Copernical Team
BepiColombo’s first tastes of Mercury science
The magnetic and particle environment around Mercury was sampled by BepiColombo for the first time during the mission’s close flyby of the planet at 199 km on 1-2 October 2021, while the huge gravitational pull of the planet was felt by its accelerometers.
The magnetic and accelerometer data have been converted into sound files and presented here for the first time. They capture the ‘sound’ of the solar wind as it bombards a planet close to the Sun, the flexing of the spacecraft as it responded to the change in temperature as it flew from the night to dayside of the planet,
Macron announces 30-billion-euro plan to re-industrialise France
President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday announced a plan worth 30 billion euros ($35 billion) to re-industrialise France on the basis of innovative and green-friendly technologies including electric cars, hydrogen fuel and efficient nuclear plants.
Six months before a presidential election and one month ahead of a UN climate summit, Macron said France had taken key decisions "15-20 years later SpaceX will debut new Dragon capsule for upcoming crew launch
SpaceX will debut a new Crew Dragon capsule, the company's third to carry astronauts, for the Crew 3 mission to the International Space Station on Oct. 30, Elon Musk's company said Wednesday.
"Crew 3 will be flying on a new Dragon spacecraft and it's really exciting to introduce another Crew Dragon to our fleet," Sarah Walker, SpaceX director of Dragon mission management, said in a news Blue Origin launches William Shatner, TV's Captain Kirk, into space and back
Star Trek actor William Shatner went boldly into space Wednesday morning and returned safely with three crew members aboard a Blue Origin capsule launched from West Texas.
Shatner, 90, becomes the oldest person ever to reach space. The New Shepard rocket that carried the crew lifted off into a mostly sunny sky at 10:50 a.m. EDT from the company's Launch Site One about 160 miles east of NASA, ULA pursue precision launch for Lucy asteroid mission
NASA has worked years to build a spacecraft to examine eight asteroids for clues about the origins of the solar system, and now the agency has a three-week period to launch starting this weekend.
The launch period will begin the earliest possible attempt at 5:34 a.m. EDT Saturday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
The launch is to send the $981 million mission on China to launch latest crewed space mission Saturday morning
China will send three astronauts to its new space station this week, officials confirmed Thursday, in what will be Beijing's longest crewed mission to date.
The three will blast off at 12:23 a.m. on Saturday from the launch centre in northwestern China's Gobi desert, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said at a press conference Thursday.
They will spend six months at the Tiangong space Hubble finds evidence of persistent water vapor in one hemisphere of Europa
Lucy in the sky: Spacecraft will visit record 8 asteroids
Attention asteroid aficionados: NASA is set to launch a series of spacecraft to visit and even bash some of the solar system's most enticing space rocks.
The robotic trailblazer named Lucy is up first, blasting off this weekend on a 12-year cruise to swarms of asteroids out near Jupiter—unexplored time capsules from the dawn of the solar system. And yes, there will be diamonds in the sky with Lucy, on one of its science instruments, as well as lyrics from other Beatles' songs.
Japanese billionaire Maezawa 'not afraid' ahead of ISS launch
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa said Thursday he had no fear ahead of his "dream-come-true" launch to the International Space Station (ISS), a Russian project aimed at boosting its space tourism credentials.
The mission is one of several this year by non-professional astronauts, including 90-year-old "Star Trek" actor William Shatner who on Wednesday completed a space flight on board a Blue Origin rocket.
Maezawa, 45, is the founder of Japan's largest online fashion mall and the country's 30th richest man, according to Forbes.
"I've got a list of one hundred things I want to do on the station like play badminton," Maezawa said at a news conference on Thursday.
"The closer it gets the more excited I get. I'm not afraid or worried," he said.
Maezawa and his assistant are set to blast off from the Russia-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in December, accompanied by Russia cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin.
Russian Soyuz rocket launches 36 new UK satellites
A Russian Soyuz rocket on Thursday blasted into space carrying 36 new satellites from British operator OneWeb, which aims to provide broadband internet everywhere in the world.
The rocket, operated by Europe's Arianespace, took off at 0940 GMT from the Vostochny cosmodrome in Russia's Far East, broadcast live by the country's Roscosmos space agency.
"LIFTOFF!" Roscosmos tweeted after the launch—the seventh this year carrying OneWeb satellites.
OneWeb, a London-headquartered company, is working to complete the construction of a constellation of low earth orbit satellites providing enhanced broadband and other services to countries around the world.
The company is competing in the race to provide fast internet for the world's remote areas via satellites along with tech billionaire Elon Musk and fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos of Amazon.
The UK company plans for its global commercial internet service to be operational by next year, supported by some 650 satellites.
Arianespace, which has worked with Russia for close to two decades, is under contract to make 16 Soyuz launches between December 2020 and the end of 2022.
With this latest mission, a total of 358 satellites are now in orbit for the constellation, Roscosmos said.
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