New sea-level monitoring satellite goes live
Monday, 21 June 2021 13:30
Following liftoff last November and more than six months spent carefully calibrating the most advanced mission dedicated to measuring sea-level rise, Copernicus Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich is now operational – meaning that its data are available to climate researchers, ocean-weather forecasts and other data users.
Stark reality of Californian drought from space
Monday, 21 June 2021 07:30
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Stark reality of Californian drought from space Take part in ESA’s Space App Camp
Monday, 21 June 2021 06:20
ESA is inviting up to 25 committed mobile app developers and specialists in artificial and machine learning related to observing Earth from space to join this year’s Space App Camp, which will be a virtual event over eight weeks, from 20 July to 20 September.
Take 2: Spacewalking astronauts install new solar panel
Sunday, 20 June 2021 19:26
Spacewalking astronauts equipped the International Space Station with the first in a series of powerful new solar panels Sunday, overcoming suit problems and other obstacles with muscle and persistence.
It took two spacewalks for French astronaut Thomas Pesquet and NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough to install and unfurl the panel to its full 63 feet (19 meters) in length.
The solar wing unrolled like a red carpet once the final set of bolts was released, relying solely on pent-up energy. The slow but steady extension took 10 minutes, with station cameras providing live TV views.
"It is beautiful," Pesquet called out.
"Well done, both of you," Mission Control replied once the operation was complete.
Mars smallsat mission gets second chance with Rocket Lab
Sunday, 20 June 2021 14:11
WASHINGTON — A NASA-funded smallsat mission to Mars that lost its ride last year may get new life through a partnership with Rocket Lab.
Rocket Lab announced June 15 it won a contract from the Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL) of the University of California Berkeley to begin design work on a new version of the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (EscaPADE) mission to Mars.
Novel chirped pulses defy 'conventional wisdom'
Sunday, 20 June 2021 01:59
The 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics was shared by researchers who pioneered a technique to create ultrashort, yet extremely high-energy laser pulses at the University of Rochester.
Now researchers at the University's Institute of Optics have produced those same high-powered pulses - known as chirped pulses - in a way that works even with relatively low-quality, inexpensive equipment. The new w Lockheed Martin-Built Next Generation GPS III Satellite Propels Itself to Orbit
Sunday, 20 June 2021 01:59
The fifth Global Positioning System III (GPS III) satellite designed and built by Lockheed Martin is now headed to its orbit 12,550 miles above earth. This marks another step in supporting the U.S. Space Force's GPS satellite constellation modernization efforts.
Launched earlier this week, GPS III Space Vehicle 05 (GPS III SV05) is the latest next-generation GPS III satellite, a warfightin Orbital Sidekick announces upcoming launch of its most powerful satellite: Aurora
Sunday, 20 June 2021 01:59
Orbital Sidekick (OSK) announced the upcoming launch of its newest and most powerful hyperspectral imaging satellite: "Aurora." Aurora leverages OSK's previous experience collecting and analyzing hyperspectral data to provide action-oriented insights on the world around us, with a core focus on sustainability.
The Aurora satellite will serve OSK's customers in the energy, mining, and defen Computer problem takes Hubble offline
Saturday, 19 June 2021 13:05
WASHINGTON — Spacecraft controllers are continuing to work on a faulty computer memory system on NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope that has stopped telescope operations for nearly a week.
A payload computer on Hubble stopped working June 13, the agency said in a June 16 statement.
Turkey invites Russia to take part in construction of country's spaceport
Saturday, 19 June 2021 09:26
Earlier this year, media reported that Ankara was planning to build a spaceport in Somalia as part of a $1 billion investment in the nation's nascent space programme. Turkish authorities did not confirm this information, but President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did announce in February that Turkey would make a hard landing on the Moon by the year 2023.
Russia is invited to participate in the dev Orchids in orbit: Seeds tested in space
Saturday, 19 June 2021 09:26
Almost 30 grams of Nanjing orchid seeds were carried into space for breeding tests, accompanying three Chinese astronauts in China's Shenzhou XII manned spaceship, which was launched on Thursday. The seeds will be in space for three months.
A red orchid variety, Hongcao, features red buds and seedlings, a popular variant from Nanjing county of Fujian province.
It was selected and bre Study of young chaotic star system reveals planet formation secrets
Saturday, 19 June 2021 09:26
A team of scientists using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to study the young star Elias 2-27 have confirmed that gravitational instabilities play a key role in planet formation, and have for the first time directly measured the mass of protoplanetary disks using gas velocity data, potentially unlocking one of the mysteries of planet formation. The results of the research Researchers discover orbital patterns of trans-Neptunian objects
Saturday, 19 June 2021 09:26
Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs), small objects that orbit the sun beyond Neptune, are fossils from the early days of the solar system which can tell us a lot about its formation and evolution.
A new study led by Mohamad Ali-Dib, a research scientist at the NYU Abu Dhabi Center for Astro, Particle, and Planetary Physics, reports the significant discovery that two groups of TNOs with differen SpaceML.org aims to accelerate AI application in space science and exploration
Saturday, 19 June 2021 09:26
The SETI Institute and Frontier Development Lab are announcing the launch of SpaceML.org. SpaceML is a resource that makes AI-ready datasets available to researchers working in space science and exploration, enabling rapid experimentation and reproducibility.
The SpaceML Repo is a machine learning toolbox and community managed resource to enable researchers to more effectively engage in AI How a supermassive black hole originates
Saturday, 19 June 2021 09:26
Supermassive black holes, or SMBHs, are black holes with masses that are several million to billion times the mass of our sun. The Milky Way hosts an SMBH with mass a few million times the solar mass. Surprisingly, astrophysical observations show that SMBHs already existed when the universe was very young. For example, a billion solar mass black holes are found when the universe was just 6% of i