Los Angeles CA (SPX) Apr 28, 2025
Sierra Space has completed a major step toward enhancing the resilience of its expandable space station habitat, LIFE, through a series of hypervelocity impact tests carried out at NASA's White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Conducted with NASA's support, the trials focused on refining a protective shield capable of enduring the intense hazards found in orbit. The LIFE habi

London, UK (SPX) Apr 30, 2025
Earth's upper atmosphere reacts more quickly and strongly to solar flare activity than previously understood, according to new findings from Queen's University Belfast. Researchers studying a powerful solar flare from 2012 found that Earth's atmosphere exhibited synchronized pulses in direct response to rhythmic bursts of energy from the Sun. This marks the first time scientists have confi

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Apr 28, 2025
Alright, let's talk satcom. Starlink is the shiny new toy everyone's buzzing about. Gigabit speeds? Low latency? It's disruptive, no doubt. But I've been knee-deep in this game since before smartphones were a glimmer in Steve Jobs' eye, and I'm here to tell you: this isn't a takeover; it's an evolution. h3>The Starlink Disruption /h3> Let's give credit where credit's due. a href="https:

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Apr 24, 2025
Scientists continue to push the boundaries of lunar exploration with new strategies to identify and map ice deposits on the Moon. Ice could play a vital role in supporting future human activity on the lunar surface, providing life support resources and fuel ingredients. At the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, researchers are leading two pioneering investigations to enhance our understanding of wh

Sydney (AFP) April 28, 2025
New Zealand said Monday it will crack down on foreign adversaries trying to covertly track space and satellite activity from within its territory. The country's intelligence service revealed last year that foreign entities had sought to establish space infrastructure in New Zealand that was supposedly for civilian research. In each case, they had "deliberately hidden" the full capabiliti

Beijing (AFP) April 30, 2025
Three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth on Wednesday after six months on the country's space station, state media footage showed, as Beijing advances towards its aim to become a major celestial power. China has ploughed billions of dollars into its space programme in recent years in an effort to achieve what President Xi Jinping describes as the country's "space dream". The world's se

East Lansing MI (SPX) Apr 30, 2025
For decades, scientists believed Vesta, one of the largest objects in our solar system's asteroid belt, wasn't just an asteroid. They concluded that Vesta has a crust, mantle and core - fundamental properties of a planet. Astronomers studied it for clues to how early planets grew, and what Earth might have looked like in its infancy. Now, Michigan State University has contributed to

Cape Canaveral (AFP) April 28, 2025
Amazon on Monday launched its first batch of Project Kuiper internet satellites, marking the start of its push to rival Elon Musk's Starlink. The mission, called Kuiper Atlas 1, lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 7:00 pm local time (2300 GMT), aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket that will carry 27 satellites into orbit. A previous attempt wa

San Antonio TX (SPX) Apr 30, 2025
The NASA New Horizons spacecraft's extensive observations of Lyman-alpha emissions have resulted in the first-ever map from the galaxy at this important ultraviolet wavelength, providing a new look at the galactic region surrounding our solar system. The findings are described in a new study authored by the SwRI-led New Horizons team. "Understanding the Lyman-alpha background helps shed li

The Atomic Clock Ensemble in Space (ACES), ESA’s state-of-the-art timekeeping facility, has been successfully installed on the International Space Station, marking the start of a new chapter in space-based precision science.