Leiden, Netherlands (SPX) Jul 20, 2021
Today, Airbus announced that its Sparkwing solar panels were selected by USA-based Masten Space Systems for their XL-1 lunar lander. In 2023, the XL-1 spacecraft will land at the lunar South Pole as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. XL-1 will be equipped with six body-mounted Sparkwing solar panels, to be delivered next year, to charge the vehicle's power system dur

Washington DC (UPI) Jul 20, 2021
The world's richest person, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and three very different crewmates are scheduled to fly into space Tuesday morning from Texas. Liftoff of Blue Origin's New Shepard suborbital rocket is planned at 9 a.m. EDT from the company's Corn Ranch launch site 160 miles east of El Paso, although weather and technical problems can always delay the launch. "It feels good

Companies with small satellites are set to benefit from a new end-to-end space transportation service offering additional in-orbit flexibility proposed by D-Orbit and supported through ESA’s Boost! programme.

A vehicle that remains continuously connected even when in remote areas is being road tested in Cornwall in the south west of the UK.

Lanzhou, China (XNA) Jul 20, 2021
Four photos of Mars taken by the Tianwen 1 probe were unveiled in China last month, but the excitement generated by humanity's next great step in space exploration was shared around the world. Just as eye-catching as images of the Martian surface itself was the Chinese national flag on the Zhurong rover's landing platform. After the historic landing on May 15, the flag was slowly unr

London, UK (SPX) Jul 20, 2021
The first collaborative activity within the UK-Australia Space Bridge framework is being launched today by Australia's SmartSat CRC, UK Science and Innovation Network, and the Satellite Applications Catapult with the support of Austrade and the Australian Space Agency. The Satellite Applications Catapult, based at the Harwell Space Cluster in Oxfordshire, and Australia's Smartsat CRC will

London, UK (SPX) Jul 20, 2021
The final stage of cataclysmic explosions of dying massive stars, called supernovae, could pack an up to six times bigger punch on the surrounding interstellar gas with the help of cosmic rays, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of Oxford. The work will be presented by PhD student Francisco Rodriguez Montero today (19 July) at the virtual National Astronomy Meeting (NA

London, UK (SPX) Jul 20, 2021
New models of neutron stars show that their tallest mountains may be only fractions of millimetres high, due to the huge gravity on the ultra-dense objects. The research is presented today at the National Astronomy Meeting 2021. Neutron stars are some of the densest objects in the Universe: they weigh about as much as the Sun, yet measure only around 10km across, similar in size to a large

Moscow, Russia (SPX) Jul 20, 2021
Scientists from the University of Graz, Kanzelhohe Observatory, Skoltech, and the World Data Center SILSO at the Royal Observatory of Belgium, have presented the Catalogue of Hemispheric Sunspot Numbers. It will enable more accurate predictions of the solar cycle and space weather, which can affect human-made infrastructure both on Earth and in orbit. The study came out in the Astronomy and Astr

London, UK (SPX) Jul 20, 2021
Black holes with masses equivalent to millions of suns do put a brake on the birth of new stars, say astronomers. Using machine learning and three state of the art simulations to back up results from a large sky survey, the researchers resolve a 20-year long debate on the formation of stars. Joanna Piotrowska, a PhD student at the University of Cambridge, will present the new work today (Tuesday