NASA selects second private astronaut mission to Space Station
Wednesday, 15 December 2021 06:42
Washington DC (SPX) Dec 15, 2021
NASA has selected Axiom Space for the second private astronaut mission to the International Space Station. NASA will negotiate with Axiom on a mission order agreement for the Axiom Mission 2 (Ax-2) targeted to launch between fall 2022 and late spring 2023.
Ax-2 will launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a mission of no more than 14 days docked to the space station. NASA an

BWXT Delivers Fuel to NASA to Support Nuclear Thermal Propulsion
Wednesday, 15 December 2021 06:42
Lynchburg VA (SPX) Dec 15, 2021
BWX Technologies, Inc. has reached a critical milestone in the nation's pursuit of space nuclear propulsion by delivering coated reactor fuels to NASA in support of its space nuclear propulsion project within the agency's Space Technology Mission Directorate.
Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) is one of the technologies that is capable of propelling a spacecraft to Mars and back. Innovative

Tiny meteors leave smoke in the atmosphere
Wednesday, 15 December 2021 06:42
Greenbelt MD (SPX) Dec 15, 2021
It's time for the Geminids, the annual December meteor shower! Every year, Earth passes through the debris trail from the asteroid 3200 Phaethon. The pea-sized rocks it leaves behind burn up in our atmosphere, producing glowing trails in the night sky. People around the world will stare skyward and marvel at these meteors, also known as shooting stars.
What we can't see with the naked eye

NASA begins testing robotics to bring first samples back from Mars
Wednesday, 15 December 2021 06:42
Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 15, 2021
Testing has already begun on what would be the most sophisticated endeavor ever attempted at the Red Planet: bringing rock and sediment samples from Mars to Earth for closer study. The multi-mission Mars Sample Return campaign began when NASA's Perseverance rover landed on Mars this past February to collect Martian rock samples in search of ancient microscopic life.
Out of Perseverance's 4

Scientists envision what Mars would look like as an exoplanet
Wednesday, 15 December 2021 06:42
Boulder CO (SPX) Dec 15, 2021
In science fiction movies and television shows, real-life locations on Earth, such as California's Redwood National Forest and the Sahara Desert, have long been used to represent alien worlds. But recently, in a Star Trek-style twist, a group of scientists, including researchers at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado Boulder, have been using a pl

Sols 3326-3327: Backing away from the cliff
Wednesday, 15 December 2021 06:42
Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 15, 2021
As we continue exploring Maria Gordon notch, we are planning a touch and go with lots of remote sensing activities between the "touch" and the "go."
MSL is parked near the base of the cliff to the west, and the science team is interested in investigating the bedrock in this area.
Unfortunately, none of the bedrock targets shown near the top of the image above are suitable for close A

Rocket Lab to acquire SolAero Holdings for its space solar power products
Wednesday, 15 December 2021 06:42
Long Beach CA (SPX) Dec 15, 2021
Rocket Lab USA has signed a definitive agreement to acquire SolAero Holdings, Inc. (SolAero), a premier supplier of space solar power products and precision aerospace structures for the global aerospace market, for $80 million in cash. The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022.
The acquisition aligns with Rocket Lab's growth strategy of vertical integration to deliv

Solely European supply chain for space-qualified Alexandrite laser crystals on the horizon
Wednesday, 15 December 2021 06:42
Hannover, Germany (SPX) Dec 15, 2021
The European Union wants to use the unique properties of Alexandrite crystals in Earth observation satellites in the future. To make the EU independent of non-European suppliers, the Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V. (LZH), Altechna Coatings, and Optomaterials work on a purely European supply chain for space-qualified Alexandrite laser crystals in the EU project GALACTIC. The project partners have mad

Challenging Einstein's greatest theory with extreme stars
Wednesday, 15 December 2021 06:42
Norwich UK (SPX) Dec 15, 2021
Researchers at the University of East Anglia and the University of Manchester have helped conduct a 16-year long experiment to challenge Einstein's theory of general relativity.
The international team looked to the stars - a pair of extreme stars called pulsars to be precise - through seven radio telescopes across the globe.
And they used them to challenge Einstein's most famous theo

Super-bright stellar explosion is likely a dying star giving birth to a black hole or neutron star
Wednesday, 15 December 2021 06:42
Boston MA (SPX) Dec 15, 2021
In June of 2018, telescopes around the world picked up a brilliant blue flash from the spiral arm of a galaxy 200 million light years away. The powerful burst appeared at first to be a supernova, though it was much faster and far brighter than any stellar explosion scientists had yet seen. The signal, procedurally labeled AT2018cow, has since been dubbed simply "the Cow," and astronomers have ca

Closing in on the first light in the Universe
Wednesday, 15 December 2021 06:42
Melbourne, Australia (SPX) Dec 15, 2021
Research using new antennas in the Australian hinterland has reduced background noise and brought us closer to finding a 13-billion-year-old signal
The early Universe was dark, filled with a hot soup of opaque particles. These condensed to form neutral hydrogen which coalesced to form the first stars in what astronomers call the Epoch of Reionisation (EoR).
"Finding the weak signal of thi

Stellar "ashfall" could help distant planets grow
Wednesday, 15 December 2021 06:42
Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Dec 15, 2021
The world's first 3D simulation simultaneously considering dust motion and growth in a disk around a young star has shown that large dust from the central region can be entrained by and then ejected by gas outflows, and eventually fall back onto the outer regions of the disk where it may enable planetesimal formation.
This process can be likened to volcanic "ashfall" where ash carried up b

NASA enters the Solar atmosphere for the first time
Wednesday, 15 December 2021 06:42
Greenbelt MD (SPX) Dec 15, 2021
For the first time in history, a spacecraft has touched the Sun. NASA's Parker Solar Probe has now flown through the Sun's upper atmosphere - the corona - and sampled particles and magnetic fields there.
The new milestone marks one major step for Parker Solar Probe and one giant leap for solar science. Just as landing on the Moon allowed scientists to understand how it was formed, touching

No decision yet on where to build OneWeb second-generation satellites
Wednesday, 15 December 2021 04:41
A week after a OneWeb executive told British officials that the company would move production of its second generation of satellites to the United Kingdom, another executive said the company has yet to decide where it will build those satellites.
Viasat-Inmarsat deal remains on track
Wednesday, 15 December 2021 03:49
Viasat’s acquisition of Inmarsat is moving ahead, company executives said, despite ongoing work to secure approval from the British government as well as a drop in share price that has cut a billion dollars from the value of the deal.