Copernical Team
New cyber-security centre will safeguard ESA assets and missions
ESA is creating a new centre for cyber-security which will safeguard all Agency systems against outside interference, extending from ESA infrastructure around the globe to satellites in orbit.
ESA highlights 2021
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We’re almost ready to say goodbye to 2021, a year in which ESA once more succeeded in continuing operations in a challenging global situation, and creating some important milestones in the field of European spaceflight.
As always, ESA has been at the forefront of science, with several science missions en route to their destinations or being prepared for flight, such as BepiColombo, Solar Orbiter, JUICE and ExoMars, and not least rounding off the year with the impending launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. Europe’s Copernicus programme continues to be the largest Earth observation system in the world,
Testing radar to peer into Jupiter’s moons
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Testing radar to peer into Jupiter’s moons Webb mission page card link
Webb: seeing farther
Webb: seeing farther
High wind postpones launch of NASA's newest space telescope
European research for interplanetary isolation
Isolation affects people in different ways. Studies on how humans cope with stress in a secluded environment and with little social interaction are useful to learn about ourselves in challenging times – and to test whether our species is fit for long journeys to other planets.
Inside the James Webb Space Telescope's control room
"White-knuckle" - That's how Rusty Whitman describes the month ahead, after the launch of the historic James Webb Space Telescope, now tentatively set for Saturday.
From a secure control room in Baltimore, Maryland, Whitman and his colleagues will hold their breath as Webb comes online. But that's just the beginning.
For the first six months after Webb's launch, Whitman and the team at NASA sends shipment of supplies, experiments, holiday food to ISS
A NASA resupply mission to the International Space Station got off the ground in Florida on Tuesday and headed for low Earth orbit with thousands of pounds of cargo, including experiments and holiday fare for the station's crew.
The shipment lifted off from Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center just after 5 a.m. EST Tuesday, right on schedule.
The mission carried more than 6 Webb telescope launch again pushed back
The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, which astronomers hope will herald a new era of discovery, was again pushed back Tuesday until at least Christmas Day due to "adverse weather conditions" at the launch site in French Guiana, NASA said.
The new target date, if determined to be viable, would be an actual Christmas gift for scientists who have been waiting three decades to see the l Views of comet Leonard from two sun-watching spacecraft
When Comet Leonard, a mass of space dust, rock and ice about a half-mile (1 kilometer) wide, makes its closest pass of the Sun on Jan. 3, 2022, it will be a journey 40,000 years in the making. Ahead of its close pass, two Sun-observing spacecraft captured these views of the comet.
The animated image at right was captured by NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory-A spacecraft, SECCHI/HI-2 telescope, which has watched the comet since early November. This animated "difference image" was created by subtracting the current frame from the previous frame to highlight differences between them. Difference images are useful for seeing subtle changes in Leonard's ion tail (the trail of ionized gases streaming from the comet's body, or nucleus), which becomes longer and brighter toward the end of the clip.
The video below, captured between Dec. 17-19, 2021 by the Solar Orbiter Heliospheric Imager (SoloHI) aboard the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft, shows Comet Leonard streaking diagonally across the field of view with the Milky Way in the background. Venus and Mercury are also visible in the top right, Venus appearing brighter and moving from left to right.