First view of OSIRIS-REx returning with asteroid sample
Thursday, 21 September 2023 06:20
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Is it a spacecraft? An asteroid? Well, both. This small central speck is the first image of a spacecraft on its way home, carrying with it a sample from an asteroid hundreds-of-millions, if-not-billions-of-years old. The spacecraft is NASA’s OSIRIS-REx, the asteroid is Bennu.
On Sunday 24 September, the mission will drop its rocky sample off to fall through Earth’s atmosphere and land safely back home, before it continues on to study the once rather scary asteroid Apophis.
Spotted on 16 September by ESA’s Optical Ground Station
Maxar Technologies reorganizes as two separate businesses
Wednesday, 20 September 2023 22:00
Juice: Why's it taking so long?
Wednesday, 20 September 2023 17:44 Write a comment
At their closest point in orbit, Earth and Jupiter are separated by almost 600 million kilometers. At the time of writing, five months after launch, Juice has already traveled 370 million kilometers, yet in time it's only 5% of the way there. Why is it taking so long?
The answer depends on a variety of factors that flight dynamics experts at ESA's Mission Control know well, from the amount fuel used to the power of the rocket, mass of a spacecraft and geometry of the planets.
NASA spacecraft delivering biggest sample yet from an asteroid
Wednesday, 20 September 2023 16:44 Write a comment
Planet Earth is about to receive a special delivery—the biggest sample yet from an asteroid.
SpaceX knocks out Space Coast's 50th launch of the year
Wednesday, 20 September 2023 16:17 Write a comment
A SpaceX launch from Cape Canaveral lit up the Space Coast for the 50th time this year while also achieving a milestone for the company.
The Falcon 9 rocket carrying up another 22 of the company's Starlink satellites made a record 17th flight with liftoff at 11:38 p.m. from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's Space Launch Complex 40.
The booster previously launched on the GPS III-3, Turksat 5A, Transporter-2, Intelsat G-33/G-34, Transporter-6, and 11 Starlink missions. It made another recovery landing on the droneship A Short Fall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean.
SpaceX has flown all but three of the Space Coast launches this year with United Launch Alliance sending up two and Relativity Space the only other one.
With this mission, SpaceX has flown 37 from Cape Canaveral and another 10 from Kennedy Space Center including all three human spaceflights to orbit from the U.S. this year as well as three powerhouse Falcon Heavy launches.
The launch manifest for the remainder of the year should see the Space Coast beat the record 57 launches it saw in 2022.
NASA's moonbound Artemis astronauts take new ride to launch pad in practice run
Wednesday, 20 September 2023 16:07 Write a comment
The four astronauts headed to the moon next year on the Artemis II mission suited up and took a practice run to the launch pad in the new crew transport vehicles at Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday.
NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen donned orange spacesuits and climbed into the curvy electric vehicles officially referred to as CTVs, as in crew transportation vehicles, and took the 9-mile ride from the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building to Launch Pad 39-B.
The dry run is to demonstrate normal launch day procedures as they gear up for the mission that could fly as early as November 2024, taking the first crewed flight on NASA's powerful Space Launch System rocket riding in the Orion space capsule on what is planned to be a 10-day mission that will take them out and around the moon, but not land.
NASA's Artemis III mission is still planned to be the one to take humans back to the lunar surface for the first time since the end of the Apollo program in 1972.
FCC directing more satellite constellations to mitigate effects on astronomy
Wednesday, 20 September 2023 14:16
The Startup Nation in Space – Israel’s Equation for the Space Ecosystem
Wednesday, 20 September 2023 13:32
Firefoxes and whale spouts light up Earth's shield
Wednesday, 20 September 2023 11:36 Write a comment
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Did you know, the Northern lights or Aurora Borealis are created when the mythical Finnish ‘Firefox’ runs so quickly across the snow that its tail causes sparks to fly into the night sky? At least, that’s one of the stories that has been told in Finland about this beautiful phenomenon. Another that we love comes from the Sámi people of Finnish Lapland (among others), who describe them as plumes of water ejected by whales.
What do they look like, to you?
Today’s scientific explanation for the origin of the Aurora wasn’t thought up until the 20th Century, by the
SpaceX deploys another 22 Starlink satellites
Wednesday, 20 September 2023 10:19 Write a comment
Elon Musk's SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket with a payload of 22 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit late Tuesday.
The rocket launched at 11:38 p.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
SpaceX had said prior to launch that weather was 90% favorable for liftoff.
The orbitals were deposited into space where they will join China launches Yaogan 39 remote sensing satellite
Wednesday, 20 September 2023 10:19 Write a comment
China launched a Long March 2D carrier rocket on Sunday afternoon at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province to place several remote-sensing satellites into orbit, according to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp.
The State-owned space contractor said in a news release that the rocket blasted off at 12:13 pm and transported the Yaogan 39 satellites into their preset DARPA seeks tech solutions to create autonomous capabilities for commercial drones
Wednesday, 20 September 2023 10:19 Write a comment
Commercial drone technology is advancing rapidly, providing cost-effective and robust capabilities for a variety of civil and military missions. As small aerial vehicles play increasingly important military roles on the battlefield, adversaries are developing electromagnetic countermeasures to disrupt communication links between operator and drone, forcing the vehicle to abort mission, return to NASA-built greenhouse gas detector moves closer to launch
Wednesday, 20 September 2023 10:19 Write a comment
A state-of-the-art imaging spectrometer, which will measure the greenhouse gases methane and carbon dioxide from space, moved closer to launch this month after being delivered to a clean room at Planet Labs PBC (Planet) in San Francisco.
Designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, this science instrument will be part of an effort led by the nonprofit Carb POWER Program selects teams to design power beaming relays
Wednesday, 20 September 2023 10:19 Write a comment
DARPA is entering the first phase of the Persistent Optical Wireless Energy Relay (POWER) program, aimed at revolutionizing energy distribution through airborne wireless power transfer. Three teams - led by RTX Corporation, Draper, and BEAM Co. - will design and develop wireless optical power relays. The program goals include demonstrating the key components necessary for a resilient, speed-of-l ESA Open Day in the framework of European Researchers’ Night
Wednesday, 20 September 2023 06:17 Write a comment
ESA will open its doors to members of the public at its Earth Observation centre in Frascati, near Rome, Italy, on 29 September, as part of its annual open day.