Copernical Team
Lunar Gateway will maintain its orbit with a 6 kW ion engine
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When NASA sends astronauts back to the moon as part of the Artemis Program, they will be taking the long view. Rather than being another "footprints and flags" program, the goal is to create a lasting infrastructure that will ensure a "sustained program of lunar exploration." A major element in this plan is the Lunar Gateway, an orbital habitat that astronauts will use to venture to and from the surface.
The first step in establishing the Gateway is the deployment of two critical modules—the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) and the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE). According to a recent update, NASA (along with Maxar Technologies and Busek Co.) recently completed a hot-fire test of the PPE propulsion subsystem—the first of many that will ensure that the PPE and HALO will be ready for launch by 2024.
This propulsion subsystem is a cluster of Hall effect thrusters (aka ion engines), which use electromagnetic fields to accelerate ionized gas through engine nozzles to generate thrust. In this case, the engine system is a 6-kilowatt solar electric propulsion (SEP) concept that incorporates Maxar-built electronics and a xenon feed system with four Busek-built BHT-600 thrusters.
Introducing ESA Agenda 2025
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ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher has worked with our Member States to define new priorities and goals for ESA for the coming years.
Agenda 2025 Media Briefing
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01:00:59
ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher spoke to journalists on 7 April 2021 to introduce ESA Agenda 2025, setting out ESA's strategic priorities and goals.
The long-term sustainability of space
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How do we tackle the debris problem, to secure the sustainability of space long term? Mapping North Carolina's ghost forests from 430 miles up
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Emily Ury remembers the first time she saw them. She was heading east from Columbia, North Carolina, on the flat, low-lying stretch of U.S. Highway 64 toward the Outer Banks. Sticking out of the marsh on one side of the road were not one but hundreds dead trees and stumps, the relic of a once-healthy forest that had been overrun by the inland creep of seawater.
"I was like, 'Whoa.' No leav 60 years after Gagarin, Russia lags in the space race
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A station on the moon! A mission to Venus! A next generation spacecraft!
Sixty years after the Soviet Union made history by launching Yuri Gagarin into space on April 12, 1961, Russia continues to have lofty extraterrestrial ambitions, but its ability to realise them is more down to earth.
Project after project has been announced and then delayed, as grand designs fall victim to funding From Sputnik-1 to Sputnik V: Russian scientific achievements
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Russia boasts a rich history of scientific invention across a wide variety of fields, from the Sputnik satellite to the coronavirus vaccine of the same name.
On the 60th anniversary of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becoming the first man in space, here are some of the country's most notable scientific and technological achievements:
- Sputnik satellite -
In one of the most significan In Russia, the legend of cosmonaut Gagarin lives on
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Sixty years after he became the first person in space, there are few figures more universally admired in Russia today than Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.
His smiling face adorns murals across the country. He stands, arms at his sides as if zooming into space, on a pedestal 42.5 metres (140 feet) above the traffic flowing on Moscow's Leninsky Avenue. He is even a favourite subject of tattoos. Origins of life could have started with DNA-like XNAs
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Nagoya University scientists in Japan have demonstrated how DNA-like molecules could have come together as a precursor to the origins of life. The findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, not only suggest how life might have begun, but also have implications for the development of artificial life and biotechnology applications.
"The RNA world is widely thought to be a stag Watch the Agenda 2025 media briefing
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Director General Josef Aschbacher will present ESA Agenda 2025 at 1400 CEST (1200 GMT) on Wednesday 7 April 2021. ESA Agenda 2025 is a vision for ESA’s future prepared in consultation with the ESA Member States. It sets out strategic priorities and goals for the Agency, such as strengthening the ESA–EU relationship, boosting green and digital commercialisation, developing space for safety and security, addressing critical programme challenges and implementing the ESA transformation.
Watch the presentation and questions from the media on ESA WebTV from 1400 CEST.