Copernical Team
Mapping planet Earth for better positioning: ESA’s GENESIS mission
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ESA’s Navigation Directorate is planning a new satellite whose results will enable the generation of an updated global model of Earth – the International Terrestrial Reference Frame, employed for everything from land surveying to measuring sea level rise – with an accuracy down to 1 mm, while tracking ground motion of just 0.1 mm per year. This improvement, at a stroke, will have a major impact in multiple navigation and Earth science applications, including enhancing the precision of the Galileo navigation system. This mission, called GENESIS, is being proposed to ESA’s Council Meeting at Ministerial Level next
Iconic 'Pillars of Creation' captured in new Webb image
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The James Webb Space Telescope captured the iconic "Pillars of Creation," huge structures of gas and dust teeming with stars, NASA said Wednesday, and the image is as majestic as one could hope.
The twinkling of thousands of stars illuminates the telescope's first shot of the gigantic gold, copper and brown columns standing in the midst of the cosmos.
Press Briefing on Ariane 6 progress and preparation
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Press briefing on Ariane 6 progress at ESA Bertrand HQ, 19 October 2022: (l-r at front) Stéphane Israël (Arianespace Chief Executive), André-Hubert Roussel (ArianeGroup Chief Executive), Philippe Baptiste (CNES Chairman and Chief Executive), Joseph Aschbacher (ESA Director General), Daniel Neuenschwander (ESA Director of Space Transportation Systems)
Ariane 6 first flight planned for fourth quarter of 2023
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Ariane 6, the new heavy-lift launch system being developed by the European Space Agency, will make its inaugural flight as soon as the fourth quarter of 2023. Briefing media gathered at ESA’s Paris Bertrand headquarters on 19 October, Director General Joseph Aschbacher said sufficient progress had been made over the past several months to anticipate a Q4 2023 first flight, pending the realization of three key milestones before April next year.
International Space Station experiments reveal risks for future human space flights
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An international team of researchers has conducted a long-term experiment aboard the International Space Station to test the effect of space radiation on mouse embryonic stem cells. Their findings will contribute to helping scientists better assess the safety and risks related to space radiation for future human space flights.
The team published their findings in the journal Heliyon on August 18, 2022.
In their study, the team performed a direct quantitative measurement of the biological effect of space radiation by launching frozen mouse embryonic stem cells from the ground to the International Space Station, exposing them to space radiation for over four years, and quantifying the biological effect by examining chromosome aberrations.
Algae could be instrumental in making human exploration of Mars possible
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While the world is marveling over the first images and data now coming from NASA's Perseverance rover mission seeking signs of ancient microscopic life on Mars, a team of UNLV scientists is already hard at work on the next step: What if we could one day send humans to the Red Planet?
There's a lot to consider when sending people, though.
Zoom into Webb’s view of the Pillars of Creation
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The Pillars of Creation are set off in a kaleidoscope of colour in the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s near-infrared-light view. The pillars look like arches and spires rising out of a desert landscape, but are filled with semi-transparent gas and dust, and ever changing. This is a region where young stars are forming – or have barely burst from their dusty cocoons as they continue to form.
Protostars are the scene-stealers in this Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) image. These are the bright red orbs that sometimes appear with eight diffraction spikes. When knots with sufficient mass form
Treemetrics signs 1.2M euro contract with ESA
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Treemetrics, a global leader in forestry management software, has signed a contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) valued at euro 1.2 million. Under the two-year contract, Treemetrics will be utilising satellite imaging, data analytics and its advanced forest measurement technology to provide more accurate forest carbon credit estimates.
The global demand for forest carbon credits i Chinese satellite in-flight calibration research approved by World Meteorological Organization
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Recently, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported in its GSICS Quarterly Newsletter (Volume 16, No. 2, 2022) the research of the in-flight radiometric calibration of Chinese wide field of view (FOV) Directional Polarimetric Camera (DPC) on-board GF5 and GF5-02 series satellites based on Rayleigh scattering method, which was carried out by a research team led by Prof. LI Zhengqiang f Viewing Earth from space at night: tracking our changing black marble
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When the sun goes down and lights go on - or not - a multitude of data can be gathered by satellite from the night sky, giving insights into the dynamic human activities happening at the surface.
With remote sensing, things like land use changes, urban development, and forest management can be reliably and accurately measured by daylight. At nighttime, we can gather different kinds of data 
