Copernical Team
Tennessee company gets multibillion-dollar NASA contract for Kennedy Space Center operations
NASA announced Thursday that it will award a new $3.2 billion contract to Jacobs Technologies to manage launch infrastructure and maintain ground systems at Kennedy Space Center.
The Consolidated Operations, Management, Engineering and Test contract from NASA secures engineering, launch, landing and recovery services and more for the agency and commercial partners using the space center in Crew-6 ready for launch and a program of scientific studies on ISS
NASA's SpaceX Crew-6 mission is scheduled to launch to the International Space Station as soon as February 27 from the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren "Woody" Hoburg, along with UAE (United Arab Emirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, head to the orbiting laboratory for a six-month mission to conduct scientifi Unusual atom helps in search for Universe's building blocks
An unusual form of caesium atom is helping a University of Queensland-led research team unmask unknown particles that make up the Universe.
Dr Jacinda Ginges, from UQ's School of Mathematics and Physics, said the unusual atom - made up of an ordinary caesium atom and an elementary particle called a muon - may prove essential in better understanding the Universe's fundamental building block Starliner crew performs cabin operations, checks out tools
NASA astronauts assigned to the Starliner's upcoming Crew Flight Test (CFT) completed the first part of a two-part Crew Equipment Interface Test (CEIT) this week. CEIT is a critical milestone for NASA, Boeing and the International Space Station program, typically conducted about two months prior to launch. It gives astronauts the opportunity for hands-on training with the actual tools, equipment SpaceX Dragon crew to blast off for ISS
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is to blast off early Monday for the International Space Station carrying two NASA astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and the second Emirati to voyage to space.
The SpaceX Dragon Crew-6 mission is set to lift off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 1:45 am (0645 GMT). Weather conditions are expected to be near perfect.
The Crew Dragon capsule, dubbed Endeavour, is scheduled to dock with the ISS at 2:38 am (0738 GMT) on Tuesday if all goes as planned.
NASA's Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, Russia's Andrey Fedyaev and Sultan al-Neyadi of the United Arab Emirates are to spend six months on the orbiting space station.
Neyadi, 41, will be the fourth astronaut from an Arab country and the second from the oil-rich United Arab Emirates to journey to space; his countryman Hazzaa al-Mansoori flew an eight-day mission in 2019.
Russian ship docks with ISS to replace damaged capsule
An uncrewed Russian Soyuz capsule docked early Sunday with the International Space Station and will eventually bring home three astronauts whose initial return vehicle was damaged by a tiny meteoroid.
The MS-23 ship autonomously latched to the orbiting research lab, live video from ISS-partner NASA showed, completing the Soyuz's two-day journey after launching off from Kazakhstan.
It is expected to bring home US astronaut Frank Rubio and Russian cosmonauts Dmitry Petelin and Sergei Prokopyev in September.
The three arrived at the ISS last September aboard MS-22, and were originally only supposed to stay about six months, until the end of March.
But their capsule began leaking coolant in mid-December after being hit by what US and Russian officials believe was a tiny space rock.
Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, decided to send MS-23 to replace the damaged vessel, but without its own three planned crew members.
With no one to replace them, Rubio, Petelin and Prokopyev will now spend almost a year in space.
The damaged MS-22 is expected to depart the space station without passengers and return to Earth in late March.
New study offers insight into how Venus cools
Large geological patterns on Venus, called Coronae, may provide answers to how the planet releases heat, according to a research study from scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
On Earth, the planet's core heats the surrounding mantle which then conveys heat to the outer layer or lithosphere, where it then radiates out into space, causing the Earth's mantle to cool, driving th ULA's Vulcan Centaur rocket is flying for the first time in May
Vulcan Centaur was supposed to blast off in the first quarter of this year. During a press conference on February 23, United Launch Alliance (ULA) President and CEO Tory Bruno stated, "We are now targeting the fourth of May, so we plan our manifest around that and be ready to fly that payload when it comes in."
The long-awaited inaugural flight of the new Vulcan Centaur rocket is targeting Russia's uncrewed Soyuz rescue spacecraft docks with ISS
A Russian spacecraft docked with the International Space Station on Saturday to replace one that leaked coolant after it was struck by a meteoroid last year, stranding two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut in space.
"Contact and capture. Docking confirmed at 6:58 p.m. CST," NASA spokesman Robert Navias said during a broadcast of the mission. "It could not have gone smoother from launch to Euclid spacecraft prepares to probe universe's dark mysteries
For now, Europe's Euclid spacecraft sits quietly in a sterilized room in the south of France, its golden trim gleaming under the fluorescent light.
But in a few months the space telescope will blast off on history's first mission to search for two of the universe's greatest mysteries: dark matter and dark energy.
Though together they make up 95 percent of the universe, almost nothing is known about either—a glaring hole in scientific understanding that Euclid project manager Giuseppe Racca dubbed a "cosmic embarrassment".
Aiming to shed light on these dark secrets, the European Space Agency's mission will chart a 3D map of the universe encompassing two billion galaxies across more than a third of the sky.
