Washington DC (SPX) Jun 29, 2022
NASA's CubeSat designed to test a unique lunar orbit is safely in space and on the first leg of its journey to the Moon. The spacecraft is heading toward an orbit intended in the future for Gateway, a lunar space station built by the agency and its commercial and international partners that will support NASA's Artemis program, including astronaut missions. The Cislunar Autonomous Positioni

Beijing, China (SPX) Jun 29, 2022
The space station is a bridgehead for human space exploration missions. During its construction, operation, and maintenance, there are a variety of tasks that need to be performed. However, the space environment has harsh conditions such as microgravity, high vacuum, strong radiation, and large temperature differences, which seriously threaten the health and life safety of astronauts. Sinc

Washington DC (SPX) Jun 29, 2022
NASA has analyzed the data from the wet dress rehearsal conducted Monday, June 20, and determined the testing campaign is complete. The agency will roll Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion back to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Kennedy next week to prepare the rocket and spacecraft for launch. "During the wet dress rehearsal activities, we have incrementally added to our knowledg

Columbia IL (SPX) Jun 29, 2022
NanoAvionics have used an off-the-shelf consumer camera, mounted on a selfie stick, to take the first ever 4K resolution full satellite selfie in space with an immersive view of Earth. The 12-megapixel photos and 4K video clips, taken with a GoPro Hero 7, show the company's MP42 microsatellite flying 550 km above the Coral Sea and the Great Barrier Reef - the only living structure visible from s

ESA, the French space agency CNES and a group of industrial and academic partners have set in motion an ambitious plan to slash CO2 emissions associated with orbital launches, by establishing infrastructure to underpin a hydrogen economy supporting Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

Wellington (AFP) June 28, 2022
NASA blasted a nanosatellite barely bigger than a microwave oven into outer space Tuesday, part of a landmark mission to return humans to the Moon. A rocket carrying the tiny CAPSTONE module successfully launched from New Zealand's eastern Mahia Peninsula to a deafening blast and a wash of fiery propulsion. "We have liftoff!" NASA said in a statement shortly after the 09:55 GMT launch, d

Long Beach CA (SPX) Jun 28, 2022
Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB) has successfully launched CAPSTONE, a microwave-oven-sized satellite designed to test a new orbit around the Moon for NASA. CAPSTONE was launched at 09:55 UTC, June 28 on an Electron rocket from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in Mahia, New Zealand. The mission was Rocket Lab's 27th Electron launch. Designed and built by Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, a Terra

Beijing, China (SPX) Jun 28, 2022
The Tibetan Plateau, known as the "Third Pole" of the world, is not only the highest plateau on the Earth, but it is also considered the "Asian Water Tower". Its watershed nourishes more than ten major rivers in Asia. Like the North and South Poles, the Tibetan Plateau is also extremely vulnerable to climate change. Glaciers on it have been retreating extensively in recent decades. Atmosph

Riverside CA (SPX) Jun 28, 2022
Using light-capturing proteins in living microbes, scientists have reconstructed what life was like for some of Earth's earliest organisms. These efforts could help us recognize signs of life on other planets, whose atmospheres may more closely resemble our pre-oxygen planet. The earliest living things, including bacteria and single-celled organisms called archaea, inhabited a primarily oc