MOUNTAIN VIEW, California – While there may be enough customer demand for two or three megaconstellations, it will be difficult for the ventures to attract enough financing, according to analysts speaking at the Satellite Innovation conference here. Chris Quilty, president of Quilty Analytics, a financial services firm based in St. Petersburg, Florida, sees demand for
Space
WASHINGTON — Suborbital launch company UP Aerospace is halfway through funding an all-solid propellant rocket called Spyder that it hopes will meet government demand for missions that need to launch on short notice. Colorado-based UP Aerospace did what amounts to a practice drill for such missions last month at New Mexico’s Spaceport America when it
Few moons in the Solar System are as intriguing as Jupiter’s moon Europa. A global ocean of salt water almost certainly surrounds the moon – and it holds more water than any ocean on Earth. Above this immense sea, where surface temperatures dip to minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit (-184 degrees Celsius), a crust of water
One unique feature of T2C2 are the inflatable antennas which when deflated can be folded and packed in a small bag. WASHINGTON — The Army is increasing orders of a transportable tactical command and communications system, known as T2C2. These are high-bandwidth satellite terminals that give soldiers in the field quick access to the Army’s
The Hubble Space Telescope is currently operating in safe mode, with all science operations suspended, after one of the three gyroscopes used to aim the telescope failed on Friday 5 October. NASA was quick to offer reassurance: “Hubble’s instruments still are fully operational and are expected to produce excellent science for years to come,” public
New Satellite Technology Increases Versatility of Rotary Platforms “If you are in trouble anywhere in the world, an airplane can fly over and drop flowers, but a helicopter can land and save your life.” – Igor Sikorsky, Aviation Pioneer Governments around the world face a challenge with their aging fleets of rotary aircraft, often referred
The sixth largest meteorite recorded in Michigan has just been brought to the attention of experts over 80 years after its discovery. After living a humble life as a 10 kilogram (22 pound) doorstop in a local farm, the space rock is now getting the attention it deserves. “I could tell right away that this
BREMEN, Germany — The chief executive of Airbus used an international space conference to call for reforms in how Europe manages and funds space activities in order to better compete on the global market. In a keynote at the 69th International Astronautical Congress here Oct. 4, Tom Enders called for measures including reorganizing procurement of
WASHINGTON — SpaceX conducted its seventeenth launch of the year Oct. 7, sending an Argentine radar satellite into low-Earth orbit on a Falcon 9 rocket. The mission was also SpaceX’s first to include a successful land recovery of the rocket’s booster stage at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. All previous recoveries in California used
Six years after Voyager 1 officially left the Solar System, it looks like its companion probe, Voyager 2, is getting close to the interstellar boundary as well. According to NASA, the spacecraft has started to detect the same increase in cosmic radiation that hit Voyager 1 just before it finally entered interstellar space. Although Voyager
When it comes time to begin conducting regular crewed missions to Mars, and perhaps even establishing a permanent outpost there, astronauts and potential Martian settlers will have to know how to work with the local environment. Remember that scene in The Martian where astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is forced to grow his own food
The Kepler mission is coming to an end. The planet-hunting spacecraft that transformed our understanding of exoplanets and other solar systems is almost out of fuel. What little fuel remains is being held in reserve to ensure that the last of its data can be sent home. The Kepler team has placed the spacecraft in
Using the most detailed map of the galaxy produced so far, astronomers have spotted more than a dozen high-speed stars that seem to be zooming in our direction – and they are potentially just a fraction of the total number of stars on similar headings. Interestingly, the study was intended to find high velocity stars
In the last weeks before it plunged into the stormy heart of Saturn a year ago, Cassini did something no other probe has done before. It swooped in between the planet and its signature rings, instrumentation furiously collecting data all way until the absolute end. And in those final orbits, it was bathed in unexpectedly
A small Solar System object is about to pay us a second visit since its discovery in 2015. It’s called 2015 TB145, also known as the Halloween Asteroid – and for good reason. It’s just perfect. It looks a little like a human skull in certain conditions; it’s as dark as coal; its closest approach
It may only be 2 millimetres in diameter, but that tiny hole in Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft docked on the International Space Station is creating a much bigger drama than depressurisation. After Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin went on TV Monday to say the Russian investigation had determined that the hole was not a “manufacturing defect,” NASA
Matter ejected from a spinning disc of doom surrounding a black hole a mere 15,000 light years away has produced some of the most energetic rays of light ever witnessed from an object of its kind. The insanely powerful photons of gamma radiation were produced by a never-before-seen phenomenon surrounding a miniature quasar. The discovery
Given the abundance of moons in our own Solar System, you’d think there are heaps orbiting exoplanets, too. Such exomoons have been elusive until now – but it looks like that has finally changed. Last year, astronomers Alex Teachey and David Kipping of Columbia University announced they’d spotted the very first exomoon candidate in data
After studying hundreds of recently discovered exploding stars, physicists have concluded it’s unlikely there are sufficient numbers of primordial black holes out there to account for the dark matter phenomenon. This doesn’t mean the category of material referred to as massive compact halo objects (MACHOs) can’t contribute to the unseen 84 percent of the Universe’s
The hypothetical, massive outer Solar System body Planet X is still proving elusive, but the hunt for it has yielded up a different find: a tiny dwarf planet, roughly 2.5 times Pluto’s distance at the time it was found. It’s called 2015 TG387 and nicknamed “the Goblin”. Also, it’s pretty small even for a dwarf