting samples along t

Washington DC (SPX) Apr 06, 2023
Both scientists and the public can navigate a new global image of the Red Planet that was made at Caltech using data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Cliffsides, impact craters, and dust devil tracks are captured in mesmerizing detail in a new mosaic of the Red Planet composed of 110,000 images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Taken by the veteran spacecraft's black-a

Baltimore MD (SPX) Apr 06, 2023
The early universe was a rambunctious place where galaxies often bumped into each other and even merged together. Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and other space and ground-based observatories, astronomers investigating these developments have made an unexpected and rare discovery: a pair of gravitationally bound quasars, both blazing away inside two merging galaxies. They existed when the u

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Apr 06, 2023
Deloitte, a multinational professional services network, has launched a new division, Deloitte Space, to help organizations achieve their space ambitions. With over 15 years of experience advising clients on space-related initiatives, the new division will provide access to a global network of advisors, technologists, and scientists dedicated to helping businesses and governments connect the unc

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Apr 06, 2023
An international team of astrophysicists and cosmologists at various institutes including NAOJ and the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe have submitted a set of five papers, measuring the value for the "clumpiness" of the Universe's dark matter, known to cosmologists as S8. The reported value is 0.76, which aligns with values that other gravitational lensing surveys