NASA's ComPair balloon mission readies for flight
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 13:46A team in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, is preparing to fly a balloon-borne science instrument called ComPair, which will test new technologies for detecting gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light.
ComPair is slated to fly early in NASA's 2023 fall scientific balloon campaign, which opens on Thursday, Aug. 10, weather permitting.
"Lots of interesting science happens in the energy range that ComPair is designed to study," said Nicholas Kirschner, a graduate student at George Washington University in Washington and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who works on the mission. "These gamma rays are hard to capture with existing methods, so we need to create and test new ones. ComPair's flight gets us one step closer to putting a similar detector in space."
ComPair detects gamma rays with energies between 200,000 and 20 million electron volts. Visible light's energy falls between 2 and 3 electron volts, for comparison.
Supernovae and powerful explosions called gamma-ray bursts shine the brightest in this energy range.
Advanced Space selected for two NASA SBIR Phase I Awards
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 13:25Advanced Space LLC., a leading space tech solutions company, is pleased to announce that NASA has selected two of our new Phase I concepts under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. The first project, won under the Flight Dynamics and Navigation Technologies subtopic, will support NASA's future efforts to design spacecraft trajectories for vehicles flying in cislunar spac
Rocket Lab inks new deal to launch HASTE mission from Virginia
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 13:25Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB) has signed a new launch services agreement with a confidential customer for a HASTE (Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron) mission from Launch Complex 2 at Virginia's Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport within NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in 2024. The contract signing with a new customer came just days after Rocket Lab successfully launched the
A frosty anniversary weekend for Curiosity: Sols 3909-3911
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 13:25Earth planning date: Friday August 4, 2023: We're planning a special weekend today - Saturday is the 11th (Earth) anniversary of Curiosity's landing! I was newly graduated from high school when I watched Curiosity touch down, and it still seems surreal sometimes that I get to be part of a mission I followed with such fascination back then. We have an exciting anniversary (or 'landiversary'
InSight study finds Mars is spinning faster
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 13:25Data sent by the spacecraft before it retired last December has provided new details about how fast the planet rotates and how much it wobbles. Scientists have made the most precise measurements ever of Mars' rotation, for the first time detecting how the planet wobbles due to the "sloshing" of its molten metal core. The findings, detailed in a recent Nature paper, rely on data from NASA's InSig
India's moon mission takes another big step
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 13:25The injection of Chandrayaan-3 into the lunar orbit and the subsequent moves marked a major milestone in India's ambitious $75-million lunar mission, experts said. The Indian Space Research Organisation, or ISRO, on Sunday completed the Lunar-Orbit Insertion to put the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft into the moon's orbit. The spacecraft carrying the Moon Mission-3 is expected to land on th
Ingenuity flies again after unscheduled landing
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 13:25The helicopter performed a short hop to help the team better understand why its previous flight was interrupted. NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter successfully completed its 54th flight on Aug. 3, the first flight since the helicopter cut its July 22 flight short. The 25-second up-and-down hop provided data that could help the Ingenuity team determine why its 53rd flight ended early.
Space-based quantum science lab keeps getting better
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 13:25The agency's Cold Atom Lab is getting its second major upgrade and will be using it to explore the quantum realm. On Tuesday, Aug. 1, a major hardware update for NASA's Cold Atom Lab lifted off aboard a Northrop Grumman Cygnus resupply spacecraft on its way to the International Space Station. About the size of a small refrigerator, the lab is sometimes called the coolest place in the known
Accurate measurement of Permittivity advances radio telescope receivers
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 13:25Researchers invented a novel method to measure the permittivity of insulators 100 times more accurately than before. This technology is expected to contribute to the efficient development of sensitive radio receivers for radio telescopes as well as to the development of devices for the next generation communication networks, "Beyond 5G/6G." Permittivity is a value that indicates how electr
AVS leverages optimum coverage of EUTELSAT 65 West A satellite over Brazil
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 13:25AVS, a leading Brazilian service provider and integrator in the public and private sectors, has signed multiple contracts with Eutelsat Communications (Euronext Paris: ETL) for capacity on its EUTELSAT 65 West A satellite. This partnership has allowed AVS to deploy public channels such as TV ALEPR, TV ALESC, TV ALEPE and TV ALBA on the EUTELSAT 65 West A satellite, avoiding interference ge
Astra Space optimizes workforce to support sustainable long-term business plan
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 13:25Astra Space, Inc. (NASDAQ: ASTR) has announced a strategic reallocation of its workforce from its Launch Services organization to its Astra Spacecraft Engines business to support its growing customer base and order backlog of its spacecraft engines. Astra last announced 278 cumulative committed orders of the Astra Spacecraft Engine through March 30, 2023, representing approximately $77 mil
DISH Network Corporation and EchoStar Corporation to Combine
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 13:25DISH Network Corporation (Nasdaq: DISH) and EchoStar Corporation (Nasdaq: SATS) has announced they have entered into a definitive agreement for DISH Network to combine with EchoStar Corporation in an all-stock merger at a fixed exchange ratio. The transaction was negotiated and recommended by Special Committees of Independent Directors of both companies and unanimously approved by the Boards of
Deep Space communications to get a laser boost
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 13:25Set to launch this fall, NASA's Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) project will test how lasers could speed up data transmission far beyond the capacity of current radio frequency systems used in space. What's known as a technology demonstration, DSOC may pave the way for broadband communications that will help support humanity's next giant leap: when NASA sends astronauts to Mars. T
NASA scientific balloons take to the sky in New Mexico
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 13:24NASA's Scientific Balloon Program will take flight with eight planned launches from the agency's balloon launch facility in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, flying scientific experiments to a near-space environment via a football-stadium-sized NASA balloon.
The 2023 fall balloon campaign window opens August 10 and features 24 payloads led by teams of scientists, engineers, and students.
"Our annual Fort Sumner campaign is always our most ambitious and packed with cutting-edge science developed from teams here in the United States and around the world," said Debbie Fairbrother, Scientific Balloon Program chief at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
One mission on deck is the Exoplanet Climate Infrared Telescope (EXCITE). The mission features a suborbital astronomical telescope developed to study Jupiter-type exoplanets orbiting other stars.
Earendel and the Sunrise Arc in the galaxy cluster WHL0137-08
Wednesday, 09 August 2023 13:00This image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope shows a massive galaxy cluster called WHL0137-08, and at the right, an inset of the most strongly magnified galaxy known in the Universe’s first billion years: the Sunrise Arc. Within that galaxy is the most distant star ever detected, first discovered by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument reveals the star, nicknamed Earendel, to be a massive B-type star more than twice as hot as our Sun, and about a million times more luminous. Stars of this mass often have companions. Astronomers did not