Space Tourism, Space Transport and Space Exploration News

March 28, 2015

Scuttling satellites to save space
Paris (ESA) Mar 28, 2015
It takes a lot of ingenuity - not to mention a massive quantity of sheer force - to get satellites into orbit. Now space engineers are applying comparable ingenuity to the challenge of getting their missions out of there, too. ESA, working closely with Europe's satellite builders, will ask industry for new designs to help remove satellites from orbit at the end of their working lives, as well as 'passivating' them - making them safer for neighbouring missions. The selected concepts will be e ... read more

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Help Name New Features on Pluto In partnership with NASA's New Horizons mission and the SETI Institute, the IAU is endorsing a campaign that will allow the public to participate in naming newly discovered features on Pluto and its ... more		Cluster satellite catches up One of the four Cluster satellites has shifted its orbit to ensure a safe reentry when the time comes, as well as providing a rare opportunity to study how a satellite's exhaust plume interacts with ... more		A new spin on Saturn's peculiar rotation Tracking the rotation speed of solid planets, like the Earth and Mars, is a relatively simple task: Just measure the time it takes for a surface feature to roll into view again. But giant gas planet ... more
				Curiosity Rover Finds Biologically Useful Nitrogen on Mars A team using the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite aboard NASA's Curiosity rover has made the first detection of nitrogen on the surface of Mars from release during heating of Martian s ... more		Next Steps on Journey to Mars: Progress on Asteroid Initiative NASA Wednesday announced more details in its plan for its Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), which in the mid-2020s will test a number of new capabilities needed for future human expeditions to deep s ... more

Human 2 Mars Conference Mat 5-7 2015 - Washington DC

Nuclear Decommissioning Conference Europe May 2015

NASA Reformats Memory of Longest-Running Mars Rover After avoiding use of the rover's flash memory for three months, the team operating NASA's 11-year-old Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has reformatted the vehicle's flash memory banks and resumed ... more		Ancient Martian lake system records 2 water-related events Researchers from Brown University have completed a new analysis of an ancient Martian lake system in Jezero Crater, near the planet's equator. The study finds that the onslaught of water that filled ... more		U.S. defense in free fall Saudi Arabia and Pakistan sign mutual defense pact Brazil, Chile sign defense agreement		NASA's Opportunity Mars Rover Passes Marathon Distance There was no tape draped across a finish line, but NASA is celebrating a win. The agency's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity completed its first Red Planet marathon Tuesday - 26.219 miles (42.195 ... more
				Planets in the habitable zone around most stars, calculate researchers Astronomers have discovered thousands of exoplanets in our galaxy, the Milky Way, using the Kepler satellite and many of them have multiple planets orbiting the host star. By analysing these planeta ... more		China completes second test on new carrier rocket's power system The second ground test of the power system of China's next-generation carrier rocket was completed Monday, ahead of its first flight in 2016. Using non-toxic, non-polluting liquid propellant, ... more

Snake robots learn to turn by following the lead of real sidewinders Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University who develop snake-like robots have picked up a few tricks from real sidewinder rattlesnakes on how to make rapid and even sharp turns with their undulating, ... more		Soyuz Installed at Baikonur, Expected to Launch Wednesday The Soyuz-2.1A carrier rocket has been successfully installed at the launch site at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and is scheduled for launch on October 29, the press service of the Russian ... more		GUARDIAN Tsunami Detection Tech Catches Wave in Real Time Galileo daughter mission named Celeste to strengthen navigation resilience How quantum computers can be validated when solving unsolvable problems		NASA plans to bring boulder into moon orbit NASA plans to launch a craft to capture a boulder from a nearby asteroid and move it into orbit around the Earth's moon for exploration by astronauts, the space agency said Wednesday. ... more
Europa's Elusive Water Plume Paints Grim Picture For Life A meteorite may have been responsible for a water plume briefly spotted above Europa two years ago, implying it takes a very rare event to breach the ice on the Jovian moon. Astrobiologists wo ... more		Surviving in hostile territory Many strange creatures live in the deep sea, but few are odder than archaea, primitive single-celled bacteria-like microorganisms. Archaea go to great lengths - eating methane or breathing sulfur or ... more		NASA rover completes 11-year Mars marathon NASA's Opportunity Mars rover has become the first human-made vehicle to complete a marathon on another planet - a feat accomplished in a record time of no less than 11 years. ... more		Want to snag a satellite? Try a net One of humanity's oldest technologies, the humble fishing net, may yet find a new role in space: bringing down dead satellites. The behaviour of nets in orbit was recently checked on an aircraft fly ... more

	Mars has nitrogen, key to life: NASA NASA's Curiosity rover has found nitrogen on the surface of Mars, a significant discovery that adds to evidence the Red Planet could once have sustained life, the space agency said Tuesday. ... more		India's frugal Mars mission extended by six months India's famously frugal Mars mission has been extended by around six months thanks to a surplus of fuel on board the spacecraft, the country's space agency said Tuesday. ... more

Ohio State scientists advance focus on nuclear propulsion

Mixing neutrinos of colliding neutron stars changes how merger unfolds

China launches experimental satellites to enhance mobile space internet

Spacecraft Power Systems		Robot finds bodily posture may affect memory and learning		Our Solar System May Have Once Harbored Super-Earths		Search for extraterrestrial intelligence extends to new realms		Mars One's CEO Bas Lansdorp answers questions about mission feasibility
Ground broken for Space Fence installation		Unusual Asteroid Suspected of Spinning to Explosion		Name the features on Pluto and its moon Charon		Robotic materials: Changing with the world around them		Robotic SPACE Explorers Need Smarts to Survive

USAF funds sense-and-avoid technology development

Titan's Atmosphere Created As Gases Escaped Core

Hover Campaign Promises Bird's-Eye View of Mercury's Surface

SOFIA Finds Missing Link Between Supernovae and Planet Formation

ESA's CHEOPS Satellite: The Pharaoh of Exoplanet Hunting

Extent of Moon's giant volcanic eruption is revealed

Researchers Receive Grant to Send Worms into Space

Could Water Have Carved Channels On Mars Half A Million Years Ago?

Intelsat EpicNG Completes Major Milestone on the Road to 2016 Launch

NASA Running Out of Nuclear Fuel For Batteries

Irish Mars trip finalist casts doubt on project

MARSDROP Microprobes Could Expand Spacecraft Mission Capabilities

NASA's LRO Spacecraft Finds March 17, 2013 Impact Crater and More

Milky Way may host billions of planets in 'habitable' zones: study

Extent of moon's giant volcanic eruption is revealed

Yutu Changes Everything We Thought We Knew About Our Moon

Private companies asked to join moon program

NASA Spacecraft Detects Aurora and Mysterious Dust Cloud around Mars

Other Asteroids Contributed Elusive Olivine to Vesta

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