Pasadena CA (SPX) Feb 21, 2025
Soon, a new cone-shaped spacecraft will launch into space on a mission to chart the skies like never before. Called SPHEREx (for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer), the NASA mission will provide a unique all-sky 3D map of hundreds of millions of galaxies in our universe. Among several big questions the mission is poised to answer is how o

Sydney, Australia (SPX) Feb 21, 2025
A team of Chinese scientists has linked the unexpected movement of a boulder on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko to a process known as the "rocket effect." This phenomenon, triggered by the uneven sublimation of volatile ice within the boulder, was observed by the European Space Agency's (ESA) Rosetta spacecraft during its mission between 2014 and 2016. The study, recently published in *The

London, UK (SPX) Feb 21, 2025
Heriot-Watt University has joined forces with a multi-agency consortium to pioneer a next-generation satellite user terminal aimed at expanding global connectivity. The initiative, backed by a Pounds 6 million grant from the UK Space Agency's Connectivity in Low Earth Orbit (C-LEO) programme, seeks to develop an innovative, flexible, and cost-effective solution. Spearheaded by Cardiff-bas

Washington (AFP) Feb 20, 2025
The world's richest man Elon Musk got into a heated row Thursday with a Danish astronaut who criticized the tech billionaire's claim that former president Joe Biden intentionally abandoned two American astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Andreas "Andy" Mogensen had shared on X a Fox News clip featuring Musk and his boss, US President Donald Trump, where Musk claimed NASA's But

Washington (AFP) Feb 20, 2025
Is NASA still Moonbound, or will the next giant leap mean skipping straight to Mars? Speculation is mounting that the Trump administration may scale back or cancel NASA's Artemis missions following the departure of a key official and Boeing's decision to lay off hundreds of employees working on its lunar rocket. Late Wednesday, NASA abruptly announced the retirement of longtime associate

Image: This Copernicus Sentinel-1 radar image shows Tokyo and its metropolitan area, the largest urban agglomeration in the world.

The European Space Agency (ESA) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have signed a Memorandum of Intent (MoI) to harness space technology for humanitarian assistance worldwide. The partnership will combine ESA's space expertise with ICRC's humanitarian reach to develop space-enabled solutions that can help protect and assist communities affected by disasters and conflicts across Europe and beyond.

Week in images: 17-21 February 2025

Discover our week through the lens

The second of the Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) satellites and the first instrument for the Copernicus Sentinel-4 mission are fully integrated and, having completed their functional and environmental tests, they are now ready to embark on their journey to the US for launch this summer.

Space missions require high-performance, reliable and adaptable computing solutions that can operate in extreme conditions. An innovative project by YosysHQ and funded through ESA's Discovery element seeks to develop an open-source toolchain to work with a space-grade, radiation-hardened Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) architecture.