Quebec invests in Telesat Lightspeed constellation

SAN FRANCISCO – The Quebec government will invest 400 million Canadian dollars ($315.5 million) in Telesat’s Lightspeed low-Earth orbit communications network. MDA will produce the constellation’s phased array antennas. And Thales Alenia Space will manufacture the satellites in Quebec, under a memorandum of understanding announced Feb.
U.S. Space Command to recommend investments in space infrastructure

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military over decades has built extensive infrastructure to move troops and equipment around the world. It may now need to start thinking about investing in foundation technologies to support future activities in space, said Lt.
Perseverance lands on Mars

WASHINGTON — NASA’s Perseverance rover successfully landed on Mars Feb. 18, completing a nearly seven-month journey from Earth and beginning a years-long exploration of the red planet.
Perseverance touched down at Jezero Crater on Mars at 3:55 p.m.
Morpheus opens U.S. office and names chief revenue officer

SAN FRANCISCO – German propulsion startup Morpheus Space has opened a Los Angeles office and named a retired U.S. Marine Corps officer and fighter pilot as its chief revenue officer.
David Kalinske, who retired from the Marine Corps in 2013 after serving as commanding officer of a fighter squadron and an aide to Presidents George W.
Is There a Satellite Inside?

Every day, nearly everyone on Earth does something that involves a satellite. Most of them never know it. That’s kind of cool – but also kind of frightening.
If people who benefit from your products and services don’t even know they exist, our commercial prospects are pretty dim.
NASA rover lands on Mars to look for signs of ancient life
A NASA rover streaked through the orange Martian sky and landed on the planet Thursday, accomplishing the riskiest step yet in an epic quest to bring back rocks that could answer whether life ever existed on Mars.
Ground controllers at the space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, jumped to their feet, thrust their arms in the air and cheered in both triumph and relief on receiving confirmation that the six-wheeled Perseverance had touched down on the red planet, long a deathtrap for incoming spacecraft.
'7 minutes of terror': Perseverance rover's nail-biting landing phase

Seven months after blast-off, NASA's Mars 2020 mission will have to negotiate its shortest and most intense phase on Thursday: the "seven minutes of terror" it takes to slam the brakes and land the Perseverance rover on a narrow target on the planet's surface.
Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) begins when the spacecraft carrying Perseverance strikes the Martian atmosphere at nearly 12,500 miles per hour (20,000 kilometers per hour).
It ends around seven minutes later with the rover at rest on the surface.
Touchdown on the Jezero Crater is scheduled for 3:55 pm US eastern time (2055 GMT). Weather conditions so far appear favorable in the Martian northern hemisphere spring, but nothing is taken for granted.
"This is one of the most difficult maneuvers that we do in this business, and almost 50 percent of the spacecraft that had been sent to the surface of Mars have failed," Matt Wallace, the mission's deputy project manager said.
Touchdown: NASA's Perseverance rover ready to search for life on Mars
After seven months in space, NASA's Perseverance rover survived a nail-biting landing phase to touch down gently on the surface of Mars on Thursday, ready to embark on its mission to search for the signs of ancient microbial life.
"Touchdown confirmed," said operations lead Swati Mohan at around 3:55 pm Eastern Time (2055 GMT), as mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasade Mars landing will mark many firsts in space exploration
NASA's planned landing of the Mars rover Perseverance at 3:55 p.m. EST Thursday will begin a process to advance exploration and understanding of the Red Planet by leaps and bounds - if all goes well.
New landing technology being employed is vital to future missions, especially if humans are ever to set foot on Mars, Steve Jurczyk, NASA's acting administrator, said in an interview Wedne Mars 2020 - a virtual visit to Jezero Crater
Today, on the evening of 18 February 2021, NASA's Mars 2020 mission has safely landed the rover 'Perseverance' in Jezero Crater at 21:55 (CET). With these image products, the landing site of the most powerful of all Mars rovers to date can be explored on screen. The interactive map of Jezero Crater was created by researchers at Freie Universitat Berlin (FUB) using pre-processed data acquired by 