Lockheed Martin opens $16.5M Missile Defense Lab
Sunday, 26 November 2023 06:39
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In a significant development for the U.S. missile defense capabilities, Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), a global leader in aerospace and defense technologies, unveiled a new state-of-the-art engineering facility at its Huntsville campus.
The $16.5 million Missile System Integration Lab (MSIL) stands as a testament to Lockheed Martin's commitment to advancing missile defense innovation and str Trailblazing New Earth Satellite Put to Test in Preparation for Launch
Sunday, 26 November 2023 06:39 Write a comment
During three weeks in a thermal vacuum chamber in Bengaluru, India, the joint NASA-ISRO satellite demonstrated its hardiness in a harsh, space-like environment.
NISAR, the trailblazing Earth-observing radar satellite being developed by the United States and Indian space agencies, passed a major milestone on Nov. 13, emerging from a 21-day test aimed at evaluating its ability to function in Sun Yat-sen University develops Globe230k for enhanced land cover monitoring
Sunday, 26 November 2023 06:39 Write a comment
Researchers from Sun Yat-sen University have made a notable stride in the field of Earth observation research by creating the Globe230k dataset, a large-scale remote sensing annotation dataset aimed at improving the dynamic monitoring of global land cover changes. Published in the Journal of Remote Sensing on October 16, the study highlights the critical need for high-resolution and high-frequen Perseverance's Parking Spot
Sunday, 26 November 2023 06:39 Write a comment
The Science Team directed Perseverance to Airey Hill, the parking spot chosen for Solar Conjunction. Although there will be a pause on data during conjunction, team members still analyze all the images taken on the drive before Perseverance parked and data delivery was paused.
While all returned images and data are exciting, these post-drive images showed an interesting rock that stood out Scientists move closer to long-theorized ultraprecise nuclear clock
Sunday, 26 November 2023 06:39 Write a comment
New light sources have made it possible to explore new methods of powering a nuclear clock. Work led by Argonne researchers now points the way toward this once-theoretical timepiece.
For decades, the standard reference tool for ultraprecise timekeeping has been the atomic clock. Scientists have known that an even more precise and reliable timepiece was possible, but technical limitations k Physicists answer question of Supergalactic Plane's absent spiral galaxies
Sunday, 26 November 2023 06:39 Write a comment
Astrophysicists say they have found an answer to why spiral galaxies like our own Milky Way are largely missing from a part of our Local Universe called the Supergalactic Plane.
The Supergalactic Plane is an enormous, flattened structure extending nearly a billion light years across in which our own Milky Way galaxy is embedded.
While the Plane is teeming with bright elliptical galax Instruments led by IRF selected for ESA potential future mission to either Mars or Earth's Orbit
Sunday, 26 November 2023 06:39 Write a comment
The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced the selection of three prospective space missions. Among these missions, the Swedish Institute of Space Physics (IRF) takes the lead in managing the scientific instrument consortia for two projects: the Plasma Observatory and M-MATISSE. The forthcoming three-year "Phase A" which consists of comprehensive technical and scientific studies will be funde Space Force extends Kratos’ contract for satellite ground systems
Saturday, 25 November 2023 19:27
Tracking an errant space rocket to a mysterious crater on the moon
Saturday, 25 November 2023 13:40 Write a comment
In March 2022, a defunct part of a space rocket hurled toward the moon's surface and impacted near the Hertzsprung Crater, an enormous impact feature on the far side of the moon that is never directly visible from Earth.
Curiously, and unlike any other space hardware that ended up on the moon's surface, this one left behind not one but two craters, causing speculation about what exactly it was that found its final resting place on the moon's surface, according to Tanner Campbell, a doctoral student at the University of Arizona Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering in the College of Engineering and the study's first author.
How NASA keeps Ingenuity going after more than 50 flights
Friday, 24 November 2023 17:56 Write a comment
More information is always better when it comes to publicly funded space exploration projects. So it's welcome when a NASA engineer takes time out of the assuredly busy work lives to provide an update on everyone's favorite helicopter on Mars. Ingenuity has been having a rough few months, and a new article entitled "The Long Wait," posted by Travis Brown, Chief Engineer on the Ingenuity project, on NASA's website, provides a good amount of detail as to why.
The problems started when Ingenuity took off for flight #52 on April 26th. When the helicopter landed, it was out of range Perseverance, its rover companion, and the helicopter's radio link back to its controllers on Earth. This was intentional, but it meant that Ingenuity's minders didn't know whether the flight had been completed successfully.
Dr. Brown explains why the team would intentionally choose to land the helicopter out of range of Perseverance and details the four main mission priorities for the helicopter's secondary mission.
Understanding a satellite's death spiral
Friday, 24 November 2023 17:48 Write a comment
Down on the ground, death equals stillness—but not in space. Abandoned satellites are prone to tumble in unpredictable ways, and an ESA project with the Astronomical Institute of the University of Bern sought to better understand this behavior.
ESA's Clean Space initiative has plans to remove dead satellites from highly trafficked orbits. The preferred method of "Active Debris Removal" involves grabbing the target object, in which case knowledge of its precise orientation and motion will be vital. So the need to understand the tumbling that almost all satellites and rocket bodies undergo after their mission end-of-life is clear.
The project combined optical, laser ranging and radar observations to refine an existing "In-Orbit Tumbling Analysis" computer model, aiming to identify, understand and predict the attitude motion of a fully defunct satellite within a few passes. More than 20 objects were observed during a two-year campaign.
The long list of perturbation triggers includes "eddy currents" as internal magnetic fields interact with Earth's magnetosphere, drag from the vestigial atmosphere, gravity gradients between the top of an object and its bottom, outgassing and fuel leaks, the faint but steady push of sunlight—known as "solar radiation pressure"—micrometeoroid and debris impacts, even the sloshing of leftover fuel.
Paper explores ideal orbits for space-based interferometers
Friday, 24 November 2023 16:03 Write a comment
Ever since the telescope was invented in 1608, astronomers have striven for bigger and better telescopes. When it comes to instruments to observe the sky, bigger really is better whether you are observing faint galaxies or planets a larger collector gives higher resolution and brighter images. A paper by Takahiro Ito from the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science in Japan recently posted to the arXiv preprint server looks into different kinds of orbits around Earth which support multiple telescope systems known as interferometers at different orbits.
There is a limit to the size of telescopes based on Earth, they can become so large that they warp under their own weight so it is a constant battle to keep images sharp. An alternative solution is to hook up multiple telescopes so they work together. These interferometers work well on Earth but space-based instruments offer further challenges. In Ito's study, which looks into different types of orbits, it seems there is one orbit in particular that favor the space-based interferometer.
Collaboration is key to providing security during crises
Friday, 24 November 2023 13:22 Write a comment
Representatives of the space industry came together with individuals from ESA member states, user communities and academia on 22-23 November to discuss how space data are being made more secure and accessible in response to an increasing number of crisis situations, such as climate-change related natural disasters.
Week in images: 20-24 November 2023
Friday, 24 November 2023 13:10 Write a comment
Week in images: 20-24 November 2023
Discover our week through the lens
Ariane 6 hot-fires: the highlights
Friday, 24 November 2023 12:00 Write a comment
Video:
00:01:25
Cinq, quatre, trois, deux, un. Allumage Vulcain! This is the moment Ariane 6’s main engine was sparked into life, and the entire main stage of the new rocket and the many parts of the launch pad in Kourou, French Guiana, practised for the full duration of a launch. Of course, as planned, the test model did not leave the ground.
Without its boosters, instead of piercing the clouds Ariane 6’ created its own on Earth: a clean byproduct of the Vulcain 2.1 engine’s oxygen and hydrogen propellants, which came together to send out impressive swirls of H2O.
After the