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One of the many milestones in the leadup to the launch of Artemis is its rollout: this is when a crawler will carry the SLS rocket with Orion and ESM from the Vehicle Assembly Building to launchpad 39B. NASA’s John Giles gives us a tour of the crawler and explains the adaptations made to this “wonderful piece of machinery” since it was first built for the Apollo programme in the 1960s. ESA is playing a key role in NASA’s Artemis programme, which will bring astronauts back to the Moon. The European Service Module – or ESM –

Chinese state-owned entities are developing a growing range of solid rockets to meet growing launch demands and contribute to a wider strategy of making China a fully-fledged space power.

The post China is developing new solid rockets to boost overall space capabilities appeared first on SpaceNews.

The first Space Launch System rocket rolled out to its launch pad here March 17 for a countdown dress rehearsal ahead of its long-delayed launch this summer on the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission.

Warsaw, Poland (SPX) Mar 18, 2022
In an official letter of intent with the leading responsive space company Virgin Orbit (Nasdaq: VORB), the Polish Space Agency (POLSA), the agency overseeing Poland's space development, conveyed its strong interest in bringing a domestic launch capability to Poland, a development uniquely made possible through Virgin Orbit's air-launched LauncherOne system. The signed letter codifies the P

Pasadena CA (JPL) Mar 18, 2022
Our Monday drive was successful, and we are now fully surrounded by the rocks that cap the Greenheugh pediment. From here we can see hundreds of ventifacts - a term that describes rocks which have been abraded by wind-blown sand into distinctive, flattened facets with crisp edges. This terrain is very different from what we've become used to seeing during our climb up Mt. Sharp! Today's pl

Munich, Germany (SPX) Mar 18, 2022
When the nearest service engineer is a 2-hour helicopter flight away, manual troubleshooting and firmware updates really aren't an option. So who does OneWeb trust for remote management of their user terminals? Axiros. As if it wasn't demanding enough managing your core network components out in space, there are also extreme on-the-ground challenges for a satellite operator like OneWeb. Th

Barcelona, Spain (SPX) Mar 18, 2022
Researchers from the UAB, IFAE and University College London propose using the variations in distance between the Earth and the Moon, which can be measured with a precision of less than a centimeter, as a new gravitational wave detector within a frequency range that current devices cannot detect. The research, which could pave the way for the detection of signals from the early universe, was pub

The European Space Agency is looking at options for launching missions that were to fly on Russia’s Soyuz rocket, including both non-European rockets and early use of the Ariane 6.

The post ESA weighs options for replacing Soyuz launches appeared first on SpaceNews.

Washington (AFP) March 17, 2022
NASA's massive new rocket is poised to make its first journey to a launchpad on Thursday ahead of a battery of tests that will clear it to blast off to the Moon this summer. It will leave the Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building at 5:00 pm Eastern Time (2100 GMT) and begin its glacially slow, 11-hour crawl on a transporter to the hallowed Launch Complex 39B, four miles (6.5 kilom