Copernical Team
ready to fly,' as SpaceX prepares for fourth test launch in Texas
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SpaceX is gearing up to launch Starship's fourth test flight just after sunrise Thursday from Texas, two days after the Federal Aviation Administration gave the mega rocket a license to fly.
"The FAA has approved a license authorization for SpaceX Starship Flight 4," the agency said in a statement Tuesday. "SpaceX met all safety and other licensing requirements for this test flight." ESA Instrument Detects Negative Ions on the Moon
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The first ESA instrument to land on the Moon has detected the presence of negative ions on the lunar surface produced through interactions with the solar wind.
The European team working with the Negative Ions at the Lunar Surface (NILS) instrument confirmed the success of this scientific mission that flew to the far side of the Moon aboard the Chang'e-6 spacecraft.
The discovery of a Chang'e 6 Mission Sets New Standards in Lunar Sample Return
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China's Chang'e 6 mission has focused global attention on its methodical approach to lunar exploration. The mission aims to return samples from the Moon's far side, emphasizing engineering precision and strategic planning.
After landing in the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin, Chang'e 6 gathered about 2 kilograms of lunar material from the surface and up to 2 meters below ground. These sample Olivine Insights Reveal Moon's Interior Secrets
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Olivine is the earliest mineral to crystallize from basaltic magma. Accurate knowledge of olivine/melt partition coefficients (DOl-melt) for first-transition row elements (FTREs) Ga and Ge is crucial in modeling petrogenetic processes in planetary basalts.
Many studies have focused on this topic, often concentrating on minor elements in olivine. These exper Artemis III Integrated Test Achieves Major Milestone
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Axiom Space astronaut Peggy Whitson and NASA astronaut Douglas Wheelock conducted integrated testing in Axiom Space's new spacesuit for NASA's Artemis campaign, aimed at returning astronauts to the Moon by September 2026. This test was the first to involve Artemis III partners - NASA, SpaceX, and Axiom Space - in a pressurized simulation since the Apollo era.
NASA, Axiom Space, and SpaceX, Russian cosmonaut logs record 1,000th day in space
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Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko on Wednesday literally set an out-of-this-world record when he became the first human to spend a total of 1,000 days in space.
"Today, at 00:00:20 Moscow time, Roscosmos state corporation cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, who currently works at the International Space Station, has booked a record of 1,000 days for the first time in the world in terms of total sp World's most powerful rocket Starship set for next launch
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Starship, SpaceX's massive prototype rocket that may one day send humans to Mars, is poised for its next flight on Thursday.
It will be the fourth test for the most powerful launch system ever built, vital to NASA's plans for landing astronauts on the Moon later this decade and to SpaceX CEO's Elon Musk's hopes of one day colonizing the Red Planet.
A two-hour liftoff window from the comp NASA has a new database to predict meteoroid hazards for spaceflight
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There are plenty of problems that spacecraft designers have to consider. Getting smacked in the sensitive parts by a rock is just one of them, but it is a very important one.
A micrometeoroid hitting the wrong part of the spacecraft could jeopardize an entire mission, and the years of work it took to get to the point where the mission was actually in space in the first place.
But even if the engineers who design spacecraft know about this risk, how is it best to avoid them? A new programming library from research at NASA could help.
Admittedly, engineers already have a tool for this purpose. NASA's Meteoroid Engineering Model (MEM) allows them to plug in a planned trajectory for their spacecraft and receive an output that defines where and from which direction they are likely to encounter micrometeoroids.
NASA astronauts practice next giant leap for Artemis
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The physics remain the same, but the rockets, spacecraft, landers, and spacesuits are new as NASA and its industry partners prepare for Artemis astronauts to walk on the moon for the first time since 1972.
NASA astronaut Doug "Wheels" Wheelock and Axiom Space astronaut Peggy Whitson put on spacesuits, developed by Axiom Space, to interact with and evaluate full-scale developmental hardware of SpaceX's Starship HLS (Human Landing System) that will be used for landing humans on the moon under Artemis. The test, conducted April 30, marked the first time astronauts in pressurized spacesuits interacted with a test version of Starship HLS hardware.
What to know about Boeing's first spaceflight carrying NASA astronauts
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