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A snap of ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet during the second spacewalk to upgrade the International Space Station’s power system, taken by NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough.

The duo performed the second extra vehicular activity to bolt in place and unfurl an IROSA, or ISS Roll-Out Solar Array, on Sunday 20 June.

The series of spacewalks last week was not without some challenges. During the first spacewalk on 16 June, Shane experienced a small technical problem in his spacesuit that required him to return to the airlock and restart his Display and Control Module. This module provides astronauts with continuous information on pressure,

Washington DC (AFNS) Jun 22, 2021
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Department of the Air Force signed an agreement June 15 aimed at eliminating red tape while protecting public safety during commercial space activities at ranges operated by the U.S. Space Force. The agreement recognizes common safety standards for FAA-licensed launch and reentry activities that occur on, originate from, or return to Cape C

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jun 22, 2021
The technique is being developed to detect venusquakes. A new study details how, in 2019, it made the first balloon-borne detection of a quake much closer to home. Between July 4 and July 6, 2019, a sequence of powerful earthquakes rumbled near Ridgecrest, California, triggering more than 10,000 aftershocks over a six-week period. Seeing an opportunity, researchers from NASA's Jet Propulsi

Nagoya, Japan (SPX) Jun 23, 2021
Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from human activities have risen drastically over the last century and a half and are seen as the primary cause of global warming and abnormal weather patterns. So, there has been considerable research focus, in a number of fields, on lowering our CO2 emissions and its atmospheric levels. One promising strategy is to chemically break down, or 'reduce,' CO2 us

Valuable data is flowing rapidly from Earth observing satellites back to the planet, thanks to the most sophisticated laser communication network ever built.

Washington DC (SPX) Jun 23, 2021
Following recent successful experimentation with Marines at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, DARPA's Prototype Resilient Operations Testbed for Expeditionary Urban Scenarios (PROTEUS) will transition to the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (MCWL) in Quantico, Virginia. PROTEUS comprises a suite of visual software training and experimentation tools that enables Marines from squad to battali

Beijing, China (SPX) Jun 24, 2021
Modern weather forecasts rely heavily on data retrieved from numerical weather prediction models. These models continue to improve and have advanced considerably throughout more than half a century. However, forecast reliability depends on the quality and accuracy of initialization data, or a sample of the current global atmosphere when the model run is started. This process of bringing su

Washington DC (UPI) Jun 23, 2021
An educational space technology company in Finland, Arctic Astronautics Ltd., plans to launch this fall a tiny 2-pound satellite made mostly of wood, named Woodsat, as a science experiment and to encourage interest in space. Small launch company Rocket Lab plans to carry the Woodsat into space aboard an Electron rocket lifting off from New Zealand. The goal of the mission is to d

Madrid, Spain (SPX) Jun 24, 2021
Under the Advanced Shipborne Galileo Receiver Double Frequency (ASGARD) project the technology multinational GMV is collaborating with the defence and security company Saab, to develop a new civil, legislation-compliant, Galileo-signal-using maritime receiver. Co-funded by EUSPA (former GSA), ASGARD aims to boost Galileo take up in maritime transport by developing shipborne e-GNSS (Europea

College Park MD (SPX) Jun 24, 2021
University of Maryland researchers created the first high-resolution image of an expanding bubble of hot plasma and ionized gas where stars are born. Previous low-resolution images did not clearly show the bubble or reveal how it expanded into the surrounding gas. The researchers used data collected by the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) telescope to analyze one of