Copernical Team
Apollo astronaut Thomas K. Mattingly dies aged 87
A NASA astronaut who was removed from the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission but helped bring its crew back home safely thanks to his problem-solving efforts from ground control has died at the age of 87.
Thomas K. "TK" Mattingly passed away on October 31, the space agency said in a statement Thursday.
His most dramatic role came when he was assigned as command module pilot for the Apollo 13 fl Watch the Space Summit live
At the Space Summit on 6 November 2023, Ministers of ESA’s Member States will raise Europe’s ambition to drive forward space for a green future, take decisive steps in exploration, and ensure Europe’s access to space, while preparing a paradigm shift towards a more competitive next generation of launchers.
Wearable devices may prevent astronauts getting 'lost' in space
The sky is no longer the limit—but taking flight is dangerous. In leaving the Earth's surface, we lose many of the cues we need to orient ourselves, and that spatial disorientation can be deadly. Astronauts normally need intensive training to protect against it. But scientists have now found that wearable devices which vibrate to give orientation cues may boost the efficacy of this training significantly, making spaceflight slightly safer.
"Long-duration spaceflight will cause many physiological and psychological stressors, which will make astronauts very susceptible to spatial disorientation," said Dr. Vivekanand P. Vimal of Brandeis University in the United States, lead author of an article in Frontiers in Physiology on this topic. "When disoriented, an astronaut will no longer be able to rely on their own internal sensors, which they have depended on for their whole lives."
Personal space
The researchers used sensory deprivation and a multi-axis rotation device to test their vibrotactors in simulated spaceflight, so the senses participants would normally rely on were useless. Could the vibrotactors correct the misleading cues the participants would receive from their vestibular systems, and could participants be trained to trust them?
Researchers find gravitational lensing has significant effect on cosmic birefringence
Future missions will be able to find signatures of violating the parity-symmetry in the cosmic microwave background polarization more accurately after a pair of researchers has managed to take into account the gravitational lensing effect, reports a new study in Physical Review D, selected as an Editors' Suggestion.
How far does the universe extend? When and how did the universe begin? Cos ESA hones 3D Printed electromagnetic coils for spaceflight
The European Space Agency (ESA) has once again pushed the envelope of technological innovation by 3D printing electromagnetic coils in pure copper, a leap forward in the design of versatile tools essential for a myriad of space missions. This breakthrough comes as a result of one of the over 2,000 research contracts completed under ESA's General Support Technology Programme (GSTP), an initiative Science in Space: Robotic Helpers
Crew time is a valuable resource on the International Space Station and its value only increases for future space missions. One way to make the most of crew time is using robotic technology either to assist crew members with various tasks and or to completely automate others.
A current investigation on the space station, JEM Internal Ball Camera 2, is part of ongoing efforts to develop thi Three-Body Tethered Satellite System Deploys Successfully in Simulations
In a groundbreaking study conducted by Zhongjie Meng and his team at Northwestern Polytechnical University, a new deployment strategy for tethered satellite systems (TSS) has been developed, addressing the complexity of operating a three-body chain in space. The detailed research has been published in the peer-reviewed journal Space: Science and Technology.
The research focuses on a tomogr Scholars Probe Lunar Mysteries: Solar Wind Interaction Explored
In a recent comprehensive review published in Space: Science and Technology, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Beihang University have synthesized the current understanding and prevailing mysteries surrounding the interaction between the solar wind and the Moon's surface.
The Moon, our nearest celestial neighbor, presents a unique environment for study, lacking a signifi Black holes are messy eaters
New observations down to light-year scale of the gas flows around a supermassive black hole have successfully detected dense gas inflows and shown that only a small portion (about 3 percent) of the gas flowing towards the black hole is eaten by the black hole. The remainder is ejected and recycled back into the host galaxy.
Not all of the matter which falls towards a black hole is absorbed Scorching, seven-planet system revealed by new Kepler Exoplanet list
A system of seven sweltering planets has been revealed by continued study of data from NASA's retired Kepler space telescope: Each one is bathed in more radiant heat from their host star per area than any planet in our solar system. Also unlike any of our immediate neighbors, all seven planets in this system, named Kepler-385, are larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. It is one of only a f 
