Space News from SpaceDaily.com
December 29, 2021
STELLAR CHEMISTRY
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

MARSDAILY
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 si ... more
STELLAR CHEMISTRY
NASA's Webb Telescope Keeping Cool with Ultra-thin DuPont Kapton Polyimide Films
Wilmington 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
SOLAR DAILY
AFRL, Northrop Grumman demonstrate solar to radio frequency conversion
Kirtland 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
TECH SPACE
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. ... more
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Visual displays in space station culture

ROCKET SCIENCE


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ROCKET SCIENCE
Russia stages 'successful' third launch of new rocket
Moscow (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
MOON DAILY
NASA Selects New Members for Artemis Rover Science Team
Washington 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
OUTER PLANETS
Testing radar to peer into Jupiter's moons
Paris (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
EXO WORLDS
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 Fren ... more
EXO WORLDS
ESO telescopes help uncover largest group of rogue planets yet
Munich, 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
STELLAR CHEMISTRY


Wandering celestial bodies provide a glimpse into the formation of stars and planets

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STELLAR CHEMISTRY
Tracking down the forces that shaped our solar system's evolution
Washington 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
MARSDAILY
An icy spring at the Martian South Pole
Berlin, 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
MARSDAILY
Red velvet Mars
Paris (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
TIME AND SPACE
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 ... more
EXO WORLDS
Lost in space: Rocky planets formed from missing solar system material
Livermore 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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The following news reports may link to other Space Media Network websites.
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
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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
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+ Cliffs and notches keeps Curiosity team busy: Sols 3330-3332
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+ NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity notches 18th flight
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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+ First crew of space station provide a full update on China's progress
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+ China to livestream first space class from Tiangong space station


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
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+ NASA, private space industry may reach new heights in 2022
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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
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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
+ Testing radar to peer into Jupiter's moons
+ NASA's Juno Spacecraft 'Hears' Jupiter's Moon
+ Deep Mantle Krypton Reveals Earth's Outer Solar System Ancestry
+ Cracking the mystery of nitrogen ice dynamics on Pluto
+ Planet decision that booted out Pluto is rooted in folklore, astrology
+ Are Water Plumes Spraying from Europa
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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
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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
+ Galileo satellites given green light for launch
+ Brain and coat from RUAG Space for Galileo navigation satellites
+ Galileo pathfinder de-commissioned after 16 years of in-orbit service
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+ US Space Force contracts Lockheed Martin for three more GPS IIIF satellites
+ Spirent Offers First Commercially Available Test Capability for Galileo HAS
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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
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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
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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
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+ Hubble Lends a Helping Hand
+ Ball Aerospace-built optics and mirror system launched aboard Webb Telescope
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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