ESA is going to the Moon – in collaboration with its international partners – and seeks to build a lasting lunar link to enable sustainable space exploration.

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Mar 25, 2022
The supercontinent Pangaea, which was a combination of today's continents, broke apart at the end of the Triassic period due to large-scale volcanic activity. This volcanic activity was thought to be the most likely cause of the fourth mass extinction, but studies were inconclusive and provided no explanation of the environmental changes that occurred at that time. Therefore, the research

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Mar 29, 2022
I learned a new word today: vug. Vugs are small cavities or pits on a rock surface and the rock in our workspace today was noticeably "vuggy." Particularly, the triangular rock face in the bottom center portion of this Navcam image. This vuggy rock in the "Hartle Loup" outcrop seemed particularly unique relative to the other rocks on the Greenheugh Pediment that we've seen to-date. We chos

Pasadena CA (JPL) Mar 29, 2022
Perseverance has spent a little over one Earth year in Jezero crater. In the last week, the team reached a very special milestone as we officially completed our first science campaign focused on the Jezero crater floor. During our crater floor campaign, we kept Perseverance busy! As we learned more about our surroundings, we characterized the rocks that make up the crater floor into two fo

Paris (ESA) Mar 29, 2022
The ESA-led Rosalind Franklin rover has a unique potential to search for evidence of past life on Mars thanks to its drill and laboratory. It will be the first rover to drill 2 m below the surface, and the first to use novel driving techniques, including wheel-walking, to overcome obstacles. Although the 2022 launch window for the mission is no longer possible following the suspension of c

Auburn AL (SPX) Mar 29, 2022
Manufacturing electronics and sensors in space are becoming an inevitable part of future space exploration and activities. But even today's state-of-the-art liquid-based printing machines present challenges within microgravity or antigravity environments. That's a problem. A team of Auburn multi-disciplinary researchers, however, have a proposed solution. Masoud Mahjouri-Samani, assi

San Jose NJ (SPX) Mar 29, 2022
Momentus Inc. (NASDAQ: MNTS), a U.S. commercial space company that plans to offer transportation and other in-space infrastructure services, recently completed Thermal Vacuum Testing (TVAC) on its Vigoride vehicle in preparation for its inaugural mission. Thermal vacuum testing allows for the simulation of space conditions, including the temperature and altitude that the Vigoride spacecraf

Luxembourg (SPX) Mar 29, 2022
SES has ordered SES-26 a fully software-defined geostationary (GEO) satellite from Thales Alenia Space, joint venture between Thales (67 %) and Leonardo (33 %). SES-26 will maintain and expand the wide range of content delivery and connectivity services to broadcasters, media companies, telco operators, internet service providers and governmental organisations across Europe, Africa, the Middle E

Adelaide, Australia (SPX) Mar 29, 2022
the University of Adelaide launched its new Exterres Laboratory. The lab, which is the first of its kind in Australia, is an off-Earth surface testing environment for space technology like rovers, which are destined for the furthest reaches of the universe. The Extraterrestrial Environmental Simulation (Exterres) Laboratory, located on North Terrace campus, provides a crucial stepping st

Tucson AZ (SPX) Mar 29, 2022
It takes expensive tools to learn about the universe, but projects like the Very Large Array for radio astronomy in New Mexico and the Chandra X-ray Observatory, which orbits Earth, have pushed scientific knowledge forward in ways that would not have been possible without these instruments. Every 10 years, astronomers and astrophysicists outline priorities for the hardware they need in the