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Copernical Team

Copernical Team

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Probing for life in the icy crusts of ocean worlds
During 2019 field tests near Greenland’s Summit Station, a high-elevation remote observing station, the WATSON instrument is put through its paces to seek out signs of life, or biosignatures, 360 feet (110 meters) down a borehole. The winch that holds the drill pokes out the top of the drill tent. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Long before NASA's Perseverance rover touched down on the Red Planet on Feb. 18, one of its highest-level mission goals was already established: to seek out signs of ancient life on the Martian surface.

Tuesday, 06 April 2021 15:00

ESA Agenda 2025 media briefing

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Video: 01:00:59

ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher spoke to journalists on 7 April 2021 to introduce ESA Agenda 2025, setting out ESA's strategic priorities and goals.

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Lunar Gateway will maintain its orbit with a 6 kW ion engine
Credit: NASA

When NASA sends astronauts back to the moon as part of the Artemis Program, they will be taking the long view. Rather than being another "footprints and flags" program, the goal is to create a lasting infrastructure that will ensure a "sustained program of lunar exploration." A major element in this plan is the Lunar Gateway, an orbital habitat that astronauts will use to venture to and from the surface.

The first step in establishing the Gateway is the deployment of two critical modules—the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) and the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE). According to a recent update, NASA (along with Maxar Technologies and Busek Co.) recently completed a hot-fire test of the PPE propulsion subsystem—the first of many that will ensure that the PPE and HALO will be ready for launch by 2024.

This propulsion subsystem is a cluster of Hall effect thrusters (aka ion engines), which use electromagnetic fields to accelerate ionized gas through engine nozzles to generate thrust. In this case, the engine system is a 6-kilowatt (SEP) concept that incorporates Maxar-built electronics and a xenon feed system with four Busek-built BHT-600 thrusters.

Tuesday, 06 April 2021 11:45

Introducing ESA Agenda 2025

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ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher has worked with our Member States to define new priorities and goals for ESA for the coming years.

Tuesday, 06 April 2021 15:00

Agenda 2025 Media Briefing

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Video: 01:00:59

ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher spoke to journalists on 7 April 2021 to introduce ESA Agenda 2025, setting out ESA's strategic priorities and goals.

Tuesday, 06 April 2021 09:46

The long-term sustainability of space

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How do we tackle the debris problem, to secure the sustainability of space long term? Image: How do we tackle the debris problem, to secure the sustainability of space long term?
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Durham NC (SPX) Apr 07, 2021
Emily Ury remembers the first time she saw them. She was heading east from Columbia, North Carolina, on the flat, low-lying stretch of U.S. Highway 64 toward the Outer Banks. Sticking out of the marsh on one side of the road were not one but hundreds dead trees and stumps, the relic of a once-healthy forest that had been overrun by the inland creep of seawater. "I was like, 'Whoa.' No leav
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Korolyov, Russia (AFP) April 7, 2021
A station on the moon! A mission to Venus! A next generation spacecraft! Sixty years after the Soviet Union made history by launching Yuri Gagarin into space on April 12, 1961, Russia continues to have lofty extraterrestrial ambitions, but its ability to realise them is more down to earth. Project after project has been announced and then delayed, as grand designs fall victim to funding
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Moscow (AFP) April 7, 2021
Russia boasts a rich history of scientific invention across a wide variety of fields, from the Sputnik satellite to the coronavirus vaccine of the same name. On the 60th anniversary of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becoming the first man in space, here are some of the country's most notable scientific and technological achievements: - Sputnik satellite - In one of the most significan
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Moscow (AFP) April 7, 2021
Sixty years after he became the first person in space, there are few figures more universally admired in Russia today than Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. His smiling face adorns murals across the country. He stands, arms at his sides as if zooming into space, on a pedestal 42.5 metres (140 feet) above the traffic flowing on Moscow's Leninsky Avenue. He is even a favourite subject of tattoos.
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