For all registered visitors for Sunday 8 October’s ESA Open Day at ESTEC in the Netherlands, the programme brochure for the day is now available to read through and plan your visit.

Estonia’s next satellite will fly aboard Europe’s Vega VV23 launcher later this week. While largely designed and built by undergraduate students, the shoebox-sized ESTCube-2 has ambitious goals in mind, including surveys of Estonian vegetation and the first successful in-orbit demonstration of ‘plasma brake’ technology. Deployment of a charged microtether will slow the CubeSat’s orbit, proving the prospect of helping to keep space clear of dangerous debris in the future.

Washington (AFP) Oct 3, 2023
US authorities have issued a "breakthrough" first-ever fine over space debris, officials said Monday, slapping a $150,000 penalty on a TV company that failed to properly dispose of a satellite. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) came down on Dish for "failure to properly deorbit" a satellite called EchoStar-7, in orbit since 2002. "This marks a first in space debris enforcement

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Oct 02, 2023
An international research team has taken a decisive step toward a new generation of atomic clocks. At the European XFEL X-ray laser, the researchers have created a much more precise pulse generator based on the element scandium, which enables an accuracy of one second in 300 billion years - that is about a thousand times more precise than the current standard atomic clock based on caesium. The t

Westminster CO (SPX) Oct 02, 2023
Trimble (NASDAQ: TRMB) has announced a definitive agreement to form a joint venture (the "JV") with AGCO (NYSE: AGCO) to better serve farmers with factory fit and aftermarket applications in the mixed fleet precision agriculture market. Trimble and AGCO's shared vision is to create a global leader in mixed fleet smart farming and autonomy solutions. In aggregate, Trimble expects approximately $3

Washington DC (UPI) Oct 2, 2023
New images from the James Webb Space Telescope released Monday revealed planet-like structures in the Orion Nebula. The photos shared by the European Space Agency were taken with Webb's near-infrared camera NIRCam and exposed elements of the nebula located south of the Orion belt, which scientists have described as a "treasure trove" for their studies of the formation and early evolutio

Albuquerque NM (SPX) Sep 27, 2023
BlueHalo recently hosted U.S. Space Force officials and federal legislative leaders for a successful milestone demonstration of its BADGER system, a multi-band, deployable ground terminal that enables resilient satellite communication. This critical benchmark comes one year into development of the $1.4B Satellite Communication Augmentation Resource (SCAR) program announced by the Space Rap

Tehran (IRNA) Oct 02, 2023
A senior commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has announced that Iran will launch two more satellites into space by the end of the calendar year ending March 19. Brigadier General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the IRGC's Aerospace Division, made the announcement on Wednesday following the successful launch of Nour-3, an imaging satellite, into orbit. "Nour-3

Washington DC (SPX) Sep 26, 2023
The Mariana Trench, the deepest place on Earth, plunges nearly 11,000 meters at its lowest point on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Life persists in the deep and cold darkness, and "wherever there's life, you can bet there are regulators at work," said marine virologist Min Wang, Ph.D, at the Ocean University of China, in Qingdao. "Viruses, in this case." This week in Microbiology Spectrum

Washington DC (SPX) Sep 26, 2023
Earth's land masses have a higher chance of becoming wetter than drier as temperatures rise. In a new study, researchers found that co-occurring precipitation and heat extremes will become more frequent, severe and widespread under climate change, more so than dry and hot conditions. When wet-hot conditions strike, heat waves first dry out the soil and reduce its ability to absorb water. S