Copernical Team
Week in images: 01 - 05 March 2021
Week in images: 01 - 05 March 2021
Discover our week through the lens
Mining water and metal from the moon at the same time
In-situ resource utilization (ISRU) is becoming an increasingly popular topic as space exploration begins to focus on landing on the surface of other bodies in the solar system. ISRU focuses on making things that are needed to support an exploration mission out of materials that are easily accessible at the site being explored, like European explorers in the New World building canoes out of the wood they found there.
Recently NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) has started looking more closely at a variety of ISRU projects as part of their Phase I Fellows program. One of the projects selected, led by Amelia Grieg at the University of Texas, El Paso, is a mining technique that would allow explorers to dig up water, metal and other useful materials, all at the same time.
Most ISRU schemes focus on using water, as it important for many exploration efforts. However, those schemes usually discard the rest of the material that is gathered in an effort to collect the water.
Spacewalking astronauts tackle more solar panel advance work
For the second time this week, a pair of astronauts floated outside Friday to get the International Space Station ready for new solar panels.
Earth from Space: Galápagos Islands
The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over the Galápagos Islands – a volcanic archipelago situated some 1000 km west of Ecuador in the Pacific Ocean.
Space doctors in the virtual house
ESA’s first online space physicians training course took place from 21–22 January 2021, attracting over 50 participants from across Europe and the world.
Marshall Spinoffs increase 3D printing capabilities, tackle foot odor
Newly reported NASA Marshall Space Flight Center spinoffs offer an unlikely pair of benefits for space and commercial applications. An insert made from space-age material helps reduce pungent shoe odors, and an advanced 3D printer enables printing of electronics on demand. The technologies are featured in the latest edition of NASA's Spinoff publication, released December 2020.
"Technologi NASA Aeropods win industry recognition
Aerodynamically stable and designed to hang from a kite string, Aeropods offer a low-cost, low-risk, opportunity for scientists and students to gather imagery and atmospheric data from an aerial perspective.
Geoff Bland, Research Engineer at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va. and his team won the Educational Institution and Federal Laboratory Partnership award in 2020 from Australian Space Consortium to Leverage Quantum-Based Technologies
Q-CTRL, a startup that applies the principles of control engineering to power quantum technology, has announced it will provide the first quantum sensing and navigation technologies for space exploration beginning with uncrewed lunar missions by the SEVEN SISTERS space industry consortium in Australia.
Commencing in 2023, the missions are designed to find accessible water and other resourc China's 1st reusable rocket on way, says expert
Designers at the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology have started developing the first reusable model in the nation's Long March carrier rocket family, said a senior rocket scientist.
Jiang Jie, an expert at the academy and a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said on Wednesday that research and development of the reusable variant of the Long March 8 rocket was proceeding we NASA updates ISS pricing to "Full Value" for Commercial Activities
NASA is laying the foundation for America to maintain a human presence in low-Earth orbit in which one day NASA will become one of many customers in a robust commercial marketplace. To realize that goal, NASA has opened the International Space Station (ISS) for business to enable commercial and marketing opportunities on the microgravity laboratory.
Since making these opportunities availab 
