Long Beach CA (SPX) May 08, 2022
Virgin Orbit (Nasdaq: VORB), a leading satellite launch provider, reports the signing of a launch services agreement with Japanese earth observation constellation operator Institute for Q-shu Pioneers of Space, Inc. ("iQPS"). The satellite is expected to join Virgin Orbit's manifest for early 2023. Selected for LauncherOne's proven ability to provide direct access to diverse orbits, Virgin

San Jose CA (SPX) May 08, 2022
Momentus Inc. (NASDAQ: MNTS), a U.S. commercial space company that plans to offer transportation and other in-space infrastructure services, has announced that its Vigoride orbital transfer vehicle has arrived at Cape Canaveral, Florida, for its inaugural launch. The Vigoride spacecraft and customer payloads will now be integrated with SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch vehicle ahead of the Transpor

Warsaw, Poland (SPX) May 08, 2022
All polymeric materials must meet strict outgassing requirements before they are cleared for a space flight. Gases released by a vast majority of polymers in high vacuum tend to contaminate sensors and other fragile spacecraft components which severely degrades their performance. That is why there are only a few polymers suitable for space. Now, Z-PEEK, a 3D printing filament based on poly

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) May 08, 2022
Scientists from the RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research have used computer modeling to show how a hypothesized type of supernova would evolve on the scale of thousands of years, giving researchers a way to look for examples of supernovae of this model, known as "D6." Supernovae are important for cosmology, as one type, Ia, is used as a "standard candle" that allows distance to be measure

Beijing (XNA) May 08, 2022
China's flagship telescope, slated to be launched at the end of 2023, is expected to provide humankind with fresh knowledge about distant galaxies, mysterious dark matter and dark energy, and the past and future evolutions of the universe. Chinese Survey Space Telescope, also known as the Chinese Space Station Telescope (CSST) and Xuntian Space Telescope, is a space-based optical observato

Heidelberg, Germany (SPX) May 08, 2022
A group of astronomers, led by Sierk van Terwisga from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, have analysed the mass distribution of over 870 planet-forming disks in the Orion A cloud. By exploiting the statistical properties of this unprecedented large sample of disks and developing an innovative data processing scheme, they found that far away from harsh environments like hot stars, the decli

Beijing (XNA) May 08, 2022
China has released a batch of datasets from the payloads installed on Chang'e-5 probe, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA) on Saturday. The payloads include a landing camera, a panoramic camera, a lunar mineralogical spectrometer and a lunar regolith penetrating radar, said the CNSA. Public users can visit the website of China's Lunar and Planetary Data Releas

Beijing (XNA) May 08, 2022
Chinese material scientists have found the soil on the moon may potentially be able to generate oxygen and fuel, a find that signifies more tantalizing possibilities of utilizing lunar resources to further human exploration on the moon or beyond. The researchers with Nanjing University showed that the lunar sample brought back by China's Chang'e-5 probe contains active compounds that can c

Munich, Germany (SPX) May 08, 2022
With a sophisticated combination of human and artificial intelligence, astronomers uncovered 1701 new asteroid trails in archival data of the Hubble Space Telescope spanning the past 20 years. While about one third could be identified and attributed to known objects, more than 1000 trails probably correspond to previously unknown asteroids. These unidentified asteroids are faint and likely small

Pasadena CA (JPL) May 08, 2022
On Thursday, May 5, mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory received confirmation that the agency's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter had re-established communications with the Perseverance rover. Earlier in the week, the rotorcraft had missed a planned communications session with the rover - for the first time in over a year of operations on the Mars surface. Ingenuity relies on Perseve