Copernical Team
Major space station components cleared for operations
Three major components of China's space station program have passed technical and quality assessments and are ready for upcoming missions, according to the China Manned Space Agency.
Experts from the agency, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp reviewed the design, construction and test reports on the space station's Tianhe core module, the Tianzh Leaf Space reaches 10 million euro funding
Leaf Space, the Italian ground segment as-a-service company focused on microsatellites, announced it has completed its Series A financing round of 5 million euro, bringing its total funding to 10 million euro. A contribution of 2 million euro came from Primo Space, the investment fund of Primomiglio SGR focused on investments in highly innovative companies in the space industry. The other 3 mill OneWeb secures investment from Softbank and Hughes Network Systems
OneWeb, the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite communications company jointly owned by the UK Government and Bharti Global, has secured additional funding from SoftBank Group Corp. ("SoftBank") and Hughes Network Systems LLC ("Hughes"), bringing OneWeb's total funding to $1.4 billion. The capital raised to date positions the Company to be fully funded for its first-generation satellite fleet, total Teams crack code, qualify for final stage of NASA Space Robotics
NASA, in partnership with Space Center Houston - the official visitor center of NASA's Johnson Space Center- has selected 22 qualifying teams to compete in the competition round of Phase 2 of the Space Robotics Challenge. Eligible teams will advance to the final virtual competition round, which will begin in late January.
Phase 2 of the Space Robotics Challenge, a NASA Centennial Challenge Could we harness energy from black holes
A remarkable prediction of Einstein's theory of general relativity - the theory that connects space, time, and gravity - is that rotating black holes have enormous amounts of energy available to be tapped.
For the last 50 years, scientists have tried to come up with methods to unleash this power. Nobel physicist Roger Penrose theorized that a particle disintegration could draw energy from Earth Observation data could represent a billion-dollar opportunity for Africa
Earth Observation [EO] data provides a billion-dollar opportunity for economies on the African continent, one that could create jobs and build new resilience after COVID-19.
The newly released report Unlocking the Potential of Earth Observation to address Africa's critical challenges lays out the multiple economic benefits from EO data. The report was written in collaboration with Digital Virgin Orbit targets Sunday for LauncherOne mission from California
Virgin Orbit plans to try again Sunday to send 10 small science satellites for NASA and several universities into orbit using a rocket launched over the Pacific Ocean.
The mission is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. PST when Virgin's Cosmic Girl aircraft, a modified Boeing 747, takes off from Mojave Air and Space Port 90 miles north of Los Angeles. The plane carries the LauncherOne rocket NASA's moon rocket roars to life during shortened test-firing
NASA's plan to test its new moon rocket fell short of a scheduled eight-minute test-firing Saturday in Mississippi as the engines were shut down at just over a minute into the test.
The 212-foot-high core stage of the rocket roared to life at 5:27 p.m. at the John C. Stennis Space Center. The test created huge clouds of steam as 300 gallons of water per minute cooled the test stand to prev Metal Fuels. We research. You benefit.
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Did you know that in microgravity we are preparing one of the most promising fuels for the future?
Microgravity is helping to find answers and models to refine the processes needed to efficiently burn solid fuel like iron dust. Are we witnessing the raise of a new "Iron Age"? Could we use metal powders instead of petrol to fuel our cars?
Solid fuels are used for burning a match, lighting a sparkler on New Year's Eve as well as the fuel inside the boosters of Ariane and of other rockets. But metals such as iron can also burn, in
Mars is still an active world—here's a landslide in Nili Fossae
Since the 1960s and '70s, scientists have come to view Mars as something of a "dead planet." As the first close-up images from orbit and the surface came in, previous speculation about canals, water and a Martian civilization were dispelled. Subsequent studies also revealed that the geological activity that created features like the Tharsis Mons region (especially Olympus Mons) and Valles Marineris had ceased long ago.
However, in the past few decades, robotic missions have found ample evidence that Mars is still an active place. A recent indication was an image taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which showed relatively fresh landslides in a crater near Nili Fossae. This area is part of the Syrtis Major region and is located just north of the Jezero Crater (where the Perseverance rover will be landing in six weeks).
The landslide was captured as a part of a larger image acquired by the MRO's Context Camera (CTX) on September 21, 2018.
