Space News from SpaceDaily.Com brings the space industry professional daily news from the frontier, with contract, bid, launch and on-orbit satellite news as it happens. https://www.spacedaily.com/index.html Sun, 20 Apr 2025 06:21:37 GMT Sun, 20 Apr 2025 06:21:37 GMT en-us Vast has added three new payload collaborators to its Haven-1 Lab: Japan Manned Space Systems Corporation (JAMSS), Interstellar Lab, and Exobiosphere. These companies will join the world's first commercial crewed microgravity research and manufacturing facility aboard Haven-1, which is on track for launch in May 2026 and approaching full utilization. Each new partner brings a unique focus ]]> Sun, 20 Apr 2025 06:21:37 GMT Voyager Technologies (Voyager) has marked a milestone in lunar technology advancement with the arrival of its proprietary Clear Dust-Repellent Coating (CDRC) on the Moon. Delivered aboard Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander, the coating touched down on March 2 following nearly a month in transit. "The number of surfaces on Earth that are coated by dust daily, affecting performance and vi]]> Sun, 20 Apr 2025 06:21:37 GMT Astronomers have reported their most compelling evidence to date of potential biological activity on a planet beyond our solar system, though they emphasize further verification is needed. Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a research team led by the University of Cambridge identified the spectral presence of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and/or dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) in the atmosphere of exoplanet K2-18b. ]]> Sun, 20 Apr 2025 06:21:37 GMT Scientists at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) will continue their involvement in the cutting-edge Mu3e experiment thanks to renewed financial support from the German Research Foundation (DFG), which has pledged an additional EUR 5.6 million in funding starting May 2025. This grant extends the Research Unit 5199 for another four years, allowing the collaboration to push further in its i]]> Sun, 20 Apr 2025 06:21:37 GMT While sunrise is constant, the intensity of sunlight that reaches Earth's surface is not. A new perspectives article by an international research team reveals that this solar variability occurs over decades, and is closely linked to air pollution trends and environmental policy. Published March 15 in Advances in Atmospheric Science, the study outlines the global phenomena of "dimming" and "brigh]]> Sun, 20 Apr 2025 06:21:37 GMT NASA astronaut Don Pettit will return to Earth from the International Space Station Saturday, alongside his two Russian cosmonaut colleagues. Pettit, Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner are expected to land outside the town of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan with the help of a parachute at 9:20 p.m. EDT Saturday. The trio will begin the procedure of undocking their Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft fro]]> Sun, 20 Apr 2025 06:21:37 GMT On board Intuitive Machines' Athena spacecraft, which made a moon landing on March 6, were cutting-edge MIT payloads: a depth-mapping camera and a mini-rover called "AstroAnt." Also on that craft were the words and voices of people from around the world speaking in dozens of languages. These were etched on a 2-inch silicon wafer computationally designed by Professor Craig Carter of the MIT Depar]]> Sun, 20 Apr 2025 06:21:37 GMT L3Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX) has secured a contract extension from the U.S. Space Force's Space Systems Command to continue advancing the ground infrastructure that supports the nation's Space Domain Awareness (SDA) mission. This ongoing work is part of the Maintenance of Space Situational Awareness Integrated Capabilities (MOSSAIC) program, which provides surveillance and tracking of objec]]> Sun, 20 Apr 2025 06:21:37 GMT Russian President Vladimir Putin praised Elon Musk on Wednesday, telling university students he was a pioneer comparable to legendary Soviet rocket engineer Sergei Korolev. The comments came as Russia and the United States forged closer ties under President Donald Trump's administration, of which billionaire SpaceX founder Musk is a key figure. "You know, there's a man - he lives in the]]> Sun, 20 Apr 2025 06:21:37 GMT From the prospect of space seeds improving yields to satellite-guided fertilization of soil, farmers across the country are turning to advanced technology to ensure smooth planting this spring. In recent years, northeast Heilongjiang province has focused on scientific and technological innovation, to improve its agricultural intelligence and methods. Farmers have also taken advantage of ne]]> Sun, 20 Apr 2025 06:21:37 GMT Scientists have hypothesized since the 1960s that the Sun is a source of ingredients that form water on the Moon. When a stream of charged particles known as the solar wind smashes into the lunar surface, the idea goes, it triggers a chemical reaction that could make water molecules. Now, in the most realistic lab simulation of this process yet, NASA-led researchers have confirmed this pre]]> Sun, 20 Apr 2025 06:21:37 GMT At the 40th Space Symposium, ispace technologies U.S., inc. (ispace-U.S.) and Zeno Power Systems, Inc. (Zeno Power) announced a joint initiative to develop power systems that enable sustained operations during the Moon's prolonged periods of darkness. The strategic agreement sets the stage for a demonstration mission as early as 2027. Surviving the lunar night has been identified by NASA a]]> Sun, 20 Apr 2025 06:21:37 GMT Imagine a Slushee composed of ammonia and water encased in a hard shell of water ice. Now picture these ice-encrusted slushballs, dubbed "mushballs," raining down like hailstones during a thunderstorm, illuminated by intense flashes of lightning. Planetary scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, now say that hailstorms of mushballs accompanied by fierce lightning actually exi]]> Sun, 20 Apr 2025 06:21:37 GMT Gravitational waves, the faint tremors in spacetime triggered by cataclysmic cosmic phenomena like black hole collisions and stellar explosions, have opened a groundbreaking observational frontier in astrophysics. But detecting these elusive signals demands precision instruments whose design complexity has long challenged scientists. Now, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Science o]]> Sun, 20 Apr 2025 06:21:37 GMT Astronomers announced Thursday that they had detected the most promising "hints" of potential life on a planet beyond our solar system, though other scientists expressed scepticism. There has been vigorous debate in scientific circles about whether the planet K2-18b, which is 124 light years away in the Leo constellation, could be an ocean world capable of hosting microbial life, at least. ]]> Sun, 20 Apr 2025 06:21:37 GMT