
Copernical Team
Juice gets wings

Kenya deploys first earth observation satellite into space

Kenya's first earth observation satellite was launched into space Saturday after two aborted attempts earlier in the week.
The African country's Taifa-1 was among the satellites on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, which lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The rocket's launch had to be scrubbed twice previously due to bad weather.
Kenya's satellite will fly over the country every four days and gather data for agriculture, land and environment monitoring, according to the Kenya Space Agency.
Data from the satellite is expected in the coming months, and the agency has set up a team of analysts. It said says the information will be distributed free to government agencies and to private companies for a reasonable fee.
The satellite was developed and designed by Kenyans but manufactured at Endurosat in Bulgaria at a total cost of 50 million Kenyan shillings ($371,000).
Kenyans were eager to watch the Falcon 9's launch online. Some described having the Taifa-1 enter orbit as a moment of national pride.
The country launched an experimental nanosatellite that lifted from the International Space Station in 2018.
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Some of the asteroids NASA's Lucy mission will visit are still more than 330 million miles (530 million kilometers) away from the spacecraft, which is more than three times the average distance between Earth and the sun. But despite the great distance and the comparatively small sizes of these asteroids, Lucy caught views of four of them recently.
From March 25 to 27, 2023, Lucy used its highest resolution imager, L'LORRI, to capture its first views of four Jupiter Trojan asteroids. From left to right in the above image: Eurybates, Polymele, Leucus, and Orus.
Although the four images are all at the same scale, the orientation of each is different, reflecting the different orientations of the L'LORRI camera as it turned to capture each target.
The targets were also observed for different time periods based on their rotation periods:
- Eurybates images were taken over a span of 6.5 hours.
- Polymele, about 2.5 hours.
- Leucus, 2 hours.
- Orus, 10 hours.
These images are the first in a series of planned observations designed to measure how the Trojan asteroids reflect light at higher angles than is observable from Earth.
NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter completes 50th flight

The history-making rotorcraft has recently been negotiating some of the most hazardous terrain it's encountered on the Red Planet.
NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has completed its 50th flight on Mars. The first aircraft on another world reached the half-century mark on April 13, traveling over 1,057.09 feet (322.2 meters) in 145.7 seconds.