Copernical Team
New View of Asteroid Ryugu's Surface
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Samples from the near-Earth asteroid (162173) Ryugu recently arrived at Earth, ready for laboratory analysis. In the meantime, ground-based measurements of Ryugu's surface are helping us to complete our picture of this nearby, rocky body.
In December 2020, the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2 completed a daring 6-year mission, successfully landing on near-Earth asteroid Ryugu and returning a Zhurong on course for historic journey
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If it touches down safely on the red planet and works as planned, the Tianwen 1 rover will be the sixth such vehicle deployed on Mars, following five predecessors launched by the United States.
If the semi-autonomous craft functions efficiently, it will work for at least three months and undertake comprehensive surveys of the planet.
The rover, recently named Zhurong after an ancient With goals met, NASA ready to push the envelope with Ingenuity Mars Helicopter
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Now that NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has accomplished the goal of achieving powered, controlled flight of an aircraft on the Red Planet, and with data from its most recent flight test, on April 25, the technology demonstration project has met or surpassed all of its technical objectives. The Ingenuity team now will push its performance envelope on Mars.
The fourth Ingenuity flight fro Spacecraft magnetic valve used to fill drinks
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A precision magnetic valve originally designed to help steer a lander down to a comet has found a surprise terrestrial use through ESA’s Technology Transfer and Patent Office: adding flavours to beverages within a few thousandths of a second per each can or bottle.
Vega’s first launch this year
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Liftoff of Vega from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana came at 02:50 BST on 29 April (03:50 CEST; 22:50 local time on 28 April) to deliver Pléiades Neo-3 and five auxiliary payloads into their respective orbits.
Vega liftoff on flight VV18
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Vega liftoff on flight VV18 Space tourism—20 years in the making—is finally ready for launch
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For most people, getting to the stars is nothing more than a dream. On April 28, 2001, Dennis Tito achieved that lifelong goal—but he wasn't a typical astronaut. Tito, a wealthy businessman, paid US$20 million for a seat on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to be the first tourist to visit the International Space Station. Only seven people have followed suit in the 20 years since, but that number is poised to double in the next 12 months alone.
Astronaut Michael Collins, Apollo 11 pilot, dead of cancer
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Scientists don spacesuits to explore Hawaiian lava tubes as if they were on Mars
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Imagine trying to pick up a pebble or scrape microbes off a cave wall in a bulky spacesuit with puffy gloves on, under a time constraint because you don't want to run out of oxygen. That's what the analog astronauts do daily at the HI-SEAS moonbase habitat in Hawaii as they prepare for future missions to the moon and Mars, says Michaela Musilova of the International MoonBase Alliance (IMA) and director of HI-SEAS, the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation.
Musilova will present the latest on her team's research on Hawaiian lava tubes, and the challenges of trying to do research in spacesuits, this week at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly 2021.
HI-SEAS is an analog lunar and Martian habitat and research station located high on the volcano Mauna Loa, on Hawaii's Big Island.
Setting sail for sustainable space
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Space is getting crowded. Old satellites, rocket bodies and fragments of both are leaving little space for new satellites to reside in that is free from debris.
The risk of collision with debris and even functioning satellites is increasing, especially in low-Earth orbit, putting many of Earth’s climate, ocean and land monitoring missions in harm’s way.
ESA is working alongside private business to clean up space by developing new missions and technologies that will remove debris from orbit. No space agency or business could solve the debris problem alone, but if it becomes