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Webb Telescope Aft Sunshield Pallet Deployed![]() Washington DC (SPX) Dec 29, 2021 Webb is beginning to resemble the form it will take when it is fully deployed - now that the mission operations team has successfully deployed and latched into place the observatory's forward and aft Unitized Pallet Structures. The team began working through the deployment of the forward pallet this morning, concluding at approximately 1:21 p.m. EST. The team then moved on to the aft pallet deployment, completing the process at approximately 7:27 p.m. EST. While the actual motion to lower the forw ... read more |
Perseverance Samples in Review: 2021Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 29, 2021 As the 2021 calendar year comes to a close, it's nice to sit back and reflect on all the progress we've made on Mars this year. It's been a busy ~300 sols for both Perseverance and our helicopter si ... more
NASA's Webb Telescope Keeping Cool with Ultra-thin DuPont Kapton Polyimide FilmsWilmington DE (SPX) Dec 29, 2021 After 30 years in development, the National Aeronautics Space Administration's (NASA) James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was launched on December 25, 2021, from the European Space Agency's launch sit ... more
AFRL, Northrop Grumman demonstrate solar to radio frequency conversionKirtland AFB NM (SPX) Dec 27, 2021 The Air Force Research Laboratory's and Northrop Grumman's Space Solar Power Incremental Demonstrations and Research (SSPIDR) Project have successfully conducted the first end-to-end demonstration o ... more
China slams US after space station 'close encounters' with Musk's satellitesBeijing (AFP) Dec 28, 2021 Beijing on Tuesday accused the United States of irresponsible and unsafe conduct in space over two "close encounters" between the Chinese space station and satellites operated by Elon Musk's SpaceX. ... more |
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| Previous Issues | Dec 28 | Dec 27 | Dec 23 | Dec 22 |
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Russia stages 'successful' third launch of new rocketMoscow (AFP) Dec 28, 2021 Russia has conducted a third launch of its new heavy-class Angara rocket, the first developed after the fall of the Soviet Union 30 years ago this month. ... more
NASA Selects New Members for Artemis Rover Science TeamWashington DC (SPX) Dec 28, 2021 When NASA's Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, explores and samples the soils at the Moon's South Pole, scientists anticipate it will reveal answers to some of the Moon's end ... more
Testing radar to peer into Jupiter's moonsParis (ESA) Dec 28, 2021 A 1:18 scale model of Juice, ESA's spacecraft to explore the Jupiter system, is being employed to test its radar antenna. The working version of the RIME instrument (Radar for Icy Moons Explor ... more
Billions of starless planets haunt dark cloud cradlesTokyo, Japan (SPX) Dec 28, 2021 In Lovecraftian horror, the Universe is filled with "dark planets" ungraced by the light of a host star. New research shows that reality might be even scarier. An international team composed of Fren ... more
ESO telescopes help uncover largest group of rogue planets yetMunich, Germany (SPX) Dec 28, 2021 "We did not know how many to expect and are excited to have found so many," says Nuria Miret-Roig, an astronomer at the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Bordeaux, France and the University of Vienna, ... more |
![]() Wandering celestial bodies provide a glimpse into the formation of stars and planets |
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Tracking down the forces that shaped our solar system's evolutionWashington DC (SPX) Dec 28, 2021 Meteorites are remnants of the building blocks that formed Earth and the other planets orbiting our Sun. Recent analysis of their isotopic makeup led by Carnegie's Nicole Nie and published in Scienc ... more
An icy spring at the Martian South PoleBerlin, Germany (SPX) Dec 27, 2021 In addition to its enormous volcanoes, huge rift valley systems, and dried-up crater lakes and river valleys, the ice caps at the north and south poles of Mars have been the subject of intensive sci ... more
Red velvet MarsParis (ESA) Dec 27, 2021 Like a sprinkle of powdered sugar on a rich red velvet cake, this scene from the ESA/Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter captures the contrasting colours of bright white water-ice against the rusty ... more
Astronomers capture black hole eruption spanning 16 times the full Moon in the skyPerth, Australia (SPX) Dec 27, 2021 Astronomers have produced the most comprehensive image of radio emission from the nearest actively feeding supermassive black hole to Earth. The emission is powered by a central black hole in ... more
Lost in space: Rocky planets formed from missing solar system materialLivermore CA (SPX) Dec 27, 2021 By looking at the range of isotopic variations in terrestrial and meteoritic samples, a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientist and collaborators have figured out that Earth and Mars ... more |
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Japanese billionaire urges elites to visit space after ISS trip Moscow (AFP) Dec 22, 2021
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa on Wednesday urged the world's elites to visit space to give them a new perspective of Earth, speaking after his own voyage to the International Space Station.
Together with assistant Yozo Hirano and cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin, Maezawa spent 12 days aboard the ISS, where they made videos documenting daily life in space for his one million YouTube subscr ... more |
Webb telescope launch again pushed back Washington (AFP) Dec 21, 2021
The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, which astronomers hope will herald a new era of discovery, was again pushed back Tuesday until at least Christmas Day due to "adverse weather conditions" at the launch site in French Guiana, NASA said.
The new target date, if determined to be viable, would be an actual Christmas gift for scientists who have been waiting three decades to see the l ... more |
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Perseverance Samples in Review: 2021 Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 29, 2021
As the 2021 calendar year comes to a close, it's nice to sit back and reflect on all the progress we've made on Mars this year. It's been a busy ~300 sols for both Perseverance and our helicopter sidekick, Ingenuity!
One of Perseverance's mission objectives is to collect and store samples of the martian surface for eventual return back to Earth as part of the Mars Sample Return campaign. T ... more |
Shenzhou XIII taikonauts complete second extravehicular mission Beijing (XNA) Dec 27, 2021
Taikonauts Zhai Zhigang and Ye Guangfu have completed their extravehicular activities (EVAs) and returned to the space station core module Tianhe, the China Manned Space Agency said on early hours of Monday.
This was the fourth time that the taikonauts conducted EVAs during the construction of the country's space station and the second by the Shenzhou XIII crew. The CMSA has declared the E ... more |
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Investing recovery and resilience funds in space projects Paris (ESA) Dec 20, 2021
Green and digital transition in Europe will benefit from ESA expertise that supports national plans for investing recovery and resilience funds in space projects.
At the 303rd ESA Council meeting in Paris on 15 December 2021, ESA Member States took the decision to further the role of ESA as provider of expertise in support of national space plans, in particular in order to accompany the in ... more |
China slams US after space station 'close encounters' with Musk's satellites Beijing (AFP) Dec 28, 2021
Beijing on Tuesday accused the United States of irresponsible and unsafe conduct in space over two "close encounters" between the Chinese space station and satellites operated by Elon Musk's SpaceX.
Tiangong, China's new space station, had to manoeuvre to avoid colliding with one Starlink satellite in July and with another in October, according to a note submitted by Beijing to the United Na ... more |
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Billions of starless planets haunt dark cloud cradles Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Dec 28, 2021
In Lovecraftian horror, the Universe is filled with "dark planets" ungraced by the light of a host star. New research shows that reality might be even scarier. An international team composed of French, Japanese, and Spanish astronomers has found about 100 planets floating freely in space rather than orbiting stars. Extrapolating this sample to the rest of the Milky Way Galaxy suggests that there ... more |
Looking Back, Looking Forward To New Horizons Boulder CO (SPX) Dec 21, 2021
New Horizons remains healthy and continues to send valuable data from deep in the Kuiper Belt - more than 5 billion miles away - even as it speeds farther and farther from the Earth and Sun.
As 2021 winds down, I want to recount what the New Horizons project has accomplished this year, and also look ahead to tell you about our plans for 2022.
During a busy and productive 2021, our sc ... more |
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DARPA Selects Performers to Build, Test Manta Ray Unmanned Underwater Vehicles Washington DC (SPX) Dec 21, 2021
DARPA has awarded Phase 2 contracts to continue the Manta Ray program that began in 2020. The effort seeks to demonstrate innovative technologies allowing payload-capable autonomous unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) to operate on long-duration, long-range missions in ocean environments.
The two prime contractors, Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation and Martin Defense Group, are each dev ... more |
Two new satellites mark further enlargement of Galileo Paris (ESA) Dec 09, 2021
Europe's largest satellite constellation has grown even bigger, following the launch of two more Galileo navigation satellites by Soyuz launcher from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana on 5 December. Galileo satellites 27-28 add to an existing 26-satellite constellation in orbit, providing the world's most precise satnav positioning to more than 2.3 billion users around the globe.
ESA Dir ... more |
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MIT engineers test an idea for a new hovering Lunar rover Boston MA (SPX) Dec 27, 2021
Aerospace engineers at MIT are testing a new concept for a hovering rover that levitates by harnessing the moon's natural charge.
Because they lack an atmosphere, the moon and other airless bodies such as asteroids can build up an electric field through direct exposure to the sun and surrounding plasma. On the moon, this surface charge is strong enough to levitate dust more than 1 meter ab ... more |
DART returns first images from space Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 27, 2021
Just two weeks after launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft has opened its "eye" and returned its first images from space - a major operational milestone for the spacecraft and DART team.
After the violent vibrations of launch and the extreme temperature shift to minus 80 degrees C in space, scientists and enginee ... more |
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Virgin Orbit Expands Space Solutions Business With Hypersat Investment Paris, France (SPX) Dec 20, 2021
Virgin Orbit, the responsive launch and space solutions company that has announced a planned business combination with NextGen Acquisition Corp. II, has announced an agreement to acquire a 17.5% stake in geospatial analytics company Hypersat LLC.
This investment will further expand Virgin Orbit's space solutions business by providing highly accurate electro-optic and hyperspectral imagery ... more |
NASA enters the Solar atmosphere for the first time Greenbelt MD (SPX) Dec 15, 2021
For the first time in history, a spacecraft has touched the Sun. NASA's Parker Solar Probe has now flown through the Sun's upper atmosphere - the corona - and sampled particles and magnetic fields there.
The new milestone marks one major step for Parker Solar Probe and one giant leap for solar science. Just as landing on the Moon allowed scientists to understand how it was formed, touching ... more |
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Inside the James Webb Space Telescope's control room Baltimore (AFP) Dec 22, 2021 "White-knuckle" - That's how Rusty Whitman describes the month ahead, after the launch of the historic James Webb Space Telescope, now tentatively set for Saturday.
From a secure control room in Baltimore, Maryland, Whitman and his colleagues will hold their breath as Webb comes online. But that's just the beginning.
For the first six months after Webb's launch, Whitman and the team at ... more |
Astronomers capture black hole eruption spanning 16 times the full Moon in the sky Perth, Australia (SPX) Dec 27, 2021
Astronomers have produced the most comprehensive image of radio emission from the nearest actively feeding supermassive black hole to Earth.
The emission is powered by a central black hole in the galaxy Centaurus A, about 12 million light years away.
As the black hole feeds on in-falling gas, it ejects material at near light-speed, causing 'radio bubbles' to grow over hundreds of mil ... more |
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