Virgin Galactic conducts first space tourist suborbital flight
Thursday, 10 August 2023 15:15
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Virgin Galactic took its first private astronaut customers on a suborbital spaceflight Aug.
Op-ed | SPACs are a double-edged sword for newspace
Thursday, 10 August 2023 14:36 Write a comment
While special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) hold the potential to drive space industry growth, it is crucial to understand their potential risks.
Course correction keeps Parker Solar Probe on track for Venus flyby
Thursday, 10 August 2023 14:10 Write a comment
NASA's Parker Solar Probe executed a short maneuver on Aug. 3, 2023, that kept the spacecraft on track to hit the aim point for the mission's sixth Venus flyby on Monday, Aug. 21, 2023.
Operating on preprogrammed commands from mission control at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, Parker fired its small thrusters for 4.5 seconds, enough to adjust its trajectory by 77 miles and speed up—by 1.4 seconds—its closest approach to Venus. The precise timing and position are critical to that flyby, the sixth of seven approaches in which Parker uses the planet's gravity to tighten its orbit around the sun.
"Parker's velocity is about 8.7 miles per second, so in terms of changing the spacecraft's speed and direction, this trajectory correction maneuver may seem insignificant," said Yanping Guo, mission design and navigation manager at APL.
Micropatch algorithm improves ground-to-spacecraft software update efficiency
Thursday, 10 August 2023 14:06 Write a comment
Hera's mini-radar will probe asteroid's heart
Thursday, 10 August 2023 13:31 Write a comment
The smallest radar to fly in space has been delivered to ESA for integration aboard the miniature Juventas CubeSat, part of ESA's Hera mission for planetary defense. The radar will perform the first radar imaging of an asteroid, peering deep beneath the surface of Dimorphos—the Great Pyramid-sized body whose orbit was shifted last year by the impact of NASA's DART spacecraft.
"This delivery marks a definite milestone," comments Alain Hérique of Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble (IPAG) at the University Grenoble Alpes in France, the instrument's principal investigator.
"We have been working hard in recent weeks to finalize the radar for its handover. But this is far from the end of our involvement. IPAG and our project partners will be following the process of integration, especially in terms of connection with the rest of the CubeSat, to optimize the performance of the finished instrument, and to calibrate its performance to ensure we interpret our science data as best we can once we are in space.
Solar System fingerprints found in memories of ESA flotilla
Thursday, 10 August 2023 13:00
Space Force tries to hedge risk with new launch strategy
Thursday, 10 August 2023 12:59 Write a comment
As it prepares to award the next round of National Security Space Launch contracts, the Space Force is no longer comfortable relying on just two companies.
Putting a stamp on Huginn
Thursday, 10 August 2023 12:18 Write a comment
A new stamp for the Huginn mission has been released, taking inspiration from the mission’s Nordic name, Huginn, it presents a colourful design with a deep history.
Virgin Galactic takes off with its first tourists on flight to the edge of space
Thursday, 10 August 2023 11:27 Write a comment
To the Moon, together
Thursday, 10 August 2023 10:56 Write a comment
Image:
The Artemis II astronauts, set to launch on a trip around the Moon next year, stand in front of the Orion spacecraft’s European Service Module-2 (ESM-2) that will provide everything they need to thrive on their voyage to Earth’s natural satellite.
From left, the skilled crew is composed of NASA’s Victor Glover, Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen, and NASA’s Christina Koch and Reid Wiseman. Their collective experience underscores the collaborative essence of space exploration, as they prepare for the challenges of deep space travel and return.
The European Service Module-2 will provide crucial life support and necessary resources – water, air,
ESA’s Space Environment Report 2023
Thursday, 10 August 2023 10:40 Write a comment
An overview of ESA's Space Environment Report 2023
Russian cosmonauts perform spacewalk to attach debris shields to space station
Thursday, 10 August 2023 10:08 Write a comment
Two Russian Cosmonauts conducted a spacewalk Wednesday to upgrade systems on the International Space Station.
Before they set out on the spacewalk, NASA officials said cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin "will venture outside the station's Poisk airlock to attach three debris shields to the Rassvet module."
NASA said the pair "will test the sturdiness of a work platfor Mars once had wet-dry climate conducive to supporting life: study
Thursday, 10 August 2023 10:08 Write a comment
NASA's Curiosity rover has discovered the first evidence that Mars once had a climate which alternated between wet and dry seasons similar to Earth, a study said on Wednesday, suggesting the red planet may have once had the right conditions to support life.
Though the surface of Mars is now an arid desert, billions of years ago rivers and vast lakes are thought to have stretched across its s Lockheed Martin's NGI program completes all subsystem PDRs
Thursday, 10 August 2023 10:08 Write a comment
Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) successfully validated designs for all elements of the nation's Next Generation Interceptor (NGI) with the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA).
Through a series of successful and on-schedule Preliminary Design Reviews (PDRs) of all NGI major subsystems, the company demonstrated it has achieved design maturity and reduced risk for critical technologies. NGI is the DARPA seeks solutions to preserve bio-samples without cold storage
Thursday, 10 August 2023 10:08 Write a comment
Emerging infectious disease hotspots are expected to increase globally within the next 50 years.1 Lab-based testing technology has advanced, but agnostic sample preservation still relies on refrigerated transport that can be difficult to acquire and is often unreliable in remote, austere, and contested environments. Consequently, samples critical to force health protection can be significantly d