Copernical Team
The start of the birth of planets in a binary star system observed
Astronomers have observed primordial material that may be giving birth to three planetary systems around a binary star in unprecedented detail.
Bringing together three decades of study, an international group of scientists have observed a pair of stars orbiting each other, to reveal that these stars are surrounded by disks of gas and dust. Research published in The Astrophysical Journal, s Sol 3411: Bonanza
After significant churn in Monday's planning, today turned out to be a single sol's worth of untargeted science. That left GEO with only a ChemCam AEGIS activity, where ChemCam automatically identifies and targets an interesting rock near the rover by itself. ENV than planned a bonanza of atmospheric monitoring activities, as we had power to spare.
This included 7 dust devil movies with 4 Esri releases updated land-cover map with new sets of global data
Governments and businesses across the world are pledging to adopt more sustainable and equitable practices. Many are also working to limit activities that contribute to climate change. To support these efforts, Esri, the global leader in location intelligence, in partnership with Impact Observatory and Microsoft, is releasing a globally consistent 2017-2021 global land-use and land-cover map of Sidus Space completes LizzieSat Preliminary Design Review
Sidus Space, Inc. (NASDAQ:SIDU), a Space-as-a-Service satellite company focused on commercial satellite design, manufacture, launch, and data collection is pleased to announce the successful completion of the LizzieSat (LS) Preliminary Design Review (PDR).
A PDR ensures the design and basic system architecture are complete and that there is technical confidence the capability need can be s Satellogic to launch five satellites on SpaceX Transporter-4 Mission
Satellogic Inc. (NASDAQ: SATL), a leader in sub-meter resolution satellite imagery collection, reports it has shipped five satellites to be launched in early Q2 from Cape Canaveral. The launch will be part of SpaceX's Transporter-4 mission onboard the highly flight-proven Falcon 9 reusable, two-stage rocket, under SpaceX's Rideshare program.
The upcoming launch includes the first deploymen AST SpaceMobile announces launch deal with SpaceX
AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (NASDAQ: ASTS), the company building the first and only space-based cellular broadband network accessible directly by standard mobile phones, has announced it has signed a multi-launch agreement with Space Exploration Technologies Corp. ("SpaceX"). In addition to the planned summer launch of the BlueWalker 3 test satellite (BW3), the agreement covers the launch of the first Slingshot Aerospace raises $25M in Series A-1 Funding Round
Slingshot Aerospace, Inc., a company building world-class space simulation and analytics products to accelerate space sustainability, has announced that it has raised $25 million in Series A-1 funds. The new money is in addition to the $9.6 million Series A funds raised in October 2020, bringing the total raised for the A and A-1 rounds to $34.6 million to date.
The oversubscribed A-1 rou Exploring the Rubin Observatory's giant data acquisition system
When the Vera C. Rubin Observatory starts taking pictures of the night sky in a few years, its centerpiece 3,200 megapixel Legacy Survey of Space and Time camera will produce an enormous trove of data valuable to everyone from cosmologists to the people who track asteroids that might collide with Earth.
You may already have read about how the Rubin Observatory's Simonyi Survey Telescope will gather light from the universe and shine it on the Department of Energy's LSST Camera, how researchers will manage the data that comes from the camera, and the myriad things they'll try to learn about the universe around us.
What you probably haven't read about is how researchers will get that mountain of incredibly detailed images off the back of the world's largest digital camera, down fiber optic cables and into the computers that will send them off Cerro Pachón in Chile and out into the world.
Gregg Thayer, a scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, is the person in charge of Rubin's data acquisition system, which handles this essential process.
What would a sustainable space environment look like?
October 4, 2022, will be an auspicious day as humanity celebrates the 65th anniversary of the beginning of the Space Age. It all began in 1957 with the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik-1, the first artificial satellite ever sent to orbit. Since that time, about 8,900 satellites have been launched from more than 40 countries worldwide. This has led to growing concerns about space debris and the hazard it represents to future constellations, spacecraft, and even habitats in low Earth orbit (LEO).
This has led to many proposed solutions for cleaning up "space junk," as well as satellite designs that would allow them to deorbit and burn up. Alas, there are still questions about whether a planet surrounded by mega-constellations is sustainable over the long term. A recent study by James A. Blake, a research fellow with the University of Warwick, examined the evolution of the debris environment in LEO and assessed if future space operations can be conducted sustainably.
For his Ph.D. project, Blake focused on the imaging and tracking of space debris in geosynchronous Earth orbits (GEOs) around 36,000 km (22,370 mi) above the equator.
Ukraine war: How it could play out in space, with potentially dangerous consequences
Nearly three decades of close collaboration in space between Russia and the western world seems to be coming to an end. With increasing tensions over Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, Russia has arguably threatened to crash the International Space Station and refuse to launch satellites for western countries. A few months ago, Russia blew up one of its own defunct satellites, creating space junk that threatened the safety of astronauts at the ISS.
So how is the war likely to impact on operations in space going forward, and what are the consequences?
Aggression in space could directly affect boots on the grounds. Imagery from space has become a regular feature in coverage of the invasion of Ukraine, showing long columns of armor moving inexorably towards Kyiv or Kharkiv.
While chilling in its content, it has offered a boost to the embattled Ukrainian resistance by helping it work out where the enemy is, where it is coming from and how it is configured.
