NASA capsule flies over Apollo landing sites, heads home
Monday, 05 December 2022 20:03NASA's Orion capsule and its test dummies swooped one last time around the moon Monday, flying over a couple Apollo landing sites before heading home.
Op-ed | Let’s keep an open dialogue on how to protect satellites on orbit
Monday, 05 December 2022 20:00The conflict in Ukraine has shined a bright light on the policy ambiguity regarding the options available to the U.S. government to protect commercial satellite operators
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NASA delivers first flight hardware to ESA for Lunar Pathfinder
Monday, 05 December 2022 19:55NASA delivered the first flight hardware for the Lunar Pathfinder mission to ESA (European Space Agency), which formally accepted the instrument on Nov. 4. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, developed the instrument, a laser retroreflector array, which will test new navigation techniques for lunar missions.
NASA and ESA plan to launch Lunar Pathfinder via a future Commercial Lunar Payload Services delivery. In addition to testing navigation capabilities, Lunar Pathfinder will operate as a commercial communications relay satellite and provide communications services for exploration missions on the lunar surface.
The Lunar Pathfinder mission is led by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL), and ESA arranged for the mission to provide communications services to NASA. Teams from NASA, ESA, and SSTL completed inspections when the laser retroreflector array arrived at SSTL's facility in Guildford, U.K., where it will be installed in the satellite.
Researchers say space atomic clocks could help uncover the nature of dark matter
Monday, 05 December 2022 17:09Studying an atomic clock on-board a spacecraft inside the orbit of Mercury and very near to the sun might be the trick to uncovering the nature of dark matter, suggests a new study published in Nature Astronomy.
Dark matter makes up more than 80% of mass in the universe, but it has so far evaded detection on Earth, despite decades of experimental efforts. A key component of these searches is an assumption about the local density of dark matter, which determines the number of dark matter particles passing through the detector at any given time, and therefore the experimental sensitivity.
In some models, this density can be much higher than is usually assumed, and dark matter can become more concentrated in some regions compared to others.
One important class of experimental searches are those using atoms or nuclei, because these have achieved incredible sensitivity to signals of dark matter.
Artemis lunar flyby: Orion is coming home
Monday, 05 December 2022 16:20Today at 17:43 CET (16:43 GMT) the European Service Module for Orion fired its main engine at less than 127 km from the Moon's surface to put the Artemis spacecraft on a collision course with Earth.
Replay: MTG-I1 pre-launch briefing
Monday, 05 December 2022 13:51Watch the replay of the Meteosat Third Generation Imager-1 pre-launch press briefing held on 5 December 2022. Speakers include Simonetta Cheli, ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes; Phil Evans, Director General of Eumetsat; Bertrand Denis, Vice President Observation and Science at Thales Alenia Space and Simon Keogh, Head of Space Applications and Nowcasting Research & Development at the UK Met Office.
MTG-I1 is scheduled to be launched on 13 December on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. It is the first of six satellites that form the full MTG system, which will provide critical
E-Space buys RF hardware developer CommAgility
Monday, 05 December 2022 13:26Greg Wyler’s megaconstellation startup E-Space said Dec. 5 it plans to buy radio frequency module developer CommAgility in a $14.5 million deal.
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Growth of SSA systems could create problems for satellite operators
Monday, 05 December 2022 11:30The growth of space situational awareness (SSA) capabilities worldwide, intended to better track satellites and debris in orbit, could instead create confusion for satellite operators, one official warned.
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Orion set for final Lunar flyby
Monday, 05 December 2022 10:43Orion performed the second return trajectory correction burn on Sunday, Dec. 4, at 10:43 a.m. CST, using the auxiliary thrusters and increasing the spacecraft's velocity by 1.16 mph (1.71 feet per second). Shortly after acquiring signal with the Deep Space Network's Canberra ground station at 12:41 a.m. CST, Orion experienced an issue with a power conditioning distribution unit (PCDU), in
SpaceX gets federal approval to launch 7,500 communication satellites
Monday, 05 December 2022 10:43SpaceX, the American aerospace manufacturing company owned by billionaire Elon Musk, has received federal approval to launch 7,500 satellites in an operation that would expand the company's Starlink internet services around the world. Thursday's decision by the Federal Communications Commission, although not everything SpaceX wanted, was seen as a monumental victory for the company as i
AST SpaceMobile closes $75M funding round
Monday, 05 December 2022 10:43AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (NASDAQ: ASTS) has closed of its offering of 13,636,364 shares of Class A Common Stock raising gross proceeds of $75.0 million. B. Riley Securities ("B. Riley") was the sole book-running manager of the offering. The Company has also granted B. Riley a 30-day option to purchase an additional 2,045,454 shares to cover over-allotments, if any, which would raise an additional $
China astronauts return from Tiangong space station
Monday, 05 December 2022 10:43Three Chinese astronauts safely returned to Earth on Sunday after six months aboard the Tiangong space station, state media quoted the country's space agency as saying, with their mission deemed a "complete success." The team, which had been aboard the station since early June, touched down at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia at 8:09 pm Beijing time (1209 GMT), Xinhua news agency
Space Force's Wide Field of View achieves First Light
Monday, 05 December 2022 10:43The United States Space Force Space Systems Command's Wide Field of View Testbed transmitted its "First Light" mission data-product. Performing the satellite's mission operations, Millennium Space Systems, a Boeing (NYSE: BA) company, secured the data beginning October 25. "Achieving this major milestone is a huge accomplishment, and we are very excited to enter into the calibration phase
Mars set to wink out behind the Moon
Monday, 05 December 2022 10:43On the night of December 7-8, Mars will be at opposition - opposite the Sun's position in the sky. On that date, Earth is situated directly between Mars and the Sun. The planet is at its brightest, rising as the Sun sets and setting as the Sun rises. Opposition and closest approach to Earth, however, are offset by several days due to the relative shape and orientation of each planet's orbit. Mar
The 2022 Geminids meteor shower is approaching
Monday, 05 December 2022 10:43The cosmos' annual gift to sky watchers, the Geminids Meteor shower, will peak on Dec. 13-14 this year. During peak activity and perfect weather conditions, which are rare, the Geminids produce approximately 100-150 meteors per hour for viewing. However, this year a wanning gibbous moon will make it harder to view most of the shower, resulting in only 30-40 visible meteors per hour at the