Traditionally, optical, or ‘camera-like’, satellite images are used to map different crops from space, but a recent study shows that Copernicus Sentinel-1 radar data along with interferometric processing can make crop-type mapping even better. This, in turn, will help improve crop-yield forecasts, production statistics, drought and storm damage assessments, and more.

Image: Italy’s Mount Etna, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, has erupted twice in less than 48 hours, spewing a fountain of lava and ash into the sky. This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image has been processed to show the lava flow in bright red.

Week in images: 15 - 19 February 2021

Discover our week through the lens

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Feb 17, 2021
The Arch Mission Foundation, a nonprofit designed to preserve human heritage forever, has successfully placed the first in a series of terrestrial Earth Archives. The Lava Library is the longest lasting time capsule ever deployed on Earth, and follows the placement of Arch Mission's Lunar Library on the Moon in 2019. The Arch Mission Foundation creates and maintains ultra-long-term data st

Seattle WA (SPX) Feb 18, 2021
Spaceflight Inc has provided details about the upcoming launch of its largest customer satellite launch to date, the Amazonia-1 spacecraft. To accommodate the nearly 700-kilogram satellite, Spaceflight purchased an entire NewSpace India Limited's (NSIL) Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). The mission, named PSLV-C51/ Amazonia-1, is targeted for launch at the end of February from Satish Dhawan

Zurich, Switzerland (SPX) Feb 17, 2021
To respond to a changing market environment and to create the basis for the successful implementation of its growth ambition, RUAG Space is repositioning itself along a flatter organization that will take effect as of... RUAG International's Space business is currently being reorganized as part of a project called Ambition 21. The reorganization is a response to a changing market environme

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Feb 16, 2021
A shark moves through the water with speed and agility, always focused on moving forward. It is in this same vein that Northrop Grumman recently developed SharkSat, a pioneering payload to demonstrate on-orbit mission agility and meet demands for rapid development and deployment in space. In January, after completing a three-month stay at the International Space Station hosted aboard the c

Zurich, Switzerland (SPX) Feb 18, 2021
In the search for planets capable of sustaining life, an international research team with members from ETH has taken a significant step forward. As the researchers reported recently in the journal Nature Communications, they found signs of a Neptune-sized planet in the Alpha Centauri star system, a mere 4.4 light years away from Earth. This exoplanet is located in a zone that may offer sui

Beijing (XNA) Feb 18, 2021
Chinese astronauts have started receiving intensive training for spaceflights tasked with building the nation's space station, the China Manned Space Agency said on Tuesday. Several astronauts have spent the past year in hard training and are now in the prelaunch training phase, focusing on extravehicular activities and some other operations, it said in a news release. The agency sai

KSC FL (SPX) Feb 18, 2021
On Saturday, February 20, no earlier than 12:36 p.m. EST, Northrop Grumman is scheduled to launch its Cygnus spacecraft on an Antares rocket to the International Space Station (ISS), marking its 15th mission under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program. The launch, which will take place from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, will deliver thousands of pounds of critical