National Reconnaissance Office launches new procurement of commercial satellite imagery
Wednesday, 03 November 2021 15:32
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The National Reconnaissance Office on Nov. 3 released a request for bids from U.S. commercial providers of satellite imagery.
TRUTHS shapes up
Wednesday, 03 November 2021 14:00 Write a comment
ESA’s new TRUTHS mission is taking shape. Highlighted today at COP26, this new mission is moving from its feasibility phase into its preliminary design phase. TRUTHS is set to provide measurements of incoming solar radiation and of radiation reflected from Earth back out into space as traceable International System of Units. These measurements will allow changes in Earth’s climate to be detected faster, and they will be used to calibrate data from other satellites. In effect, TRUTHS will be a ‘standards laboratory in space’, setting the ‘gold standard’ for climate measurements.
Firefly Aerospace hires former Air Force officer to lead space transportation sales
Wednesday, 03 November 2021 12:10 Write a comment
Firefly Aerospace has hired a former U.S. Air Force officer to lead a rebranded subsidiary responsible for sales of its launch vehicles and other capabilities to government and commercial customers.
ESA and GHGSat support new International Methane Emissions Observatory
Wednesday, 03 November 2021 10:32 Write a comment
In the first 20 years of reaching the atmosphere, methane has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide. Reducing emissions of this extremely potent gas is, therefore, one of the fastest ways of slowing the rate of global warming, at least in the short term – and at COP26, more than 100 countries have just signed up to the Global Methane Pledge, which aims to limit emissions by 30% compared with 2020 levels.
With both public and commercial satellite data playing key roles in assessing progress on climate action, ESA and GHGSat are supporting the United Nations Environment
A Dragon awaits
Wednesday, 03 November 2021 10:30 Write a comment
Video:
00:02:58
A timelapse of Launchpad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA, where the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule Endurance sits atop a Falcon 9 rocket, ready to carry Crew-3 to the International Space Station.
Initially scheduled for launch on 31 October 2021, this Dragon will wait a bit longer due to weather along the flight path and a minor medical issue affecting a member of its crew. The next launch attempt is now no earlier than 03:36 GMT/04:36 CET, Sunday, 7 November.
When it does fly, it will transport ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer, as a member of Crew-3
A mission to explore the methane lakes on Titan
Wednesday, 03 November 2021 10:20 Write a comment
Neither mission will be the first time Titan's surface has been visited, though. That distinction belongs to Huygens—a lander launched with the Cassini probe. Unfortunately, with the relatively limited technology of a probe launched in the late 1990s, it was only able to send data back from the surface for about an hour and a half.
Meltwater runoff from Greenland becoming more erratic
Wednesday, 03 November 2021 08:16 Write a comment
As world leaders and decision-makers join forces at COP26 to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement, new research, again, highlights the value of satellite data in understanding and monitoring climate change. This particular new research, which is based on measurements from ESA’s CryoSat mission, shows that extreme ice melting events in Greenland have become more frequent and more intense over the past 40 years, raising sea levels and the risk of flooding worldwide.
NASA creates new technology and policy office in leadership reshuffle
Wednesday, 03 November 2021 07:45 Write a comment
NASA Headquarters has created a new office devoted to technology and policy issues, part of a restructuring that includes creating a new space security position at the civil space agency.
Leicester researchers analyse consequences of China space weapon test
Wednesday, 03 November 2021 04:04 Write a comment
University of Leicester experts in the military uses of outer space have urged further international dialogue and 'cool heads' following flight tests of a new Chinese hypersonic missile system. Reports of China testing a new orbital launch vehicle, known as Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS), have fuelled concerns about the nuclear weapon state's advancing military capabilities and pos AFRL Space Vehicles Directorate holds first Space Cyber Summit
Wednesday, 03 November 2021 04:04 Write a comment
The Air Force Research Laboratory's Space Vehicles Directorate held an inaugural Space Cyber Summit October 13-14. More than 140 space professionals participated in the in-person and virtual event held at Kirtland AFB.
The gathering included space experts from across AFRL, the U.S. Space Force, several federally funded research and development centers, NASA, and many other organizations. Key role of the reactor surface in Miller's experiment on the molecular origin of life
Wednesday, 03 November 2021 04:04 Write a comment
A team of researchers from the CSIC and the University of Tuscia (Italy) has demonstrated the role that glass played in the historical experiment carried out by Stanley Miller in 1952 to simulate the conditions that would have given rise to life on the early Earth. The results, published in Scientific Reports, open a new way to study the emergence of life.
Miller built a glass apparatus in UK and France reach new agreement on climate change mission
Wednesday, 03 November 2021 04:04 Write a comment
The UK Space Agency has provided new funding for a joint British and French MicroCarb mission dedicated to monitoring atmospheric carbon dioxide - the main greenhouse gas responsible for climate change.
Dr Paul Bate, Chief Executive of the UK Space Agency, and Laurence Monnoyer-Smith, Director of Sustainable Development of the French space agency, CNES, signed an implementation arrangement Earth's orbit affects millennial climate variability
Wednesday, 03 November 2021 04:04 Write a comment
Abundant geological evidence demonstrates that Earth's climate has experienced millennial-scale variability superimposed on glacial-interglacial fluctuations through the Pleistocene. The magnitude of millennial climate variability has been linked to glacial cycles over the past 800 thousand years?(kyr).
For the period before the Mid-Pleistocene Transition, when global glaciations were less Late bombardment of the Moon revealed
Wednesday, 03 November 2021 04:04 Write a comment
The lunar surface is covered by numerous craters that date back to the impacts of asteroids. Age determinations on lunar rocks formed during these impacts show a surprising clustering at ages of about 3.9 billion years before present, or about 500 million years after the Moon was formed. These observations have led to the theory of a Late Heavy Bombardment of the Moon (or LHB).
But what wa An artificial material that can sense, adapt to its environment
Wednesday, 03 November 2021 04:04 Write a comment
Move over, Hollywood - science fiction is getting ready to leap off the big screen and enter the real world. While recent science fiction movies have demonstrated the power of artificially intelligent computer programs, such as the fictional character J.A.R.V.I.S. in the Avenger film series, to make independent decisions to carry out a set of actions, these imagined movie scenarios could now be