The province of Zaragoza, in northeast Spain, is featured in this image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission.

23 Member and Associate States of the Agency pledged a total 117.6 million euros to ESA’s ScaleUp programme at ESA’s Ministerial Council CM22 to encourage entrepreneurship and commercialisation in the European space sector. This amount exceeds the target funding request by more than 17%, thus confirming the strong support that ESA Member States intend to provide to the development of a strong and sustainable commercial space ecosystem.

Washington DC (UPI) Nov 25, 2022
John McFall, a British athlete who has competed in the Paralympic Games, has become the first disabled astronaut candidate with the European Space Agency. McFall, 41, is among 17 new astronaut candidates selected by the ESA from a pool of more than 22,500 applicants from across Europe, the space agency said in a statement. He was selected to take part in the ESA's Parastronaut Feasibility

Beijing (XNA) Nov 25, 2022
China has made an ambitious road map for its future lunar exploration programs, including an international scientific outpost, according to the programs' chief planner. Wu Weiren, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that the next step in the country's lunar adventure - the Chang'e 6 robotic mission - has been set to land on the moon's far side and will collect and bring sa

Beijing (XNA) Nov 23, 2022
China will possibly complete the establishment of a lunar research outpost based on two robotic exploration missions by 2028 and send Chinese astronauts to the moon around 2030, according to the chief designer of China's lunar exploration program. Wu Weiren, also an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the director of the country's deep-space exploration laboratory, said r

Washington DC (SPX) Nov 23, 2022
JWST has captured the first-ever evidence of a compound in the atmosphere of an exoplanet-sulfur dioxide-created by a starlight-mediated chemical reaction. The discovery was announced by the mission's Exoplanet Community Early Release Science Team, which includes five Carnegie astronomers-Munazza Alam, Anjali Piette, Nicole Wallack, Peter Gao, and Johanna Teske-and published, along with other ob

Baltimore MD (SPX) Nov 23, 2022
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope just scored another first: a molecular and chemical profile of a distant world's skies. While Webb and other space telescopes, including NASA's Hubble and Spitzer, previously have revealed isolated ingredients of this broiling planet's atmosphere, the new readings from Webb provide a full menu of atoms, molecules, and even signs of active chemistry and clo

Pasadena CA (JPL) Nov 23, 2022
After spending over 600 sols (days on Mars) exploring the diverse geologic environment of Jezero Crater, collecting drilled rock cores (and one atmospheric sample) along the way, Perseverance recently spent some time parked near a large sand ripple named "Observation Mountain," with sights set on something widespread yet unique. Regolith is the sandy, dusty, loose material covering much of the M

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope just scored another first: a molecular and chemical portrait of a distant world’s skies. While Webb and other space telescopes, including the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, have previously revealed isolated ingredients of this heated planet’s atmosphere, the new readings provide a full menu of atoms, molecules, and even signs of active chemistry and clouds. The latest data also give a hint of how these clouds might look up close: broken up rather than as a single, uniform blanket over the planet.

Washington DC (UPI) Nov 23, 2021
Communication between NASA's Mission Control Center in Houston and the Artemis I moon mission spacecraft was lost for 47 minutes Wednesday morning. It was resolved by a reconfiguration on the ground side, according to NASA. NASA said in a blog statement that communication was lost temporarily while reconfiguring the communication link between the Orion spacecraft and Deep Space Network