Beijing (XNA) Nov 07, 2022
China plans to establish a next-generation space-based navigation and positioning system by 2035, said a government official overseeing the sector. Ran Chengqi, director of the China Satellite Navigation Office, said at a news conference held by the State Council Information Office on Friday in Beijing that the next-generation system, which has yet to be named, will be accessible to users anywhe

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Nov 07, 2022
Rocket Lab USA Inc, (Nasdaq: RKLB) has successfully launched its 32nd Electron mission to deploy its 152nd satellite to orbit, a science payload for the Swedish National Space Agency. The MATS satellite was deployed to its 585km circular orbit by Electron following lift-off at 17:27 UTC. "Congratulations to the teams at OHB Sweden and the Swedish National Space Agency on their mission," sa

London, UK (SPX) Nov 07, 2022
The study, published in the journal Science and led by researchers at the University of Padova, uses data from a NASA satellite, the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), which was launched last December. The satellite, a collaboration between NASA and the Italian Space Agency, provides a new way of looking at X-ray light in space by measuring its polarisation - the direction of the light w

Warwick UK (SPX) Nov 07, 2022
Astronomers led by the University of Warwick have identified the oldest star in our galaxy that is accreting debris from orbiting planetesimals, making it one of the oldest rocky and icy planetary systems discovered in the Milky Way. Their findings are published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, which conclude that a faint white dwarf located 90 light years from Earth, as

Pasadena CA (JPL) Nov 07, 2022
The team is making progress identifying and implementing a fix that will allow a seal to cap off the rover's latest rock sample, which was collected at the base of Jezero's delta from an outcrop called "Amalik." The anomaly first appeared on Oct. 5 after the successful coring of the mission's 14th sample, called "Mageik," when the seal assigned to cap the rock-core-filled sample tube did not rel

Toowoomba, Australia (SPX) Nov 07, 2022
It may be known as a rocky, red planet but evidence is mounting that salty water exists at the base of polar deposits on Mars. University of Southern Queensland's Professor Graziella Caprarelli is part of an international team investigating bright reflection signals below the Martian surface, first spotted in data acquired between 2010 and 2019 by the radar sounder MARSIS on board Mars Exp

Pasadena CA (JPL) Nov 07, 2022
We are perched just below the "Marker Band," a thin dark band whose origin is unclear. As Michelle noted yesterday, we found some amazing textured float rocks in our workspace but were not in a good position to do contact science here, so we moved back a little in order to get it today. These float rocks appear to have originated in the Marker Band, which can be seen running from lower lef

Stennis Space Center MS (SPX) Nov 07, 2022
Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB) has kicked off operations for testing the Archimedes engine with a ribbon cutting ceremony at NASA's historic Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The Archimedes Test Complex will be home to engine testing for the 165,000 lbf engines to be used on Rocket Lab's reusable Neutron rocket. The Archimedes Test Complex is located across a 1 million square foot

Beijing (XNA) Nov 07, 2022
Engineers in China's space industry conducted a key test of the country's most powerful liquid-propellant rocket engine on Saturday, marking a large stride in the development of a super-heavy carrier rocket. Developed by the Academy of Aerospace Propulsion Technology in Xi'an of Shaanxi province, the 500-metric ton-thrust engine's first ignition test took place at the academy's testing fac

Washington DC (UPI) Nov 4, 2021
Chinese rocket debris weighing 23 tons is crashing to Earth in an uncontrolled descent Friday. U.S. Space Command tweeted a confirmation that the rocket re-entered the Earth's atmosphere over the south-central Pacific Ocean at 4:01 a.m. Friday. The rocket was launched on Oct. 31 carrying the third and final module for the Tiangong space station. Much of the debris is expected to