Washington (AFP) May 2, 2021
A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying four astronauts back to Earth splashed down off Panama City early Sunday, a NASA livestream showed. Boats were retrieving the spacecraft and crew after their six-month mission aboard the International Space Station. The crew reported they were feeling well, NASA said. The capsule splashed down at 2:56 am (0656 GMT) in the dark in the Gulf of Mexi

Beijing (XNA) May 01, 2021
China successfully launched the core module of its space station on Thursday, giving humankind a new foothold in space. The space station will become a common outpost for space-faring countries to explore the universe through cooperation. Tianhe, the name of the core module, means "Harmony of the Heavens" in Chinese, and it conveys China's sincere efforts to promote mutual trust and peace

Paris (ESA) May 01, 2021
Lithuania signed an Association Agreement with ESA on 28 April 2021. This Association Agreement between ESA and the Government of the Republic of Lithuania, builds on the successful results achieved under the previous frameworks of cooperation and will enter into force for a duration of seven years. Comprising 18 Articles and two Annexes, it orchestrates the strengthening of Lithuania's relation

Zurich, Switzerland (SPX) May 01, 2021
Satellites provide crucial data on climate and environmental changes every day. The European Global Navigation Satellite System Agency GSA has now commissioned RUAG Space to conduct a study to increase the accuracy of real-time satellite navigation. For climate and environmental research, satellites provide extremely important data every day, such as how high sea levels are rising or what

Beijing, China (SPX) May 01, 2021
Prof. YAN Yihua and his research team from the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) recently released detailed results of observations by the new generation solar radio telescope-Mingantu Spectral Radio Heliograph (MUSER)-from 2014 to 2019. The study was published in Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences on March 29. It may help us better unders

Dallas TX (SPX) May 01, 2021
NASA has a long tradition of unexpected discoveries, and the space program's TESS mission is no different. SMU astrophysicist and her team have discovered a particularly bright gamma-ray burst using a NASA telescope designed to find exoplanets - those occurring outside our solar system - particularly those that might be able to support life. It's the first time a gamma-ray burst has been f

La Laguna, Spain (SPX) May 01, 2021
The detection of the axion would mark a key episode in the history of science. This hypothetical particle could resolve two fundamental problems of Modern Physics at the same time: the problema of Charge and Parity in the strong interaction, and the mystery of dark matter. However, in spite of the high scientific interest in finding it, the search at high radio frequency -above 6 GHz- has

Pasadena CA (JPL) May 01, 2021
The Red Planet rotorcraft will shift focus from proving flight is possible on Mars to demonstrating flight operations that future aerial craft could utilize. NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has a new mission. Having proven that powered, controlled flight is possible on the Red Planet, the Ingenuity experiment will soon embark on a new operations demonstration phase, exploring how aerial s

Bay St. Louis MS (SPX) May 01, 2021
NASA conducted a long-duration RS-25 single-engine test April 28, continuing its seven-part test series to support development and production of engines for future missions of the agency's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. Operators fired the engine for almost 11 minutes (650 seconds) on the A-1 Test Stand at Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, providing valuable data to

Berlin, Germany (SPX) May 01, 2021
Many new satellites are smaller and lighter than ever before. They are usually launched as 'co-passengers' together with other, larger satellites whose operators define the launch conditions. But a distinct class of launcher systems have now established themselves as a means to deliver small satellites into their target orbits as a primary payload - the microlauncher. In the USA and China, the m