ESA has successfully operated a spacecraft with Europe’s next-generation mission control system for the first time. The powerful software, named the 'European Ground System - Common Core' (EGS-CC), will be the ‘brain’ of all European spaceflight operations in the years to come, and promises new possibilities for how future missions will fly.

Follow the launch on 30 July of a sophisticated telecommunications satellite capable of being completely repurposed while in space.

Corvallis OR (SPX) Jul 28, 2021
Twenty months after declaring a climate emergency and establishing a set of vital signs for the Earth, a coalition headed by two Oregon State University researchers says the updated vital signs "largely reflect the consequences of unrelenting business as usual." Authors led by OSU's William Ripple and Christopher Wolf, in a paper published in BioScience, are calling for a phase-out of foss

London, UK (SPX) Jul 28, 2021
Just over a week after Richard Branson flew to the edge of space, fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos set-off on his own high-stakes trip onboard Blue Origin's Shepard Rocket. The trip was a success, with Bezos going down in history for taking part in the first unpiloted flight with a civilian crew. With the flight including the youngest and oldest people to fly to space, the trip surpassed many

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jul 28, 2021
The ability to transmit and receive data is crucial in space exploration. Spacecraft need robust networking capabilities to send data - including large files like photos and videos - captured by onboard instruments to Earth as well as simultaneously receiving commands from control centers. NASA has made significant strides to improve the agency's space communications capabilities while simultane

Washington DC (SPX) Jul 27, 2021
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency, in cooperation with the U.S. Navy, conducted Flight Test Aegis Weapon System 33 in the broad ocean area northwest of Hawaii, July 24. The objective of FTM-33 was to intercept a raid of two Short Range Ballistic Missile targets with four Standard Missile-6 Dual II missiles. Based on initial observations, one target was successfully intercepted. At this

Washington DC (SPX) Jul 28, 2021
the Department of Energy's Office of Science (SC) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced $9.35 million for 21 research projects in High-Energy Density Laboratory Plasmas (HEDLP). High-Energy Density Laboratory Plasmas (HEDLP) research explores the behavior of ionized matter at extreme conditions such as high temperature, density, or pressure. Researchers apply th

Bremen, Germany (SPX) Jul 28, 2021
Extremely fast, energy-efficient, fail-safe - and extremely complex: The German government is funding research on the next generation 6G wireless systems with up to 250 million euros. University of Bremen experts play a key role in this research. 6G technology will revolutionize the wireless high-performance data technology and our communication systems once again in the coming decade. "It

San Antonio TX (SPX) Jul 28, 2021
On July 23, 2021, the Polarimeter to UNify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission achieved an important milestone, passing its latest NASA review and entering the final mission design phase with a new launch-readiness target of October 2023. Southwest Research Institute is leading PUNCH, a NASA Small Explorer (SMEX) mission that will integrate understanding of the Sun's corona, the outer atm

Cambridge UK (SPX) Jul 28, 2021
Astronomers have developed the most realistic model to date of planet formation in binary star systems. The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and the Max Planck Institute for Extra-terrestrial Physics, have shown how exoplanets in binary star systems - such as the 'Tatooine' planets spotted by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope - came into being without being destroyed in their chao