China’s LEO push looms over Western expansion efforts
Wednesday, 22 February 2023 19:57
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Ambitious plans from China for a global broadband network could hamper Western constellation operators seeking to maximize their international subscriber numbers.
Treating lunar soil to create fertilizer for growing plants on the moon
Wednesday, 22 February 2023 17:42 Write a comment
Sooner or later, settlers on the moon will have to become farmers. A new ESA Discovery project led by Norway's Solsys Mining is looking into the treatment of lunar soil to create fertilizer for growing plants.
The good news is that analysis of lunar samples returned to Earth in the past by moonwalkers and robots shows sufficient essential minerals are available for plant growth, apart from nitrogen compounds. The bad news is that lunar soil (or "regolith") compacts in the presence of water, creating problems for plant germination and root growth.
Hydroponic farming therefore offers a practical alternative; this type of agriculture involves feeding plant roots directly with nutrient-rich water, without the need for soil. The potential is still there however to put lunar regolith to work, on the basis of "in-situ resource utilization"—or living off the land.
The "Enabling Lunar In-Situ Agriculture by Producing Fertilizer from Beneficiated Regolith" project, led by Solsys Mining with Norway's Geotechnical Institute (NGI) and Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Space (CIRiS), involves studying a combination of mechanical, chemical and biological processes to extract mineral nutrients from the regolith.
Terran Orbital announces $2.4 billion Rivada Space Networks contract
Wednesday, 22 February 2023 14:45 Write a comment
SAN FRANCISCO — Terran Orbital Corp. announced a $2.4 billion contract to build 300 satellites for Rivada Space Networks. Under the contract announced Feb.
Capella teams with analytics firms to promote use of radar imagery
Wednesday, 22 February 2023 13:00 Write a comment
Capella Space, a company that operates a constellation of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging satellites, is partnering with data analytics firms to help increase access to SAR imagery, the company announced Feb.
Russia claims Progress leak caused by an "external impact"
Wednesday, 22 February 2023 11:02 Write a comment
Roscosmos on Tuesday blamed an "external impact," not a manufacturing defect, for a coolant leak from an unmanned Russian supply ship docked at the International Space Station on February 11.
High-resolution pictures of the Progress MS-21 spacecraft were taken by cosmonauts using the ISS' 17-meter-long Canadarm2 robotic arm, which revealed a 12-millimeter hole where the coolant fluid pour Mercury's black disc helps sharpen Solar Orbiter's view
Wednesday, 22 February 2023 11:02 Write a comment
This year started with a nice imaging opportunity for Solar Orbiter, and a chance to further improve the quality of its data. On 3 January 2023, inner planet Mercury crossed the spacecraft's field of view, resulting in a transit where Mercury appeared as a perfectly black circle moving across the face of the Sun.
A number of the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter's instruments captured the transit. In DoD invests additional $1.5M toward 3D-printed hypersonic rocket engine
Wednesday, 22 February 2023 11:02 Write a comment
The Department of Defense awarded a $1.5 million contract to New Frontier Aerospace to continue its work on a 3D printed rocket engine.
The aerospace manufacturer announced the deal in a press release on Tuesday with funding coming from the National Security Innovation Capital. The company is developing a plastic-fueled rocket engine called Mjolnir. Development began with a $750,000 co Newly discovered form of salty ice could exist on surface of extraterrestrial moons
Wednesday, 22 February 2023 11:02 Write a comment
The red streaks crisscrossing the surface of Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, are striking. Scientists suspect it is a frozen mixture of water and salts, but its chemical signature is mysterious because it matches no known substance on Earth.
A team led by the University of Washington may have solved the puzzle with the discovery of a new type of solid crystal that forms when water and tabl Redwire partners with Starfish Space for Otter Pup satellite docking mission
Wednesday, 22 February 2023 11:02 Write a comment
Redwire Corporation (NYSE:RDW) has partnered with Starfish Space to provide Redwire's ARGUS space domain awareness camera for Starfish Space's first-ever satellite docking mission, Otter Pup.
Additionally, Redwire has secured a contract option with Starfish Space to demonstrate Redwire's Cerebro Resident Space Object tracking software in orbit upon the completion of the primary mission. Flight Crew Arrives at NASA's Kennedy Space Center for Crew-6 Mission
Wednesday, 22 February 2023 11:02 Write a comment
The crew arrived on a NASA Gulfstream business jet from their home base at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston to NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and safely landed at the Launch and Landing Facility, the runway once used for space shuttle landings at NASA's
Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Touchdown was at approximately 12:30 p.m. EST (1730 GMT) on Tuesday, February 21. The crew member Radiation-resistant Ka-band radio for LEO constellation offers speeds Beyond 5G
Wednesday, 22 February 2023 11:02 Write a comment
Axelspace Corporation Associate Professor Atsushi Shirane, and Professor Kenichi Okada and Assistant Professor Takashi Tomura of Tokyo Institute of Technology have successfully developed a radiation-resistant radio. The results of this research will be presented at ISSCC 2023, the world's largest international semiconductor-related conference, and Satellite 2023, scheduled to be held in the Unit Russian rescue mission for three space station astronauts set this week
Wednesday, 22 February 2023 11:02 Write a comment
Russia's space agency Roscosmos' delayed rescue mission to send a Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station and bring three astronauts back to Earth is scheduled to lift off Thursday night EDT from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Russia originally had planned to send an unmanned Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft to the space station Feb. 14 to substitute for the docked Soyuz MS-22 Better tools needed to determine ancient life on Mars
Wednesday, 22 February 2023 11:02 Write a comment
Current state-of-the-art instrumentation being sent to Mars to collect and analyze evidence of life might not be sensitive enough to make accurate assessments, according to a research team co-led by a Cornell University astronomer.
In a paper published in Nature Communications, visiting planetary scientist Alberto Fairen, and an international team of researchers, claim that ancient organic When data show up late: Sols 3746-3748
Wednesday, 22 February 2023 11:02 Write a comment
Today, I was heading for my computer when my colleagues went off to celebrate the end of the working week. Yes, that's right, planning started at 5 pm in my part of the world (the UK) today. That was one hour later than anticipated (and I would have missed all my colleagues going 'Have a good weekend!')
Why that late? Most days, we start an hour earlier, at 8 am in Pasadena California, not SpaceX Endeavour's crew arrive at KSC ahead of launch
Wednesday, 22 February 2023 11:02 Write a comment
An international team of astronauts and scientists arrived at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday, ahead of a six-month science mission to the International Space Station set to blast off on Sunday.
Crew-6 comprises two NASA astronauts, mission commander Stephen Bowen and pilot Warren Hoburg, along with mission specialists Sultan Alneyadi from the United Arab Emirates and Andrey