Washington DC (SPX) Aug 09, 2022
NASA's water-scouting CubeSat is now poised to hitch a ride to lunar orbit. Not much bigger than a shoe box, Lunar IceCube's data will have an outsized impact on lunar science. The satellite is integrated into the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and ready to journey to the Moon as part of the uncrewed Artemis I mission, launching this year. Orbiting the Moon, Lunar IceCube will use

Seattle WA (SPX) Aug 09, 2022
Spaceflight Inc., the leading global launch services provider, has announced it shipped the fully integrated Sherpa-LTC orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) and customer payload to Cape Canaveral to launch aboard an upcoming Starlink mission scheduled for next month. The high-thrust propulsive Sherpa will deploy from SpaceX's Falcon 9 targeting a 310-kilometer circular orbit, before igniting and

Evanston IL (SPX) Aug 09, 2022
Last year, a team of astrophysicists including key members from Northwestern University launched STARFORGE, a project that produces the most realistic, highest-resolution 3D simulations of star formation to date. Now, the scientists have used the highly detailed simulations to uncover what determines the masses of stars, a mystery that has captivated astrophysicists for decades. In a new s

Austin TX (SPX) Aug 09, 2022
Scientists have uncovered what sets the masses of stars, a mystery that has captivated astrophysicists for decades. Their answer? Stars, themselves. Using highly detailed simulations, a collaborative team led by researchers from the University of Texas at Austin has made a breakthrough discovery that star formation is a self-regulatory process, knowledge that may allow researchers to under

Flagstaff AZ (SPX) Aug 09, 2022
Saturn will soon be at its biggest and brightest of the year, and Lowell Observatory is celebrating with nightly public telescope viewing. For the next several weeks, visitors will be able to gaze at this gas giant and see its dazzling system of rings, as well as some of its larger moons. This Saturn viewing season centers around the planet's August 14 opposition. The term opposition indic

Pasadena CA (JPL) Aug 09, 2022
"We've got thumbnails!!" shouted, emotionally, over excited celebrations, is my most intense memory from 10 years ago. I had sat, with a lot of colleagues from my home university, The Open University here in the UK, in a seminar room, NASA TV on the big screen, anxiously watching the proceedings since 6.30 am on the 6th of August. The UK is 8 time zones ahead of Pasadena in California, where it

Burlington VT (SPX) Aug 09, 2022
With hybrid vehicle sales at an all-time high on Earth, Benchmark Space Systems has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Alameda Applied Sciences Corporation (AASC)'s electric propulsion technologies to help power hybrid spacecraft designed to ultimately run on in-space resources and repurposed space debris. Benchmark's turn-key hybrid chemical + electric propulsion systems will lev

Chandler AZ (SPX) Aug 09, 2022
Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) and Firefly Aerospace have joined forces to provide an American-built first-stage upgrade for the Antares rocket and a new medium launch vehicle to serve commercial, civil and national security space launch markets. "Through our collaboration, we will first develop a fully domestic version of our Antares rocket, the Antares 330, for Cygnus space sta

Mountain View CA (SPX) Aug 09, 2022
When a small asteroid enters Earth's atmosphere from space, its surface is brutally heated, causing melting and fragmenting. Therefore, it was somewhat of a mystery why the rocks near the surface survive to the ground as meteorites. That mystery is solved in a new study of the fiery entry of asteroid 2008 TC3, published online in Meteoritics and Planetary Science. "Most of our meteorites

Huntsville AL (SPX) Aug 09, 2022
In the same week that Russians circulated a horrific video of a Ukrainian soldier being castrated before his murder by Putin's invading troops, and dozens of Ukrainians POWs were slaughtered while in Russian captivity, the Russian space agency Roscosmos declared that Russia would depart the International Space Station program "after 2024", while the US Congress authorized NASA to extend the prog