Copernical Team
Arianespace to serve OneWeb's ambitions with 36 more satellites to be launched
The next Arianespace mission is planned from Vostochny Cosmodrome with Soyuz on April 26, to deliver 36 satellites into orbit.
By operating this fifth flight on behalf of OneWeb, Arianespace will bring the total fleet to 182 satellites in Low Earth Orbit. Arianespace is proud to share in the fulfilment of its customer's ultimate ambition: providing internet access for everyone, everywhere. NASA Removes Rocket Core Stage for Artemis Moon Mission from Stennis Test Stand
Crews at NASA's Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, worked April 19-20 to remove the first flight core stage of the agency's Space Launch System rocket from the B-2 Test Stand in preparation for its transport to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Operations required crews to lift the core stage from its vertical placement in the stand and lower it to a horizontal position on the American Pacific invests in Frontier Aerospace
American Pacific Corporation, a leading manufacturer of propulsion related materials for the Aerospace, Space and Defense industries, announced today that it has made a minority investment in Frontier Aerospace, a leader in the space propulsion industry. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Frontier Aerospace marks American Pacific's first investment since being acquired by AE Indu Open Source on Mars: Community powers NASA's Ingenuity Helicopter
The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter departed Earth for its 293 million mile trip to Mars aboard the Perseverance Rover last July. However, Ingenuity's most important journey was only about 10 feet. That's the altitude the small helicopter hovered just above the surface of Mars, marking a major milestone for humanity: the launch was the first powered flight on another planet and proof that it's possibl Space physicist explains why a helicopter flew on Mars is a big deal
Yesterday at 9pm Australian Eastern standard time, the Ingenuity helicopter - which landed on Mars with the Perseverance rover in February - took off from the Martian surface. More importantly, it hovered for about 30 seconds, three metres above the surface and came right back down again.
It may not sound like a huge feat, but it is. Ingenuity's flight is the first powered flight of an air New warp research dashes light speed travel but reveals stranger possibilities
In 1994, physicist Miguel Alcubierre proposed a radical technology that would allow faster than light travel: the warp drive, a hypothetical way to skirt around the universe's ultimate speed limit by bending the fabric of reality.
It was an intriguing idea - even NASA has been researching it at the Eagleworks laboratory - but Alcubierre's proposal contained problems that seemed insurmounta NASA clears first reused SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule for astronaut launch
SpaceX and NASA plan to send four astronauts to the International Space Station on Thursday from Florida aboard the first reused Crew Dragon capsule to carry people.
Liftoff of the flight-proven spacecraft, Endeavour, and Falcon 9 rocket is planned for 6:11 a.m. EDT from Complex 39 at Kennedy Space Center. The space agency declared the mission "go for launch" after a launch readiness re Astronauts' mental health risks tested in the Antarctic
Astronauts who spend extended time in space face stressors such as isolation, confinement, lack of privacy, altered light-dark cycles, monotony and separation from family. Interestingly, so do people who work at international research stations in Antarctica, where the extreme environment is characterized by numerous stressors that mirror those present during long-duration space exploration.
To better understand the psychological hurdles faced by astronauts, University of Houston professor of psychology Candice Alfano and her team developed the Mental Health Checklist (MHCL), a self-reporting instrument for detecting mental health changes in isolated, confined, extreme (ICE) environments. The team used the MHCL to study psychological changes at two Antarctic stations. The findings are published in Acta Astronautica.
"We observed significant changes in psychological functioning, but patterns of change for specific aspects of mental health differed. The most marked alterations were observed for positive emotions such that we saw continuous declines from the start to the end of the mission, without evidence of a 'bounce-back effect' as participants were preparing to return home," reports Alfano.
Astronauts flying reused SpaceX rocket, capsule for 1st time
Mars: How Ingenuity helicopter made the first flight on another planet
Imagine that you are flying a model helicopter or a drone. You are there with the auto controls. You switch them on. The rotors start to turn, gradually increasing their spin. You watch, then push the control for lift. Your helicopter rises, hovers, then at the next command moves forward. Oops, it didn't go high enough. You quickly move the joystick and the drone rises to fly above the obstruction. Finally it's in the air, moving at speed above sand dunes, hills and valleys—sending back pictures as the landscape unfolds.
Now imagine that you are flying your drone on a planet 180 million kilometers away. It takes 20 minutes for your command to reach the planet—and the pictures you see of what is happening are 20 minutes old. You cannot take evasive or corrective action if anything goes wrong. If it went wrong, it would be too late. This is the type of situation that Nasa's engineers did not wish to experience on the maiden flight of the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars on April 19.
