Europe’s Galileo satellite navigation constellation is set to grow. Later this year the first two out of 12 ‘Batch 3’ Galileo satellites will be launched by Soyuz from French Guiana. Their last step on the way to launch is situated beside sand dunes on the Dutch coast: the ESTEC Test Centre, which is Europe’s largest satellite test facility.

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jun 03, 2021
Although Earth and Venus are similar in size and location, they are very different worlds today. While Earth has oceans of water and abundant life, Venus is dry and fiercely inhospitable. Although it's somewhat closer to the Sun - about 70 percent of Earth's distance - Venus is much hotter, with temperatures at the surface high enough to melt lead. The scorched landscape is obscured by clouds of

Washington DC (SPX) Jun 03, 2021
NASA has selected two new missions to Venus, Earth's nearest planetary neighbor. Part of NASA's Discovery Program, the missions aim to understand how Venus became an inferno-like world when it has so many other characteristics similar to ours - and may have been the first habitable world in the solar system, complete with an ocean and Earth-like climate. These investigations are the final

Riverside CA (SPX) Jun 03, 2021
As its name suggests, dark matter - material which makes up about 85% of the mass in the universe - emits no light, eluding easy detection. Its properties, too, remain fairly obscure. Now, a theoretical particle physicist at the University of California, Riverside, and colleagues have published a research paper in the Journal of High Energy Physics that shows how theories positing the exis

Sydney, Australia (SPX) Jun 03, 2021
When we think of space, we think big and empty but when it comes to Earth's orbit, it's cluttered with millions of pieces of garbage that we call space junk. The junk - or space debris - is made up of uncontrollable human-made items that remain in orbit long after they've served their original purpose. The scale of debris ranges from the very large including discarded stages from rocket an

Houston TX (SPX) Jun 03, 2021
Axiom Space revealed Wednesday that it has finalized a deal with SpaceX for three additional Dragon flights, on which Axiom would fly its proposed private crews on its next three fully commercial missions to the International Space Station. The landmark agreement between the industry leaders in human spaceflight as well as orbital services and launch, respectively, ensures the nascent commercial

NASA has selected two new missions to Venus, Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor.