Moscow (Sputnik) Dec 06, 2021
Top American generals have repeatedly expressed fears about the speed of development of the latest generation of military technologies in the main rival countries for the US - China and Russia - noting, to their own regret, the bureaucracy and slowness of the development of the latest weapons by the US. General David Thompson, Vice Chief of Space Operations for the US Space Force, stated t

Reston VA (SPX) Dec 06, 2021
SES Government Solutions has announced its new Common Operational Picture (COP) platform, Hydra, built exclusively to serve the U.S. Government and military. Managed and operated in-house, Hydra is a modular web-based monitoring and control system that provides end-to-end situational awareness in a single unified operational network platform. Hydra collects, normalizes, and organizes data

Alameda CA (SPX) Dec 06, 2021
Astra Space, Inc. has announced plans to deploy its first satellite in orbit for NASA in January 2022. The launch from Cape Canaveral will be conducted out of Space Launch Complex 46 (SLC-46) and will be Astra's first launch out of Cape Canaveral. "This historic launch site has been prepared for a new commercial launch partner in less than year, which is a tremendous milestone for our comb

Beijing (XNA) Dec 08, 2021
Galactic Energy, a carrier rocket maker in Beijing, has become the first private enterprise in China to have conducted two orbital missions that placed satellites in outer space. The company's CERES 1 Y2 rocket, the second of its kind, blasted off at 12:12 pm Tuesday at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Northwest China's Gobi Desert and flew for about 14 minutes before deploying five

Long Beach CA (SPX) Dec 08, 2021
Rocket Lab USA has signed a deal with Japanese Earth imaging company Synspective to carry out three dedicated Electron launches. The first two missions are scheduled for lift-off from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in 2022, with a third to follow in 2023. Each mission will deploy a single StriX satellite, growing Synspective's synthetic aperture radar (SAR) constellation developed to deliver

Herndon VA (SPX) Dec 08, 2021
BlackSky plans to add another two satellites to its constellation Wednesday with the Rocket Lab mission titled "A Data with Destiny." Satellites from the SpaceX mission Thursday began delivering revenue-generating insights for customers less than 24 hours following launch and increased constellation revisit rates to six consistent visits per day in key markets during daylight hours. "Black

Baikonur, Kazakhstan (AFP) Dec 8, 2021
A Russian rocket lifted off on Wednesday carrying a Japanese billionaire to the International Space Station, marking the country's return to space tourism after a decade-long pause that saw the rise of competition from privately held US companies. Online fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa and his production assistant Yozo Hirano blasted off from the Russia-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan

Image:

Mirror, mirror, on the Moon, how far away are you? 

MoonLIGHT or Moon Laser Instrumentation for General relativity/geophysics High-accuracy Tests is seeking the answer to this and more questions on general relativity, the gravitational dynamics of the Earth-Moon system and the deep lunar interior.  

MoonLIGHT is a laser retroreflector, imaged here, which allows laser beams sent from Earth to be reflected back from the Moon to receivers on our planet. This allows very precise measurement of the distances between the reflector and the ground station.

Known as lunar laser ranging, this technique has been in use since the Apollo missions to investigate