The ESA/NASA SOHO observatory has overturned 14 years of thinking about the strange Sun-skirting ‘rock comet’ known as Phaethon that could reopen the mystery of how the Geminid meteor shower was born.

Not one, but two rocket launches with ESA-led experiments are flying to the edge of space just a week apart, providing unique data to researchers eager to learn more about fundamental physics, semiconductor production, the formation of planets and how our immune cells react to spaceflight.

Redmond WA (SPX) Apr 20, 2023
Aerojet Rocketdyne recently received a $67 million contract award from Lockheed Martin to provide propulsion systems for the Orion spacecraft that are planned to launch on Artemis missions VI-V3. This new work is an extension of the 2019 Orion Production and Operations Contract (OPOC). The Orion spacecraft recently completed a successful test flight during NASA's Artemis I mission, proving it is

Carlsbad CA (SPX) Apr 24, 2023
Viasat Inc. (NASDAQ: VSAT), a global communications company, has confirmed the scheduled launch date for the ViaSat-3 Americas satellite is April 18, 2023 during an approximately one-hour long launch window opening at 7:29pm EDT. The ViaSat-3 satellite will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The satellite will be

Paris, France (SPX) Apr 24, 2023
Satellite imagery is changing conservation as we know it. By being able to take an inventory of the Earth's surface and observe changes, we can begin to understand ecosystem dynamics in an unprecedented level of detail. Satellite imagery is already supplementing traditional conservation research methods, and in some cases is even replacing them. High-quality satellite images can be used to rapid

Pasadena CA (JPL) Apr 20, 2023
Merging data from multiple satellites, OPERA can help government agencies, disaster responders, and the public access data about natural and human impacts to the land. Where are flood waters flowing after major storms? Where are the changes in tree and plant cover after droughts, wildfires, deforestation, or mining? How much did the land move during an earthquake or volcanic eruption? Scie

Newport News VA (SPX) Apr 20, 2023
In a unique analysis of experimental data, nuclear physicists have made the first-ever observations of how lambda particles, so-called "strange matter," are produced by a specific process called semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering (SIDIS). What's more, these data hint that the building blocks of protons, quarks and gluons, are capable of marching through the atomic nucleus in pairs called d

Washington DC (UPI) Apr 25, 2023
Scientists have confirmed that Mars' core is liquid as seismic wave measurements have given valuable first-time clues about how the Red Planet was formed. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show Mars' core is a completely liquid iron-alloy core with high percentages of sulfur and oxygen, unlike Earth's core, which is a combination of a liquid

Sydney, Australia (SPX) Apr 24, 2023
Fleet Space Technologies, an Australian space technology company, has signed a AUD$6.4 million contract with Australia's Defence Space Command. The agreement marks the company's first foray into the defence sector and will see Fleet's next-generation Centauri satellites used to develop and demonstrate a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite communications system. The program, named ASCEND2LEO, w

Tokyo (AFP) April 25, 2023
A Japanese space start-up will attempt Tuesday to become the first private company to put a lander on the Moon. If all goes to plan, ispace's Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander will start its descent towards the lunar surface at around 1540 GMT. It will slow its orbit some 100 kilometres above the Moon, then adjust its speed and altitude to make a "soft landing" around an hour later. Success