Copernical Team
Ariane 6 sees 'first light' as mobile gantry is rolled back before fuelling begins
Ariane 6 from above in the final hours before liftoff
SpaceX sends up Space Coast's 50th rocket launch of the year
SpaceX continued the Space Coast's record rocket launch pace with a July 8 evening liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
A Falcon 9 rocket on the Turksat-6A mission carrying a Turkish communications satellite to a geosynchronous transfer orbit lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's Space Launch Complex 40 at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time.
This was the 15th flight of the first-stage booster, which made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in the Atlantic.
It was the 50th launch of the year from either Canaveral or neighboring Kennedy Space Center, with SpaceX responsible for 47 of them.
The other three have been from United Launch Alliance during a year that could see more than 100 missions fly for the first time, besting 2023's record of 72 launches.
Both SpaceX and ULA have more launch plans for later this month, including SpaceX's next Starlink launch, slated for July 12. ULA is targeting no earlier than July 30 for an Atlas V mission on the USSF-51 mission for the Space Force, while SpaceX is prepping for the return of billionaire Jared Isaacman to space on the Polaris Dawn mission no earlier than July 31.
Call for ideas on navigation demonstrators and technologies
Do you want to help shape the future of European satellite navigation? ESA is issuing an open call via OSIP for companies and researchers to help identify future navigation demonstrators and disruptive technologies that will shape the landscape of satellite navigation in the coming decades.
Blue Origin and Stoke Space Join US Space Force OSP-4 Launch Contract
The U.S. Space Force's Small Launch and Targets Division at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a segment of Space Systems Command's (SSC) Assured Access to Space (AATS) program, announced the addition of Blue Origin and Stoke Space Technologies Inc. to the Orbital Services Program (OSP)-4 Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract. OSP-4, part of the Rocket Sy
Airbus Secures Major Contract for Bundeswehr's Advanced Military Satellite System
The German Bundeswehr has selected Airbus for the SATCOMBw 3 prime contract, a next-generation secure military satellite system project, worth euro 2.1 billion. This contract encompasses geostationary satellites, ground segment, launch, and operation for a 15-year period, with deployments expected by the decade's end. Michael Schoellhorn, CEO of Airbus Defence and Space, remarked, "After t
Chinese Scientists Develop Novel Rosa Roxburghii Varieties via Space Breeding
Chinese researchers have successfully cultivated new varieties of rosa roxburghii, derived from 528 plantlets grown from 28.2 grams of seeds that spent 186 days aboard the Shenzhou XV manned spaceship. Rosa roxburghii, also known as Cili or "thorn pear" in Chinese, is a yellowish, spiny fruit noted for its high vitamin C content and numerous nutritional benefits. For the first time,
MIT engineers find a way to protect microbes from extreme conditions
Microbes that are used for health, agricultural, or other applications need to be able to withstand extreme conditions, and ideally the manufacturing processes used to make tablets for long-term storage. MIT researchers have now developed a new way to make microbes hardy enough to withstand these extreme conditions. Their method involves mixing bacteria with food and drug additives from a
Ariane 6 the day before launch
Nearby Exoplanet Found with Hydrogen Sulfide Atmosphere
A recent study by Johns Hopkins University, utilizing data from the James Webb Space Telescope, has uncovered that the atmosphere of the exoplanet HD 189733 b contains trace amounts of hydrogen sulfide, known for its rotten egg odor. HD 189733 b, a gas giant similar in size to Jupiter, reveals new information about sulfur's role in planetary formation and atmospheric composition. The prese