L3Harris wins $80 million Air Force contract for satcom experiments
The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory awarded L3Harris Technologies a contract worth $80.8 million to conduct communications experiments using multiple commercial space internet services.
Over the moon: Dedication to lunar research pays off for China's Chang'e project
Since 2004, China has been pioneering many aspects of lunar exploration with the Chang'e project, of which all five missions were successful in obtaining new information about the moon.
China has been leading the advancement of lunar research and understanding with their Chang'e project since 2004 with no signs of slowing down. The information obtained from Chang'e missions has given humans a much deeper understanding of the moon, including the composition of its surface material, the moon's history and evolution, and mastering the three phases of unmanned lunar exploration: orbiting, landing, and returning. Gaining a more thorough understanding of the moon and its components can help with establishing research facilities on the moon to uncover more answers about Earth's only satellite.
Space Development Agency to launch 13 satellites in late June
The Space Development Agency is preparing to launch at least 13 satellites in late June, the agency’s director Derek Tournear said May 26.
DARPA seeks AI tools to automate tracking of satellite sensor data
BAE Systems won a $7 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop AI tools to automate the tracking of data collected by military satellites.
Software problem blamed for ispace lunar lander crash
A software glitch kept a lunar lander from properly determining its altitude, leading to a crash on its landing attempt last month, Japanese company ispace announced May 26.
Crash of private Japanese moon lander blamed on software, last-minute location switch
Meet the scientist (sort of) spending a year on Mars
Living on Mars wasn't exactly a childhood dream for Canadian biologist Kelly Haston, though she'll soon spend a year preparing for just that.
"We are just going to pretend that we're there," the 52-year-old told AFP, summing up her participation in an exercise simulating a long stay on the Red Planet.
At the end of June, she will be one of the four volunteers stepping into a Martian habitat in Houston, Texas that will be their home for the next 12 months.
"It still sometimes seems a bit unreal to me," she laughs.
For NASA, which has carefully selected the participants, these long-term experiments make it possible to evaluate the behavior of a crew in an isolated and confined environment, ahead of a real mission in future.
Participants will face equipment failures and water limitations, the space agency has warned—as well as some "surprises," according to Haston.
A Saudi Arabian satellite launches on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket
A nearly 10,000-pound (4.5-metric-ton) Airbus-built Badr 8 communications satellite for the Riyadh-based company Arabsat lifted off from Space Launch Complex-40 (SLC-40), Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS), Florida, at 12:30 a.m. EDT (0430 UTC) on May 27, Saturday.
The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket headed east from Cape Canaveral to deliver Arabsat's Badr 8 (also referre SpaceX launches Badr-8 to bolster Arabsat’s satellite fleet
SpaceX launched the Badr-8 TV broadcast and telecoms satellite May 27 for Saudi Arabia-based fleet operator Arabsat, equipped with a jamming-resistant optical communications payload demonstrator.
NASA and Boeing say preparations continue for July Starliner test flight
NASA and Boeing said May 26 they are still working towards a July launch of the CST-100 Starliner on a crewed test flight despite “emerging issues” and concerns raised by a safety panel.
