Lawmakers ask Biden administration to keep oversight committees in the loop on space activities
Friday, 05 March 2021 23:47
WASHINGTON — The top House Republicans on the committee that oversees civil and commercial space are asking the Biden administration to update lawmakers on its plans regarding space security and space traffic management.
Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), ranking member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology; and Rep.
NASA's new Mars rover hits dusty red road, 1st trip 21 feet
Friday, 05 March 2021 08:28
NASA's newest Mars rover hit the dusty red road this week, putting 21 feet on the odometer in its first test drive.
The Perseverance rover ventured from its landing position Thursday, two weeks after setting down on the red planet to seek signs of past life.
The roundabout, back and forth drive lasted just 33 minutes and went so well that more driving was on tap Friday and Saturday for the the six-wheeled rover.
"This is really the start of our journey here," said Rich Rieber, the NASA engineer who plotted the route.
NASA's Perseverance Drives on Mars' Terrain for First Time
Friday, 05 March 2021 01:59
NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover performed its first drive on Mars March 4, covering 21.3 feet (6.5 meters) across the Martian landscape. The drive served as a mobility test that marks just one of many milestones as team members check out and calibrate every system, subsystem, and instrument on Perseverance. Once the rover begins pursuing its science goals, regular commutes extending 656 feet Space launch from British soil one step closer
Friday, 05 March 2021 01:59
In a giant leap in British spaceflight history, government publishes response to commercial spaceflight consultation.
A giant leap in British spaceflight history is being made 5 March 2021 as the government publishes its commercial spaceflight consultation response, paving the way for space launches from UK soil.
Over the past few months, the government has been inviting industry, st Astronauts conclude spacewalk maintenance on International Space Station
Friday, 05 March 2021 01:59
Astronauts Kate Rubins and Soichi Noguchi completed a spacewalk Friday of 6 hours, 56 minutes to perform maintenance on the exterior of the International Space Station.
Rubins, of NASA, and Noguchi, of the Japanese Space Agency, installed a device on an airlock cover to prevent it from blowing out when a hatch is opened. The two also attached new apparatus that will hold upgraded solar Comet Catalina Suggests Comets Delivered Carbon to Rocky Planets
Friday, 05 March 2021 01:59
In early 2016, an icy visitor from the edge of our solar system hurtled past Earth. It briefly became visible to stargazers as Comet Catalina before it slingshot past the Sun to disappear forevermore out of the solar system.
Among the many observatories that captured a view of this comet, which appeared near the Big Dipper, was the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, NASA's t China selects astronauts for space station program
Friday, 05 March 2021 01:59
The crewmembers who will participate in the construction of China's space station have been selected and are being trained for their missions, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).
The construction of the space station has entered a crucial stage, said the CMSA, noting that this year will see several space missions including the launch of the station's core module, cargo reple Sixth mirror casting brings Giant Magellan Telescope closer to completion
Friday, 05 March 2021 01:59
At 3 p.m. on March 5, a gigantic furnace will slowly start spinning underneath the stands of Arizona Stadium at the University of Arizona. Fire-engine red, massive in size and resembling a sci-fi version of a Dutch oven, the furnace is the only one of its kind, and its sole purpose is to produce the world's biggest and most advanced telescope mirrors.
During the process, nearly 20 tons (17 DcubeD to release its new deployable SPACE SELFIE STICK (D3S3)
Friday, 05 March 2021 01:59
DcubeD (Deployables Cubed GmbH) has released its first ever deployable structure product, the "DCUBED SPACE SELFIE STICK", shortened to D3S3. The Space Selfie Stick will be launched into space onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in June 2021 as part of an In-Orbit Demonstration Mission in partnership with the Polish satellite manufacturer Sat Revolution and the British New Space propulsion develope Linquest gets $500 million contract from U.S. Space Force for analysis support
Thursday, 04 March 2021 23:59
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force awarded LinQuest Corp. a $500 million contract for analysis work over five years. The contract was awarded Jan. 4 but the Defense Department announced it March 5.
Timelapse: Ariane 6 upper stage installed for tests
Thursday, 04 March 2021 18:00
Video:
00:02:40
This timelapse video shows the hot firing model of the Ariane 6 upper stage being installed on the P5.2 test stand at the DLR German Aerospace Center in Lampoldshausen, Germany on 16 February 2021.
After arrival from the ArianeGroup facilities in Bremen, this 5.4 m-diameter upper stage was hoisted out of its container, tilted vertical and installed on the test stand.
Tests will simulate all aspects of flight including stage preparation such as fuelling with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, and draining its tanks.
Data will be gathered on non-propulsive ballistic phases, tank pressurisation to increase performance, Vinci engine reignitions,
Engineering marvel: Sixth mirror cast for Giant Magellan Telescope
Thursday, 04 March 2021 17:47
The Giant Magellan Telescope announces fabrication of the sixth of seven of the world's largest monolithic mirrors. These mirrors will allow astronomers to see farther into the universe with more detail than any other optical telescope before. The sixth 8.4-meter (27.5 feet) mirror—about two stories high when standing on edge—is being fabricated at the University of Arizona's Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab and will take nearly four years to complete. The mirror casting is considered a marvel of modern engineering and is usually celebrated with a large in-person event with attendees from all over the world. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, work on the sixth mirror began behind closed doors to protect the health of the 10-person mirror casting team at the lab.
Spacewalking astronauts tackle more solar panel advance work
Thursday, 04 March 2021 15:07
For the second time this week, a pair of astronauts floated outside Friday to get the International Space Station ready for new solar panels.
Spacewalkers finish solar panel prep for station power boost
Thursday, 04 March 2021 15:07For the second time this week, a pair of astronauts floated outside Friday to get the International Space Station ready for new solar panels.
Mining water and metal from the moon at the same time
Thursday, 04 March 2021 14:53
In-situ resource utilization (ISRU) is becoming an increasingly popular topic as space exploration begins to focus on landing on the surface of other bodies in the solar system. ISRU focuses on making things that are needed to support an exploration mission out of materials that are easily accessible at the site being explored, like European explorers in the New World building canoes out of the wood they found there.
Recently NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) has started looking more closely at a variety of ISRU projects as part of their Phase I Fellows program. One of the projects selected, led by Amelia Grieg at the University of Texas, El Paso, is a mining technique that would allow explorers to dig up water, metal and other useful materials, all at the same time.
Most ISRU schemes focus on using water, as it important for many exploration efforts. However, those schemes usually discard the rest of the material that is gathered in an effort to collect the water.