Washington DC (SPX) Jun 11, 2021
As NASA continues plans for multiple commercial deliveries to the Moon's surface per year, the agency has selected three new scientific investigation payload suites to advance understanding of Earth's nearest neighbor. Two of the payload suites will land on the far side of the Moon, a first for NASA. All three investigations will receive rides to the lunar surface as part of NASA's Commercial Lu

Perth, Australia (SPX) Jun 11, 2021
Curtin University researchers have helped uncover the four billion year old story of a lunar sample brought from the Moon to Earth, by the manned Apollo 17 mission more than 50 years ago. The global research collaboration, involving scientists from the UK, Canada, Sweden and Australia, aimed to analyse the ancient rock sample through a modern lens to find out its age, which crater it came

Beijing (XNA) Jun 11, 2021
The China National Space Administration made public on Friday four pictures taken by the Tianwen 1 robotic mission, showing the Zhurong rover on Martian surface and scenes of its landing site. Three pictures were taken by Zhurong's cameras, and display the rover's upper stage, its landing platform as well as environment of the landing site. Another one was shot

Paderbornw, Germany (SPX) Jun 11, 2021
The 36th parabolic flight campaign organised by the German Space Agency at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) is taking place from 4 to 11 June 2021 at the airport in Paderborn. During the campaign, various technology tests for the 'Cosmic Kiss' mission to be flown by German ESA astronaut Matthias Mauer will be carried out under microgravity conditions,

Cleveland OH (SPX) Jun 11, 2021
In the early days of cellphone use, each user was limited to their chosen provider's network and service capabilities. Restricting customers to service within one network led to high prices for out-of-network calls and limited value for customers. Cellphone providers long ago adopted roaming, allowing devices to jump from network to network without interrupting service and increasing competition

Huntsville AL (SPX) Jun 11, 2021
New air filtration technology developed, built, and tested at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, is bound for the International Space Station - where it will demonstrate advanced life support system capabilities that could help future explorers on the Moon and Mars breathe easier. The new hardware, known as the 4-Bed Carbon Dioxide Scrubber, was shipped June 9 from

McLean VA (SPX) Jun 11, 2021
Iridium Communications has announced Operation Arctic Lynx (OAL), a series of partnership-driven field exercises deploying Iridium and Iridium Connected technologies and involving more than 20 organizations, primarily focused above 60 degrees north latitude and stretching as far as 82 degrees north latitude. Taking place between June 11 and June 26, 2021, OAL involves an international cont

Boston MA (SPX) Jun 11, 2021
In recent months, people have reported seeing a parade of star-like points passing across the night sky. The formation is not extraterrestrial, or even astrophysical in origin, but is in fact a line of satellites, recently launched by SpaceX, that will eventually be joined by many more to form Starlink, a "megaconstellation" that will wrap around the Earth as a global network designed to beam hi

Paris (ESA) Jun 11, 2021
EnVision will be ESA's next Venus orbiter, providing a holistic view of the planet from its inner core to upper atmosphere to determine how and why Venus and Earth evolved so differently. The mission was selected by ESA's Science Programme Committee on 10 June as the fifth medium-class mission in the Agency's Cosmic Vision plan, targeting a launch in the early 2030s. "A new era in the expl

Washington DC (SPX) Jun 11, 2021
Because of a phenomenon called gravitational locking, the Moon always faces the Earth from the same side. This proved useful in the early lunar landing missions in the 20th century, as there was always a direct line of sight for uninterrupted radiocommunications between Earth ground stations and equipment on the Moon. However, gravitational locking makes exploring the hidden face of the moon - t