Week in images: 16-20 October 2023
Week in images: 16-20 October 2023
Discover our week through the lens
Hera asteroid mission goes on trial
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At some point, statistically speaking, a large asteroid will impact Earth. Whether that’s tomorrow, in ten years, or a problem for our ancestors, ESA is getting prepared.
As part of the world’s first test of asteroid deflection, ESA’s Hera mission will perform a detailed post-impact survey of Dimorphos – the 160-metre asteroid struck, and successfully deflected, by NASA’s DART spacecraft.
Hera will soon study the aftermath. Launching in October 2024, Hera will turn this grand-scale experiment into a well-understood and hopefully repeatable planetary defence technique.
But before Hera and its two CubeSats fly, they’re rigorously tested at ESA’s ESTEC test
Space Development Agency awards York Space $615 million contract for 62 satellites
Pakistan becomes latest country to join China’s ILRS moon project
Canada’s budget boost for Radarsat is part of its climate strategy
NASA's Voyager team focuses on software patch, thrusters
Engineers for NASA's Voyager mission are taking steps to help make sure both spacecraft, launched in 1977, continue to explore interstellar space for years to come.
One effort addresses fuel residue that seems to be accumulating inside narrow tubes in some of the thrusters on the spacecraft. The thrusters are used to keep each spacecraft's antenna pointed at Earth. This type of buildup has been observed in a handful of other spacecraft.
Upgraded star trackers could give more satellites a debris-monitoring role
India conducts space flight test ahead of planned mission to take astronauts into space in 2025
