Items tagged with space
NASA has been busy preparing for the inaugural launch of its Artemis program. With the launch quickly approaching, workers have fully stacked the massive rocket and its payload, the Orion spacecraft. Artemis I is scheduled for launch in February 2022, following the recent NASA launch of the Lucy probe earlier this month. This unmanned launch is in preparation for Artemis II, which will carry astronauts into space to orbit the moon. All of this is a lead up to the manned Artemis III launch in 2024 which will put the first person back on the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. The enormous Artemis I is currently being housed in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida....
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Figuring out how the planets formed in our solar system billions of years ago is one of many questions that still perplexes modern science. To try and answer this question, NASA has now launched a nearly $1 billion, 12-year-long mission deep in our solar system near Jupiter to look at the the Trojan asteroids. These are thought to be early remnants of our solar system and could provide crucial answers to finding out how we came to be. Earlier this morning, the Lucy probe, named after the fossilized remains of a human ancestor found in Ethiopia in 1974 rather than The Beatles’ song, blasted off from Cape Canaveral. According to the NASA press release on the mission, this is the beginning...
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In his role as Captain James T. Kirk, William Shatner has fictionally traveled to the far reaches of outer space, boldly going to places where no Earthlings had been before, encountering strange, wondrous, and sometimes bizarre adventures along the way. That was all make believe, of course. However, the captain of the starship USS Enterprise is going to space for real today (just not outer space), and will boldly set a record that might never be broken. At 90 years old (and nearly seven months), Shatner will become the oldest person to ever travel to space. He will achieve the feat in Blue Origin's New Shepard tourist rocket. Incidentally, a former New Shepard passenger held the distinction as...
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SpaceX’s Starlink program has been growing exponentially in the past year, adding new customers and sending more satellites to space. Whether or not you think this is a good thing, it is impressive, nonetheless. Now, the founder and face of SpaceX, Elon Musk, has announced that Starlink will be exiting its beta phase next month. Following Elon Musk’s tweet about good feedback on Tesla’s self-driving functionality, Twitter user Overshield asked the space-mogul when Starlink would be exiting its beta. Musk wrote a curt reply, only stating “next month.” While those ten characters may not seem like much, it effectively announces a new era for Starlink, which begins in...
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Exactly five years ago, No Man’s Sky launched to the world with a less than stellar start by many accounts. However, years of hard work and patches have turned things around to make No Man's Sky a stellar game and story. Now, the group behind the game, Hello Games, is celebrating the anniversary and teasing a new expansion to come. On August 9th, 2016, No Man’s Sky stumbled out of the gate, as we explained it, and was plagued with game-breaking issues. Many players were also quite disappointed with the features at the time, which would soon be rectified with updates and patches. Since the early days, though, there have been 16 different named updates bringing features and fixes...
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On Sunday, Virgin Galactic founder and owner Richard Branson took off to the edge of space with several other specialists from Virgin Galactic. Now that he has returned, Branson announced “something very exciting to give more people a chance to become astronauts”: a giveaway for two seats on a Virgin Galactic flight to space. After returning to Earth, Sir Richard Branson took the stage yesterday to describe his flight and explain the importance of spaceflight. In this, he announced anyone could have the chance to win two seats on a Virgin Galactic flight sometime in 2022. You can see his announcement video below: Space is for all humanity, which is why we're giving YOU the chance...
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Many people have dreamed of going to space, and relatively few among the overall population ever get the opportunity. Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic, is getting his chance today,and you can watch the livestream of his trip right here. Weather conditions prompted about a 90-minute delay from the scheduled takeoff, but it is still happening. The livestream is hosted by comedian Stephen Colbert, but make no mistake, this is no joke. Branson, a 70-year-old billionaire, founded Virgin Galactic in 2004 with the goal of providing suborbital flights to space tourists. It has been a long wait, but obviously this not the sort of thing you can rush. Barring any setbacks, there are three test...
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For over 60 years, humans have been launching objects into space for varying purposes. Once a satellite becomes obsolete or no longer needed, it aimlessly orbits the Earth and can become a hazard for other space objects. Thus, it is a surprise that the International Space Station has not had a massive collision yet, but small impacts still happen from time to time. This now includes a recent space junk strike on the robotic arm of the ISS. There are over 23,000 pieces of space debris in space, the size of a softball or larger, that are tracked 24/7 to predict potential collisions. There is also a plethora of smaller objects, from "rock or dust particles to flecks of paint from satellites," that...
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From E.T to The Arrival, and UFO hunting TV shows galore, humans have always been fascinated with the possibility of finding life beyond the confines of Earth, be it real or fictional. In that endeavor, scientists are employing new technologies to try and detect signs of life on other planets, and it may happen sooner than you might think. According to one researcher, a new telescope attached to the Deep Space Network (DSN - NASA’s international array of giant radio antennas) could detect life signatures on other planets in as little as 60 hours, but more realistically within the next five to ten years. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is the successor to the Hubble telescope...
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If you are in or around Washington State, did you happen to see what looked like a meteor shower around 9 PM ET last night? If so, what you saw was not actually a meteor shower but a SpaceX Falcon 9 second stage burning up in the atmosphere. Wild, right? Late last night, many people in the pacific northwest were tweeting that they had caught a meteor shower on camera. Many of these tweets, such as @vincelavecchia’s below, include a video of the event, which looks absolutely stunning. Ummm... just caught this flying over my home in SW Portland. pic.twitter.com/CvQJwvWsyj— Vince LaVecchia (@vincelavecchia) March 26, 2021 After the hullaballoo began, National Weather Service Seattle...
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Today, Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise announced a partnership to bring Azure and edge computing to the ultimate edge: space. This will allow Azure workloads, local computing, and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to be leveraged on the International Space Station (ISS). As Tom Keane, Corporate VP of Azure Global, explains, “Astronauts and space explorers deserve access to the best cloud computing technologies and advanced processing.” When it comes to working and computing in space, “Sometimes analysis needs to be done immediately at the edge,” or “other times the analysis is so massively complex that it can only be performed with the power of the...
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In the modern era, there is a bit of a commercial space race occurring, vying for NASA’s approval and monetary support. Among the competitors, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, leading a team of companies, has taken a step forward by delivering an engineering sample of their lunar lander to NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The Blue Origin-led Human Landing System National Team, comprised of Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Draper, has moved this project to Johnson Space Center (JSC) to show off what they made. Standing at 40 feet tall and weighing in at a not-very-light weight, the lunar lander is set to showcase the multi-stage architecture; wherein there is both a descent and ascent...
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Rocket Labs is one of several companies out there who specialize in putting customer satellites into orbit for much less money than traditional launch platforms. The small rockets the company uses generally place multiple satellites from different companies into space using shared launch vehicle, which helps to reduce costs. Recently Rocket Lab was set to launch its thirteenth mission, and things appeared to go well for the first stage of the launch. Ultimately, something happened with the rocket’s second stage and it along with all satellites onboard were lost. An issue was experienced today during Rocket Lab's launch that caused the loss of the vehicle. We are deeply sorry to the customers...
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Scientists Say Repetitive Mystery Deep Space Radio Signals Are Reaching Earth From A Galaxy Far Away
Artistic depiction of a fast radio burst (FRB). Image from M. Kornmesser via the ESO Dr. Ellie Arroway from the 1997 film Contact is not the only scientist carefully studying radio emissions from space. Scientists recently discovered the first repetitive fast radio bursts (FRBs). This discovery may help scientists to better understand the source of this mysterious phenomenon. Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are intense radio pulses from deep space that typically last a few milliseconds. They are “extragalactic” or arise outside the Milky Way Galaxy. Their frequency ranges between 400-1400 MHz and their frequencies depend on their wavelength. FRBs were first detected in 2007 as scientists...
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Infrared Astronomical Satellite, image via NASA Close encounters of a third kind may not be as exciting as they sound. It was recently reported that two American defunct satellites in low Earth orbit could potentially crash into each other this evening. If this crash occurs it could result in hundreds of pieces of debris that could interfere with the paths of other satellites. The NASA Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) and the United States Naval Research Lab’s Gravity Gradient Stabilization Experiment (GGSE-4) will fly by each other this evening. The two satellites will be between 43 feet to 285 feet around 6:39pm EST nearly 600 miles above Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Both satellites...
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As we approach the new decade, it feels as if every major tech company is working on their own satellites. Everyone from SpaceX to Amazon is interested in broadband satellites. It was recently revealed that Apple has also thrown its hat into the ring. Apple has been secretly working on its own satellites over the last few years. According to a Bloomberg article, Apple has been hiring hardware and software engineers for the satellite project over the last few months. There are currently about a dozen engineers working on the satellites. The team is led by aerospace engineers Michael Trela and John Fenwick, who worked for the company Skybox Imaging until 2015. Apple hopes to finish the satellites...
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When will human beings once again walk on the moon? According to Elon Musk, humans could be on the moon within three to four years. Musk recently sat down with Time to discuss the origins of SpaceX, reusability, along with moon and Mars colonies. Elon Musk argued in the interview that SpaceX could land uncrewed vehicles moon within two years and crewed vehicles within a year or two after that. He insisted that the ultimate goal is to establish a lunar base that would be similar to the base in Antarctica. Although it would be easier to send people to the moon like the Apollo 11 mission, Musk remarked that the, “the remake’s never as good as the original.” SpaceX is therefore...
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An amateur astronomer and satellite tracker named Ralph Vandebergh has captured a very rare image of the secret U.S. Air Force X-37B space plane in orbit. The spacecraft is very small and difficult to find in orbit, but Vandebergh says that he had been hunting for the spacecraft in orbit for months before he finally found it in May. He snapped the fuzzy image of the X-37B seen below in June. He used the same trajectory from his initial discovery of the spacecraft to predict where it should be in mid-June when he was ready to snap the images. The catch was that the spacecraft failed to meet the expected time and path because it had shifted to a different orbit. Vandebergh says that a network of...
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NASA has had an exciting month; it announced early in June that it intended to open the ISS to private astronauts tours for $35,000 per night. In addition, NASA has now announced that on June 14 a robot called Bumble became the first Astrobee robot to fly under its own power in space. Astrobee robots are free-flying systems meant to help researchers test new tech in zero gravity. Robots like Bumble can also perform routine work along with the astronauts living and working on the ISS. NASA sees a future where robots like Astrobee can be caretakers for the NASA lunar gateway and play a part in NASA's future missions exploring the Moon and Mars. Testing Bumble out on the ISS wasn't as simple...
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Scientists and casual stargazers alike have been trying for thousands of years to identity the flashes of light that come from the moon. One scientist believes that they are close to pinning down the origins of the phenomenon. Dr. Hakan Kayal from the University of Würzburg in Bavaria will use telescopes and AI to explain the flashes of light on the moon. Dr. Kayal has spent several years studying this lunar mystery as well as other topics such as nano satellites. These light sources are referred to as transient lunar phenomenon or TLP. Dr. Kayal and his team have built a custom telescope in Spain that is over 62 miles (100 km) from the nearest sources of light pollution. Kayal’s system...
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Has Starfleet boldly gone where no man has gone before? A dune that is shaped like the Star Trek logo has appeared on the surface of Mars. A picture of the dune was captured by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The image was taken by the MRO’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera. The HiRISE is the largest reflecting telescope that has ever been carried into deep space. According to NASA, it “makes observations at near-infrared wavelengths to obtain information on the mineral groups present.” Scientists are then able to accurately calculate the topography of Mars. The HiRISE has photographed hundreds of swaths and provides scientists with...
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Stratolaunch is a company founded by the late Paul G. Allen that is trying to make it easier and less costly to put satellites into orbit. Sadly the late Paul Allen didn't live to see his dream take flight, however. Unlike Elon Musk's SpaceX , the way Stratolaunch plans to put satellites into orbit has nothing to do with rockets launched from the ground; rather the company will use what it calls the "world's largest aircraft" to carry satellites as high into the atmosphere as possible, before launching them into orbit. The aircraft that will heft those satellites off the ground is called Roc, and it had its maiden flight recently. The massive aircraft sports a dual fuselage design with a large...
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