Ethereal scenes of flowing super-heated material may help explain why atmosphere is hotter than surface
The sun’s otherworldly landscape, including coronal moss, solar rain and 6,000-mile-tall spires of gas, is revealed in footage from the Solar Orbiter spacecraft.
The observations, beamed back by the European Space Agency probe, reveal feathery, hair-like structures made of plasma and also capture eruptions and showers of relatively cooler material falling to the surface.
Continue reading...With Bennell-Pegg unlikely to go to space anytime soon, there are questions about the value of the spending by the cash-strapped Australian space program
Australia’s first female astronaut, Katherine Bennell-Pegg, graduated from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) training program on Monday night.
She may be unlikely to take a giant leap into space anytime soon, but is on a mission to bolster the space industry and inspire women and girls.
Continue reading...British astronaut last flew to International Space Station in 2015 as European Space Agency astronaut
The last British astronaut to go into space is to come out of retirement to lead the UK’s first astronaut mission.
Tim Peake, 51, who will be leading the mission, last flew to the International Space Station (ISS) as a European Space Agency astronaut in 2015.
Continue reading...India has raised its spacefaring profile and will now be seen as low-cost provider for missions possible
For all the risks, for all that was riding on a successful landing, the descent to the moon’s surface was remarkably uneventful, if not exactly stress-free. The Vikram lander, part of India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission, dropped steadily on its thrusters to the rock below, slowed to a hover as it approached the ground, and finally came to a rest on the dusty terrain.
When confirmation came that the lander was down, anxiety in the control room gave way to cheers and applause. With the soft touchdown, India becomes the first country to land a probe at the moon’s south pole, a rugged region where deep craters lie in permanent shadow and where ice could provide water, oxygen and fuel for future missions. The first will be on the moon itself, and in lunar orbit, but they could also supply trips to Mars, with the benefit that the materials do not need to be lifted off the Earth’s surface at great cost. It is a region of key scientific interest.
Continue reading...European Space Agency brought down defunct Aeolus weather monitoring craft in unprecedented manoeuvre
A British-built weather monitoring spacecraft has been deliberately guided into the Atlantic Ocean, the first time a defunct satellite has been manoeuvred to perform an assisted crash on Earth.
Aeolus, a satellite that has provided data to weather centres across Europe since 2018, was successfully helped to its final resting place by mission controllers at the European Space Agency (Esa).
Continue reading...European Space Agency to attempt unprecedented manoeuvre despite craft not being designed for controlled re-entry
A defunct European satellite is expected to make an unprecedented return to Earth on Friday when mission controllers guide the spacecraft into a fiery dive over the Atlantic Ocean.
The Aeolus weather-monitoring satellite was not designed for a controlled re-entry at the end of its mission, but the European Space Agency (Esa) has decided to use what little fuel remains onboard to steer the probe to a watery grave.
Continue reading...European Space Agency mission launches on SpaceX rocket from Florida to shed light on dark energy and dark matter
A European-built orbital satellite was launched into space on Saturday from Florida on a mission to shed new light on dark energy and dark matter, the mysterious cosmic forces scientists say account for 95% of the known universe.
The Euclid telescope, named for the ancient Greek mathematician known as the “father of geometry”, was carried in the cargo bay of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket which blasted off about 11am EDT (1500 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Space Force station. A live stream of the liftoff was shown on Nasa TV.
Continue reading...Director of space agency Roscosmos says partnership will be restored only when ‘illegal sanctions’ are removed
Russia says it will end cooperation with western countries over the International Space Station until sanctions are lifted.
Russia’s space director said on Saturday that the restoration of normal ties between partners at the ISS and other joint space projects would be possible only once western sanctions against Moscow were lifted.
Continue reading...The ESA has commissioned a study of how to get ExoMars off the ground without Roscosmos involvement
The European Space Agency has suspended its €1bn (£844m) ExoMars mission, a joint project with Russia that was due to launch a robotic rover in September. Member states of the ESA voted on Thursday to cancel the launch because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“The decision was made that this launch cannot happen, given the current circumstances and especially the sanctions that are imposed by our member states,” said agency director general Josef Aschbacher. “This makes it practically impossible, but also politically impossible to have a launch of [the rover] in September.”
Continue reading...From lunar missions to anti-asteroid defence systems, there are plenty of exciting scientific developments to look forward to
This year promises to be an important one for space exploration, with several major programmes reaching the launch pad over the next 12 months. The US is to return to the moon, undertaking a set of missions intended to establish a lunar colony there in a few years. China is expected to complete its Tiangong space station while Europe and Russia will attempt to land spacecraft on Mars, having failed at every previous attempt. India, South Korea and Japan are also scheduled to put a number of missions into space.
Continue reading...Successor to the Hubble telescope takes off on board rocket from ESA’s launch base in French Guiana
The most ambitious, costly robot probe ever built, the $10bn James Webb telescope, has been blasted into space on top of a giant European rocket.
Engineers reported on Saturday that the observatory – which has been plagued by decades of delays and huge cost overruns – was operating perfectly after going through the most nervously watched lift-off in the history of uncrewed space exploration.
Continue reading...Billions of dollars over budget and years late, the most expensive, complex telescope to be sent into space will launch next month. What will it learn?
In a few weeks, the most ambitious, costly robot probe ever built, the £6.8bn James Webb space telescope, will be blasted into space on top of a giant European Ariane 5 rocket. The launch of the observatory – which has been plagued by decades of delays and massive cost overruns – promises to be the most nervously watched liftoff in the history of unmanned space exploration.
The observatory – built by Nasa with European and Canadian space agency collaboration – has been designed to revolutionise our study of the early universe and to pinpoint possible life-supporting planets inside our galaxy. However, its planning and construction have taken more than 30 years, with the project suffering cancellation threats, political controversies and further tribulations. In the process, several other scientific projects had to be cancelled to meet the massive, swelling price tag of the observatory. As the journal Nature put it, this is “the telescope that ate astronomy”.
Continue reading...With plans for satellite launches and investment in space-based solar, can the UK become a space super power?
In 1969, a British engineer was invited to the White House to meet President Nixon. His name was Francis Thomas Bacon and he had developed the fuel cells used on Apollo 11. Known now as Bacon fuel cells, these power sources consume hydrogen and oxygen to produce water, heat and, in theory, a continuous supply of electricity.
His invention was considered so integral to the success of the Apollo mission that Nixon told him, “Without you Tom, we wouldn’t have gotten to the moon.”
Continue reading...‘It’s right up in our face’ – close proximity of stellar nursery to our solar system stuns scientists
Astronomers have discovered a gigantic, undulating wave of dust and gas where newborn stars are forged over a 50 million billion mile stretch of the Milky Way.
The gaseous structure, which holds more mass than 3m suns, runs directly behind our solar system as viewed from the heart of the galaxy, but has eluded observation until now.
Continue reading...European Space Agency asks for help from Nasa with ExoMars project as trials fail and cost rises to €1bn
Space engineers are racing against time to fix major faults in the robot probe they plan to send to Mars next year. The complex parachute system that should slow ExoMars – Europe’s largest ever planetary mission – as it plunges into the Martian atmosphere failed catastrophically during recent tests.
As a result, the European Space Agency has called for emergency help from Nasa space engineers to help them save their stricken mission. New parachutes are now being tested at the US Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena and will be subject to high-altitude trials in two or three months.
Continue reading...Engineers plan to collect rocks on Mars and bring samples to Earth, in one of the most complex robot space projects envisaged. The scheme, being developed by Nasa and the European Space Agency (Esa), will involve robot rovers finding rocks that might contain evidence of past life.
The samples would be blasted into space, intercepted by an unmanned spacecraft, and dropped by parachute in the Utah desert, with the 500g of Martian soil and rock shared with researchers round the world.
Continue reading...ESA say its Aeolus Earth observation satellite fired thrusters to avoid crash
The European Space Agency has said it altered the trajectory of one of its observation satellites to avoid a collision with a craft operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
“@ESA’s Aeolus Earth observation satellite fired its thrusters, moving it off a collision course with a @SpaceX satellite in their Starlink constellation,” the agency’s Twitter account said.
Continue reading...Curiosity’s record-breaking measurement fuels speculation it is from microbial Martians
Nasa’s Curiosity rover has detected its largest belch of methane on Mars so far, fuelling speculation that the robot may have trundled through a cloud of waste gas released by microbial Martians buried deep under the surface.
Mission scientists announced on Monday that Curiosity had measured a record-breaking 21 parts per billion (ppb) of methane in the air in Gale crater, the rover’s landing site and area of exploration. The level is substantially more than the 5.8ppb it sensed on 16 June 2013.
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