Space

Something strange is happening 130 milling light-years away in spiral galaxy NGC 3147: there’s a thin disc of material surrounding its small and ‘starving’ black hole that’s a complete surprise to astronomers. Discs like the one spotted in NGC 3147 – made up of gas, dust and other debris pulled into the black hole’s orbit

WASHINGTON — Airbus and the French Space Agency CNES have agreed to cofinance a constellation of four Earth observation satellites while leaving the door open for Airbus to finance additional satellites with other partners.  The four satellites, referred to as the CO3D system, are expected to launch in 2022 aboard a Vega C rocket, with

SpaceX is about to perform its most ambitious test-launch yet of a shiny Mars rocket prototype in south Texas. Workers have descended upon the developing coastal launch site over the past 8 months to build and prepare the stout, three-legged prototype for testing. It’s built out of stainless steel, has the shape of a badminton

SAN FRANCISCO — NASA awarded a $73.7 million contract to Made In Space to additively manufacture ten-meter beams onboard Archinaut One, a small satellite scheduled to launch in 2022. “As manufacturing progresses, each beam will unfurl two solar arrays that generate as much as five times more power than traditional solar panels on spacecraft of

WASHINGTON — NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said he reassigned the agency’s human spaceflight head, Bill Gerstenmaier, because time was limited to address cost and schedule issues with the agency’s key exploration programs and still meet a 2024 deadline for returning humans to the moon. In an interview with reporters from SpaceNews and The Washington Post

HELSINKI — China appears set to deorbit its Tiangong-2 space lab in the near future, according to a social media release from the China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO).CMSEO announced a quiz competition (Chinese) Friday through its WeChat social media platform account, testing knowledge of launch times and mission details, to mark the ‘return of

The life of an asteroid is lonely. The rocks spend eons drifting through the cold vacuum of space. But on Wednesday, the asteroid Ryugu welcomed a special visitor: Japan’s Hayabusa-2 probe successfully landed on the asteroid’s surface at 21:06 ET (01:06 UTC on Thursday). The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched Hayabusa-2 into space in

WASHINGTON — After years of delays, PlanetiQ says its constellation of commercial weather satellites will be ready to start launching in January thanks to $18.7 million in new capital.  A redesign that right-sized its satellites while increasing the overall constellation number from 12 to 20 helped make the system more affordable, PlanetiQ Founder and Chairman

Gen. Mark Milley said he fully supports the establishment of a Space Force and rejects the criticism that the new branch is just an “added layer of bureaucracy.” WASHINGTON — In his confirmation hearing as President Trump’s pick to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Mark Milley said he

India is getting ready to launch its first-ever lunar lander on Sunday 14 July. As part of the Chandrayaan-2 mission, the lander will be riding on top of the country’s most powerful rocket, the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III. The plan is to both launch an orbiter module and a 56-pound (25 kilogram) mobile

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — The engineers who developed the computers that enabled the Apollo 11 lunar landing had little doubt the mission could be a success, and half a century later have advice for how NASA should return to the moon. In the 1960s, the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory had a NASA contract to develop the Apollo

Thanks to gravitational wave astronomy, we are getting a better understanding of what happens when black holes collide. But the closely orbiting black holes only generate ripples in space-time strong enough to be detected from just before they smash. What happens before then? We can only extrapolate. But a new discovery could change all that.

WASHINGTON — The fifteenth launch of a European Vega rocket ended in failure July 10, resulting in the loss of an imaging satellite for the United Arab Emirates.  The Vega rocket, built by Italian manufacturer Avio, lifted off at 9:53 p.m. Eastern from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana on the northern coast of South

WASHINGTON — Virgin Orbit performed a key test of its LauncherOne air launch system July 10, dropping an inert vehicle from its carrier aircraft in one of the last milestones before the vehicle’s first orbital launch attempt. Virgin Orbit’s Boeing 747 aircraft took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California at 11:43

This article originally appeared in the June 10, 2019 issue of SpaceNews magazine. It’s not clear whether the additive manufacturing supply chain will expand rapidly enough to meet growing demand for 3D-printed parts for spacecraft or launch vehicles. Launcher’s E-2 engine combustion chamber on display in May at the EOS booth at the RAPID +

You’ve heard of moonmoons – that’s what scientists want to call the satellite of a moon. But are you ready for ploonets? You’d better be, because we’re here to tell you about this hypothetical new class of cosmic objects. It is exactly what it sounds like: a sort-of cross between a moon and a planet.

On the National Security Space Launch program, the administration “strongly objects” to HASC language “as it would increase mission risk for the nation’s national security satellites.” WASHINGTON — The White House on Tuesday issued a long list of objections to the House Armed Services Committee’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — With an $800 million infusion thanks to a merger with a public investment vehicle, Virgin Galactic expects to rapidly build up commercial operations and be profitable as soon as 2021. Virgin Galactic announced a merger July 9 with Social Capital Hedosophia (SCH), a special purpose acquisition company, whereby SCH will take a

Pence will meet with senior officials to discuss space launch activities, space traffic management and ongoing efforts to establish a U.S. Space Force. WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday will visit Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, where he will meet with senior officials to discuss space launch activities, space traffic management and ongoing

Einstein’s theory of general relativity has been proven time and again, and is generally accepted as a solid foundation for understanding the Universe. But it’s not the only model for explaining how gravity works and galaxies form – and new research has shown a different model under which the Milky Way could have come to

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — NASA awarded a launch contract to SpaceX July 8 for the launch of a small astrophysics mission as the company offered a Falcon 9 at a lower price than a much smaller rocket. NASA said that it selected SpaceX to launch the Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) mission on a Falcon 9

When astronomers around the world watched two neutron stars collide in August 2017, it taught us a whole lot of cool things about the Universe. Now there’s one more cool thing: Astronomers have used it to refine one of the most fundamental characteristics of the entire Universe – the Hubble Constant. The Hubble Constant is

WASHINGTON — Amazon released more details on its plan to deploy 3,236 broadband satellites, telling U.S. telecom regulators the constellation can start service in limited areas with less than a fifth of the total constellation.  Amazon’s Kuiper System satellites will have a design life seven years — less than half that of a traditional geostationary

It may have exploded nearly a thousand years ago, but the Crab Nebula is still spitting out radiation at incredibly high energies. In fact, astronomers have detected record-breakingly energetic photons coming from the object, clocking in at up to 450 trillion electron volts. Previously, the highest energy photon ever detected was just 75 trillion electron

This article originally appeared in the June 10, 2019 issue of SpaceNews magazine. Six years ago, Planet began launching smallsats for a constellation that today numbers 140, making it the largest commercial satellite system in the world. By the end of this year, Planet may no longer hold that title. OneWeb and SpaceX, which began

WASHINGTON — A report last month has buoyed the efforts of scientists seeking a dedicated mission to search for near Earth objects, although NASA has yet to commit to funding that mission. The June 19 report by a National Academies committee concluded that a space-based infrared telescope is the best way to meet a goal

Acting Air Force Secretary Matt Donovan: “Let’s unleash the space professionals.” WASHINGTON — In the weeks since he became acting secretary of the Air Force, Matthew Donovan has used his bully pulpit to advocate for the establishment of a separate space service. With Congress just weeks away from taking decisive action on the issue, Donovan

Out there in space is an unusual exoplanet name Gliese 3470 b (GJ 3470 b.) It’s a strange world, kind of like a hybrid between Earth and Neptune. It has a rocky core like Earth, but is surrounded by an atmosphere made of hydrogen and helium. That combination is unlike anything in our own Solar

For centuries, scientists have speculated about the existence of life on Mars. But it was only within the past 15 years that the search for life (past and present) really began to heat up. It was at this time that methane, an organic molecule that is associated with many forms of life here on Earth

WASHINGTON — A joint NASA/NOAA spacecraft that monitors space weather and provides imagery of Earth has been offline for more than a week because of a problem with its positioning system. The Deep Space Climate Observatory, or DSCOVR, spacecraft went into a “safehold” June 27, interrupting its science observations from its perch at the Earth-sun

HELSINKI — China has released a set of rules to guide the development of launch vehicles in the growing commercial sector as companies continue to progress and new actors emerge. The document outlines rules for the research, development, testing of launch vehicles, safety, confidentiality and export control, interaction with launch sites, dealing with propellants, as

The SDA is looking to develop an “agile, responsive next-generation space architecture.” WASHINGTON — The Space Development Agency on July 1 issued its first Request for Information, or RFI, asking interested contractors to submit 10-page white papers by August 5. According to the solicitation, the SDA is looking for “ideas, methodologies, approaches, technologies, and systems

WASHINGTON — Cable and broadband giant Charter Communications has teamed up with two telecom-sector trade organizations on a pitch to repurpose almost double the amount of C-band spectrum offered in the satellite operator-led C-Band Alliance plan. Charter, ACA Connects and the Competitive Carriers Association (CCA) on July 1 filed a counterplan with the U.S. Federal

The rotation of giant discs of dust and gas swirling into supermassive black holes billions of light-years away may sound like a difficult thing to measure, but astronomers have found a way to do it. Using a new technique, researchers have determined the spin of five accretion discs – finding that one, in a quasar

TITUSVILLE, Fla. — Development of a European-Russian Mars lander hit a setback when the spacecraft’s parachutes malfunctioned in a recent test, but project officials said they still have time to correct the problem before its launch in a year. In a June 28 statement, the European Space Agency said that two parachutes suffered “unexpected damage”

The death of a binary star is not a peaceful affair. They rumble and erupt, blasting off their outer material and spewing radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum out into space. It’s a process that can take a very long time – the more massive the star, the more spectacular the firework display. Eta Carinae, a

WASHINGTON — SpaceIL’s recent decision not to mount a second lunar lander mission is only the latest sign of delays and retrenchment among international ventures planning missions to the moon. In a June 25 tweet, SpaceIL announced that, contrary to announcements made shortly after the its Beresheet lunar lander crashed attempting a soft landing on

WASHINGTON — Northrop Grumman will build two satellites for Space Norway, each equipped with payloads for Inmarsat, the Norwegian Ministry of Defense, and the U.S. Air Force.  Space Norway announced the purchase July 3, having downselected between Northrop Grumman and an unnamed, competing U.S. satellite manufacturer. SpaceX will launch both satellites on a Falcon 9

They’re some of the most mysterious and powerful events in space, and we don’t know what causes them – but in a major fear, astronomers have just traced another weird signal to its source. The strange, energetic phenomena are called fast radio bursts (FRBs), and for just the second time in history – both announced in

Two potential new tenants are rocket manufacturers Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman that are competing for a National Security Space Launch Phase 2 contract. VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. — Missions to polar orbits are not in high demand these days, and that has caused a slowdown in space launch activity at the 99,000-acre Western

At the same time as a solar eclipse was passing over Argentina and Chile on July 2, a massive hurricane was brewing in the Eastern Pacific ocean – and satellite cameras tracking the path of the eclipse have caught both in a stunning video. The eclipse began over the South Pacific east of New Zealand

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — With a successful test of the spacecraft’s abort system now complete, the manager of NASA’s Orion program is optimistic the spacecraft will be ready to send humans to the moon in 2024 even as development schedules continue to slip. The Ascent Abort-2 test, carried out July 2 from Launch Complex

WASHINGTON — The two majority owners of AsiaSat have put forward a plan to privatize the satellite operator and delist it from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. CITIC Group and The Carlyle Group, operating through subsidiaries, proposed June 24 to pay 1.022 billion Hong Kong dollars ($130.8 million) to buy the 25.57 percent of shares

There’s something about Jupiter that mesmerizes those who gaze at it. It’s intricate, dazzling clouds are a visual representation of the laws of nature that are hard to turn away from. And even though the Juno spacecraft has been at Jupiter for almost three years now, and has delivered thousands of images of the gas

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — NASA successfully demonstrated the abort system for its Orion spacecraft July 2 during a dramatic in-flight test of the system at Cape Canaveral. A refurbished Peacekeeper rocket motor lifted off from Space Launch Complex 46 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station lifted off at 7 a.m. Eastern, carrying a boilerplate

Well, friends, we have another dimming star mystery on our hands, and it’s unlike any dimming star we’ve seen yet. It’s called EPIC 249706694, a binary star located around 350 light-years away, and astronomers have identified 28 dips in its brightness. While the drops in light are mostly the same, there’s also a problem –

WASHINGTON — The failure of at least five percent of the first batch of SpaceX Starlink satellites has put a spotlight on the growing concerns that satellite megaconstellations could litter low Earth orbit with hundreds of dead satellites. SpaceX said in a June 28 statement that three of the 60 Starlink satellites the company launched

Interstellar object ‘Oumuamua – that strange, cigar-shaped chunk of rock from somewhere a vast distance beyond the Solar System – is, new research has concluded, absolutely, positively not an alien spaceship. OK, well, probably not. We can’t tell for sure without closely examining the thing, and it’s passed beyond our reach now. But, after carefully