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Small, harmless asteroid burns up in Earth's atmosphere over the Philippines
In this photo grabbed from a video, a space rock dubbed 2024 RW1 is seen over Progressive village, Gonzaga, Cagayan province, Philippines, early Thursday September 5, 2024. Credit: Allan G. Madelar via AP

A small asteroid discovered on Wednesday harmlessly burned up in Earth's atmosphere the same day, NASA said.

The asteroid—about 3 feet (1 meter) across—was spotted by astronomers in Arizona and broke apart over the coast of the Philippines hours after the discovery.

This , dubbed 2024 RW1, is only the ninth to have been spotted before its impact. Asteroids around this size hurtle toward Earth about every two weeks without posing any danger.

The asteroid was discovered through the Catalina Sky Survey, which is run by the University of Arizona and funded by NASA.

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Blue Origin
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Blue Origin has only 40 days to go to be ready for its first launch of its heavy lift New Glenn rocket, but has a lot of boxes to tick before liftoff.

That includes a test fire in the coming days of the rocket's second stage, which the company rolled out to the pad Tuesday at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's Launch Complex 36.

Jeff Bezos' rocket company is targeting Oct. 13 for liftoff of NG-1, a mission to send a pair of satellites built by fellow rocket company RocketLab on a mission for NASA to Mars called ESCAPADE, which stands for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers.

"We're looking forward to firing up those two BE-3Us on New Glenn's second stage in a few days," the company posted on X after the hardware's trip to the pad.

When it launches, the second stage and its engines will be tasked with deploying the twin ESCAPADE spacecraft on an 11-month trip to the Red Planet where they will study Mars' plasma and magnetic fields.

The launch, though, will be the culmination of years of development for New Glenn, which is constructed at Blue Origin's nearby factory on Merritt Island.

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Outer solar system more populated than previously thought
The Subaru Telescope (left) and New Horizons spacecraft (right). Credit: NAOJ/Southwest Research Institute

Survey observations using the Subaru Telescope's ultra-widefield prime focus camera have revealed that there may be a population of small bodies further out in the Kuiper Belt waiting to be discovered.

The results, which are important for an understanding of the formation of the solar system, were obtained through an between the Subaru Telescope and the New Horizons spacecraft traveling through the .

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft was launched in 2006 with the critical mission of observing the surfaces of outer solar system bodies up close for the first time in human history; it successfully completed a flyby of the Pluto system in 2015, and in 2019 it made a flyby of one of the Kuiper Belt objects, (486958) Arrokoth.

There have been five spacecraft that have flown to the outer solar system (including New Horizons), but New Horizons is the only spacecraft that has flown through the Kuiper Belt while observing Kuiper Belt objects.

Thursday, 05 September 2024 15:14

Gateway's propulsion system testing throttles up

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Gateway's propulsion system testing throttles up
Credit: NASA

The powerhouse of Gateway, NASA's orbiting outpost around the moon and a critical piece of infrastructure for Artemis, is in the midst of several electric propulsion system tests.

The Power and Propulsion Element (PPE), being manufactured by Maxar Technologies, provides Gateway with power, high-rate communications, and for maneuvers around the moon and to transit between different orbits.

The PPE will be combined with the Habitation and Logistic Outpost (HALO) before the integrated spacecraft's launch, targeted for late 2024 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy. Together, these elements will serve as the hub for early Gateway crewed operations and various science and technology demonstrations as the full Gateway station is assembled around it in the coming years.

In this image, PPE engineers successfully tested the integration of Aerojet Rocketdyne's with Maxar's power procession unit and Xenon Flow Controller.

Provided by NASA

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Artemis IV: Gateway gadget fuels deep space dining
A prototype of the Mini Potable Water Dispenser, currently in development at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, is displayed alongside various food pouches during a demonstration at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Credit: NASA/David DeHoyos

NASA engineers are working hard to ensure no astronaut goes hungry on the Artemis IV mission.

When international teams of astronauts live on Gateway, humanity's first space station to orbit the moon, they'll need innovative gadgets like the Mini Potable Water Dispenser.

Vaguely resembling a toy water soaker, it manually dispenses water for hygiene bags, to rehydrate food, or simply to drink. It is designed to be compact, lightweight, portable and manual, making it ideal for Gateway's relatively and compared to the International Space Station closer to Earth.

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A review of humanity's planned expansion between the earth and the moon
Artist's impression of astronauts on the lunar surface, as part of the Artemis Program. Credit: NASA

Between low Earth orbit and the moon, there is a region of space measuring 384,400 km (238,855 mi) wide known as Cislunar space. In the coming decades, multiple space agencies will send missions to this region to support the development of infrastructure that will lead to a permanent human presence on the moon.

This includes orbital and surface habitats, landing pads, surface vehicles, technologies for in-situ resource utilization (ISRU), and other elements that will enable the long-term exploration and development of the lunar surface.

For all parties concerned, Cislunar space holds immense potential in terms of scientific, commercial, and military applications. The vastly increased level of activity on and around the moon makes space domain awareness (SDA)—knowledge of all operations within a region of space—paramount.

It is also necessary to ensure the continued success and utilization of the covered region.

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U.S. Air Force, Johns Hopkins APL Hypersonic Experiment Soars and Collects Vital Data
Launched from Norway, the BOLT-1B experiment collected data about boundary layer transition (the flow of air around the skin of a hypersonic vehicle), which increases hypersonic vehicle drag and aerodynamic heating. That data will be used by researchers to validate new and more accurate modeling and prediction methods during the design of hypersonic vehicles. Credit: Johns Hopkins APL

The Boundary Layer Transition 1B (BOLT-1B) experiment, a joint research project of the U.S.

Thursday, 05 September 2024 19:41

Managing space debris through space law

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Managing space debris through space law
Credit: NASA

It's becoming increasingly crowded in the orbits around Earth that are popular for space travel. And that's not just due to satellites—there's also more waste material, which is compromising safety. Ph.D. candidate Zhuang Tian is conducting research into the legal aspects of discarded space equipment. Whoever leaves debris behind should take responsibility and clean it up.

In the near future, probes with robotic arms will be hovering in orbit. The arms will have four metal tentacles spread out like a spider's legs, ready to catch a discarded satellite where the probes maneuver minutely. It's one of the techniques the company ClearSpace is currently simulating—only on Earth for the time being.

Active debris removal

With his specialization in , legal expert Zhuang Tian is following these developments closely. He will shortly be defending his Ph.D. thesis on the legal aspects of disposal. The specific focus of his research is how companies like ClearSpace and the Japanese company Astroscale are planning on actively removing debris, because there is another option: space equipment that removes itself after use by burning into the atmosphere.

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Boeing's beleaguered space capsule is heading back to Earth without two NASA astronauts
This photo provided by NASA shows Boeing's Starliner spacecraft which launched astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station docked to the Harmony module's forward port on July 3, 2024, seen from a window on the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft docked to the adjacent port. Credit: NASA via AP

After months of turmoil over its safety, Boeing's new astronaut capsule is set to depart the International Space Station on Friday without its crew.

Friday, 06 September 2024 16:39

Video: Mars rover trials

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Video: Mars rover trials
Codi overcoming a slope in rocky terrain. Credit: Airbus

Rover trials in a quarry in the U.K. showing a four-wheeled rover, known as Codi, using its robotic arm and a powerful computer vision system to pick up sample tubes.

The rover drives to the samples with an accuracy of 10 cm, constantly mapping the terrain. Codi uses its arm and four cameras to locate the sample tube, retrieve it and safely store it on the rover—all of it without .

At every stop, the rover uses stereo cameras to build up a 180-degree map of the surroundings and plan its next maneuvers. Once parked, the camera on top of the mast detects the tube and estimates its position with respect to the rover. The initiates a complex choreography to move closer to the sample, fetch it and store it.

The sample tubes are a replica of the hermetically sealed samples inside which NASA's Perseverance rover is collecting precious Martian soil inside. To most people on Earth, they resemble lightsabers.

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