
Copernical Team
Optical foundations illuminated by quantum light

Esri partners with Digital Earth Africa to support sustainable growth

NASA's solid-state battery research exceeds initial goals, draws interest

NASA, USGS map minerals to understand Earth makeup, climate change

Broccoli gas: A better way to find life in space

Amazon's Project Kuiper will now launch with ULA rockets

Earth from Space: Mississippi River

Mississippi River, one of the longest rivers in North America, is featured in this multi-temporal radar image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission.
Nano-material diet means safer, slimmer satellites

A miniscule special ingredient blended with satellite materials could lead to significant mass savings for future missions. An ESA project with Adamant Composites in Greece tested how the addition of graphene – microscopic flakes of carbon just a single atom thick, combining robust strength with electrical conductivity – plus other nano-sized materials has the potential to optimise a satellite’s thermal and electrical properties.
Seeing how a spacecraft dies

Seeing how a spacecraft dies
NASA's Lucy spacecraft prepares to swing by Earth

On Oct. 16, at 7:04 a.m. EDT, NASA's Lucy spacecraft, the first mission to the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, will skim the Earth's atmosphere, passing a mere 220 miles (350 kilometers) above the surface. By swinging past Earth on the first anniversary of its launch, Lucy will gain some of the orbital energy it needs to travel to this never-before-visited population of asteroids.
The Trojan asteroids are trapped in orbits around the sun at the same distance as Jupiter, either far ahead of or behind the giant planet. Lucy is currently one year into a twelve-year voyage. This gravity assist will place Lucy on a new trajectory for a two-year orbit, at which time it will return to Earth for a second gravity assist. This second assist will give Lucy the energy it needs to cross the main asteroid belt, where it will observe asteroid Donaldjohanson, and then travel into the leading Trojan asteroid swarm.