The 72nd International Astronautical Congress opens its doors on Monday 25 October at the Dubai  World Trade Centre in the United Arab Emirates, for a week of intense interactions for the world space community. After one year online due to COVID-19 restrictions, the congress returns to an in-person event with the theme 'Inspire, innovate and discover for the benefit of humankind'.

Using ESA’s XMM-Newton and NASA’s Chandra X-ray space telescopes, astronomers have made an important step in the quest to find a planet outside of the Milky Way.

San Antonio TX (SPX) Oct 25, 2021
A team led by Southwest Research Institute has updated its asteroid bombardment model of the Earth with the latest geologic evidence of ancient, large collisions. These models have been used to understand how impacts may have affected oxygen levels in the Earth's atmosphere in the Archean eon, 2.5 to 4 billion years ago. When large asteroids or comets struck early Earth, the energy release

Paris (ESA) Oct 25, 2021
On 21 October 2011, the first pair of Galileo navigation satellites was launched by a Russian-built Soyuz rocket from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana. The introduction of Russia's Soyuz 2 rocket to Europe's Spaceport was a milestone of strategic cooperation in the space transportation sector between Europe and the Russian Federation, and an exciting new opportunity for ESA. ESA's

Washington DC (SPX) Oct 25, 2021
Nanoracks, in collaboration with Voyager Space and Lockheed Martin, has formed a team to develop the first-ever free flying commercial space station. The space station, known as Starlab, will be a continuously crewed commercial platform, dedicated to conducting critical research, fostering industrial activity, and ensuring continued U.S. presence and leadership in low-Earth orbit. Starlab is exp

Austin TX (SPX) Oct 25, 2021
In the heavens above, it's raining dirt. Every second, millions of pieces of dirt that are smaller than a grain of sand strike Earth's upper atmosphere. At about 100 kilometers altitude, bits of dust, mainly debris from asteroid collisions, zing through the sky vaporizing as they go 10 to 100 times the speed of a bullet. The bigger ones can make streaks in the sky, meteors that take our breath a

Tucson AZ (SPX) Oct 25, 2021
Scientists thought Bennu's surface was like a sandy beach, abundant in fine sand and pebbles, which would have been perfect for collecting samples. Past telescope observations from Earth had suggested the presence of large swaths of fine-grained material smaller than a few centimeters called fine regolith. But when NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission arrived at Bennu in late 2018, the mission saw a

Paris (ESA) Oct 25, 2021
Using the best navigation technologies to bring the greatest benefit to their users - this is the what the Galileo Competence Center at the German Aerospace Center is working towards. Together with DLR's institutes, facilities and partners, products are being developed to ensure the continuous improvement of the European Galileo satellite navigation system. The Galileo Competence Center is now o

Boulder CO (SPX) Oct 25, 2021
New Horizons remains healthy and continues to send valuable data from the Kuiper Belt, even as it speeds farther and farther from Earth and the Sun. Our team has been extremely busy since I last wrote in the spring. One of the most important activities since then has been ground testing, uploading and flight-testing new software for our Alice ultraviolet spectrometer and our main (Command and Da

Washington DC (UPI) Oct 22, 2021
The Mars helicopter Ingenuity is ready for a short Martian flight as early as Saturday to test summer weather conditions that have arrived at its location on the Red Planet after two weeks of no communication because of blockage by the sun. The flight, Ingenuity's 14th, is brief and simple by design. As weather at Jezero Crater gets warmer, the aircraft's rotors must turn faster to achi