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Copernical Team

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Pasadena CA (JPL) Jun 28, 2023
We made it! We are peeking up over the edge of the ridge that we have been trying to climb for a few weeks now. The view ahead is spectacular but it's worth pausing for a minute to look back down into the canyon. You can faintly see rover tracks in the centre of the image, left behind as we slowly made our way up the hill. Lots of slipping and sliding, and drives ending too soon or terminating o
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Sydney, Australia (SPX) Jun 30, 2023
The Indian Space Research Agency (ISRO) is preparing for the anticipated launch of its third lunar expedition, dubbed Chandrayaan-3. Officials from the agency disclosed that the mission is tentatively scheduled for mid-July. A high-ranking ISRO official mentioned, "We have the launch window between July 12 and July 19. The exact date has not been finalised." The Chairman of ISRO and
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Providence RI (SPX) Jun 30, 2023
A study led by Brown University researchers offers new insights into how water from melting ice could have played a recent role in the formation of ravine-like channels that cut down the sides of impact craters on Mars. The study, published in Science, focuses on Martian gullies, which look eerily similar to gullies that form on Earth in the Dry Valleys of Antarctica and are caused by wate
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Washington DC (SPX) Jun 30, 2023
When NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft releases a capsule with material from asteroid Bennu onto the Utah desert on Sept. 24, it will become the latest in a line of missions to gather samples from space and deliver them to Earth. Collecting material from space is a challenging feat that requires teams of dedicated scientists and engineers, innovative technology, and patience. But the scientific break
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Washington DC (UPI) Jun 29, 2023
A SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft left the International Space Station on Thursday to return to Earth with NASA experiments and samples dating back as far as six years. The spacecraft left the ISS's Harmony module at 12:30 p.m. EDT and is set to make a parachute-assisted splashdown off the coast of Florida at about 10:30 a.m. on Friday. The spacecraft is carrying more than 3,600 p
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Washington (AFP) June 29, 2023
Virgin Galactic successfully flew its first paying customers to the final frontier Thursday, a long-awaited achievement that puts it back on track in the emerging private spaceflight sector. Italian Air Force officers unfurled their nation's flag and peered out windows at the curve of Earth while enjoying a few minutes of weightlessness at 52.9 miles (85.1 kilometers) above sea level. "I
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mars
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Getting to space is hard. It's even more hard to do new and interesting things in space. And when projects get hard, that usually means they cost more money. That is certainly the case for one of the most anticipated missions on NASA's current docket—the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission. And it's not looking like it's going to get any easier anytime soon.

A recent report from Casey Dreier, the Planetary Society's Chief of Space Policy, looks at some of the challenges the faces. Arguably, the mission itself has already started, with Perseverance busily capturing, analyzing, and then dropping off samples to be returned to the laboratories on Earth. But three other main mission components still need to be completed for those samples ever to see the light of day (or the light of a sealed laboratory chamber) on Earth.

NASA is responsible for two of those components—the Sample Return Lander (SLR) and the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV). Each is appropriately named, as the SLR is designed to land, collect the samples that Perseverance has been collecting, and then return them to the MAV.

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Italian researchers reach the edge of space, flying aboard Virgin Galactic's rocket-powered plane
This Thursday, June 29, 2023, image provided by Virgin Galactic shows Italian Air Force Col. Walter Villadei holding up an Italian flag as he and other Italian researchers experience a few moments of weightlessness aboard Virgin Galactic's rocket-powered spaceplane before gliding back down to Spaceport America in southern New Mexico.
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Washington (AFP) Jun 29, 2023
Virgin Galactic successfully commenced commercial spaceflights on Thursday, marking a major milestone for the company founded in 2004 by British billionaire Richard Branson. Its inaugural customers were a three-member crew from the Italian Air Force and National Research Council of Italy, alongside a Virgin Galactic astronaut instructor occupying the fourth seat. Named Galactic 01, t
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Video: 00:46:06

Watch the replay of the media briefing following the 316th ESA Council which takes place on 28 and 29 June in Stockholm. ESA Council Chair Anna Rathsman (Sweden) and ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher will share the outcome of the meeting and provide an update on the launch of new ESA Earth observation missions, upcoming astronaut missions, the Space Summit planned for 6-7 November 2023 in Sevilla (Spain), as well as the decision on the public release of official ESA documents.

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