Space Launch News - Space-Travel.Com brings you daily news about Space Travel, Rocket Launchers and Rocket Science. http://www.space-travel.com/index.html Tue, 10 Sep 2019 11:28:33 GMT Tue, 10 Sep 2019 11:28:33 GMT en-us Using radar data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, recently published research presents a new scenario to explain why some methane-filled lakes on Saturn's moon Titan are surrounded by steep rims that reach hundreds of feet high. The models suggests that explosions of warming nitrogen created basins in the moon's crust. Titan is the only planetary body in our solar system other than Earth kn]]> Tue, 10 Sep 2019 11:28:33 GMT Indian space scientists were desperately trying Tuesday to establish communication with their broken Moon lander, having located the probe that went silent moments before it was due to make a historic soft landing. The lander, called Vikram - after the founder of India's space programme - was due to touch down on the Moon in the early hours of Saturday, but contact was lost around 2.1 kilo]]> Tue, 10 Sep 2019 11:28:33 GMT A new NASA out-of-this-world animation allows humanity to experience their closest galactic neighbor as never before through an online "CGI Moon kit." Smartphones have allowed millions to become amateur photographers, but capturing the perfect picture can still be difficult under certain conditions. So, imagine trying to capture an image of a 3D object while simultaneously moving at almost]]> Tue, 10 Sep 2019 11:28:33 GMT Despite the recent failure of its Chandrayaan-2 mission, the Indian space agency is set to make another attempt at the moon, this time in collaboration with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The Japanese embassy in New Delhi confirmed on Monday said the two country's space agencies will launch a lunar probe in the early 2020s. "JAXA and ISRO are planning a Japan-India joint ]]> Tue, 10 Sep 2019 11:28:33 GMT China's lunar rover Yutu-2 has driven 284.66 meters on the far side of the moon to conduct scientific exploration on the virgin territory. Both the lander and the rover of the Chang'e-4 probe switched to its dormant mode for the lunar night on Friday (Beijing time), according to the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration. China's Chang'e]]> Tue, 10 Sep 2019 11:28:33 GMT A team of engineers, scientists, and satellite operators recently restored a damaged satellite instrument that is used to measure temperature and water vapor in the Earth's atmosphere. After the instrument, the Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS), was damaged by radiation as it flew on the Suomi-NPP satellite, the team made a successful switch to the sensor's electronic B-side, returning t]]> Tue, 10 Sep 2019 11:28:33 GMT According to a new model developed by planetary scientists in Italy and the United States, many of the methane-filled lakes on Titan were likely formed after explosions of warming nitrogen left dozens of empty craters dotting the surface of Saturn's largest moon. Outside of Earth, Titan is the only planetary body in the solar system known to host stable liquid on its surface. While Eart]]> Tue, 10 Sep 2019 11:28:33 GMT The first Spacebus Neo satellite - Konnect, a high-throughput satellite ordered by Eutelsat - has successfully completed its mechanical test campaign in Thales Alenia Space facilities in Cannes. The test demonstrates the ability of the satellite to withstand the strong shaking that occurs during launch. The project partners - ESA, Thales Alenia Space, CNES and Eutelsat - were very pleased ]]> Tue, 10 Sep 2019 11:28:33 GMT Volcanic Martian meteorites known as "nakhlites owe their name to El Nakhla in Egypt, where they first landed on Earth in 1911. Although they hold traces of impact of liquid water on the Martian surface the process which generated the fluids has been a mystery. A recent study entailing modern analysis of Martian meteorites has revealed stunning new details about how asteroid impacts facili]]> Tue, 10 Sep 2019 11:28:33 GMT The main steps of star and planet formation are well understood: a dense, interstellar cloud will collapse under its own gravity; a central core forms as well as a protostellar disk due to the conservation of angular momentum; finally, after about 100,000 years or so, the star will become dense enough to ignite nuclear fusion at its centre and so will start to shine, while in the disk, planets w]]> Tue, 10 Sep 2019 11:28:33 GMT After sitting in a vacuum chamber for 15 years, a gas-sniffing instrument will finally get its chance to fly. The device, a neutral mass spectrometer dubbed SEAL, is one of four instruments from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland that will fly on the first set of private landers scheduled to begin delivering science instruments to the Moon starting in the early 2020s]]> Tue, 10 Sep 2019 11:28:33 GMT India's space programme suffered a huge setback Saturday after losing contact with an unmanned spacecraft moments before it was due to make a historic soft landing on the Moon. Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to comfort glum scientists and a stunned nation from mission control in Bangalore, saying India was still "proud" and clasping the visibly emotional space agency head in a lengthy h]]> Tue, 10 Sep 2019 11:28:33 GMT Top players in global tech companies kicked off work Monday to draw up global ethical standards related to data and artificial intelligence, with Microsoft's president voicing a "sense of urgency". Some two dozen high-ranking representatives of the global and Swiss economies, as well as scientists and academics, met in Geneva for the first Swiss Global Digital Summit aimed at seeking agreeme]]> Tue, 10 Sep 2019 11:28:33 GMT Fedor, Russia's first robot to fly to the International Space Station (ISS), returned to Earth on board the Soyuz MS-14 spacecraft, space agency Roscosmos said in the early hours of Saturday. Fedor, which landed in Kazakhstan, 147 km south-east of Zhezkazgan, said that the flight test programme was fully complete. The corresponding entry appeared on his Twitter page. "Landed. The tes]]> Tue, 10 Sep 2019 11:28:33 GMT A key tracer used to estimate how much atmosphere Mars lost can change depending on the time of day and the surface temperature on the Red Planet, according to new observations by NASA-funded scientists. Previous measurements of this tracer - isotopes of oxygen - have disagreed significantly. An accurate measurement of this tracer is important to estimate how much atmosphere Mars once had before]]> Tue, 10 Sep 2019 11:28:33 GMT