Huntsville AL (SPX) Feb 05, 2021
Student Launch, one of NASA's Artemis Student Challenges, is an annual competition that typically culminates each April with a gathering of teams for a weekend of rocket launches and celebration. This year, in an effort to comply with federal guidance and help restrict the spread of COVID-19, these events will be modified to take place locally to each team or virtually. A virtual awards ce

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Feb 04, 2021
Using ground, airborne, and satellite data, a diverse team of international researchers - including NASA scientists - has created a new method to assess how the changes in forests over the past two decades have impacted carbon concentrations in the atmosphere. In addition to better understanding the overall role of forests in the global carbon cycle, the scientists were also able to distin

Herndon VA (SPX) Feb 05, 2021
ST Engineering iDirect, a global leader in satellite communications, has been awarded a contract by system integrator Shaf Broadcast, Pvt. Ltd, on behalf of Indian state-owned telecommunications company, BSNL, to augment satellite bandwidth to the offshore Indian islands of Andaman, Nicobar and Lakshadweep under a Universal Service Obligation (USO) project funded by the Department of Telecommuni

Alameda CA (SPX) Feb 05, 2021
Astra, the fastest privately-funded company in history to demonstrate orbital launch capability, and Holicity Inc. (NASDAQ: HOL) ("Holicity"), a special purpose acquisition company ("SPAC"), has announced a definitive business combination agreement that will result in Astra becoming a publicly-traded company. The transaction reflects an implied pro forma enterprise value for Astra of appro

Dubai (AFP) Feb 7, 2021
When Sarah al-Amiri was a child growing up in Abu Dhabi with a fascination for space, her young country seemed light years away from reaching for the stars. Now the 34-year-old is a government minister and one of the drivers of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ambitious project behind the "Hope" probe that is due to reach the orbit of Mars on Tuesday. As a youngster poring over images of f

Dubai (AFP) Feb 7, 2021
The first Arab space mission, the UAE's "Hope" probe, is expected to reach Mars' orbit on Tuesday, making it the first of three spacecraft to arrive at the Red Planet this month. The United Arab Emirates, China and the United States all launched projects to Mars last July, taking advantage of a period when the Earth and Mars are nearest. If succesful, the wealthy Gulf state will become t

Washington DC (SPX) Feb 08, 2021
By analyzing sediments jostled by ground shaking, researchers have shown that two impact craters near Stuttgart were created by independent asteroid impacts rather than a binary asteroid strike. A Gothic church rises high above the medieval town of Nordlingen, Germany. But unlike most churches, St. George's is composed of a very special type of rock: suevite, a coarse-grained breccia that'

Sydney, Australia (SPX) Feb 08, 2021
Astronomers have for the first time used distant galaxies as 'scintillating pins' to locate and identify a piece of the Milky Way's missing matter. For decades, scientists have been puzzled as to why they couldn't account for all the matter in the universe as predicted by theory. While most of the universe's mass is thought to be mysterious dark matter and dark energy, 5 percent is 'normal

Charlottesville VA (SPX) Feb 08, 2021
When most of us picture the shape of the Milky Way, the galaxy that contains our own sun and hundreds of billions of other stars, we think of a central mass surrounded by a flat disc of stars that spiral around it. However, astronomers know that rather than being symmetrical, the disc structure is warped, more like the brim of a fedora, and that the warped edges are constantly moving around the

Moscow (Sputnik) Feb 08, 2021
On Sunday, US astronauts living aboard the ISS orbital outpost will break the record for most days in space by a crew launched aboard an American spacecraft, NASA said. "They will surpass the record of 84 days set by the Skylab 4 crew on Feb. 8, 1974", NASA said. The Skylab 4 crew, with NASA astronauts Gerald Carr, Edward Gibson, and William Pogue, docked their Apollo spacecraft to t