Saturday, March 9, 2024

Blue Origin Aims To Launch First Lunar Lander In 2025

WASHINGTON — Blue Origin expects to launch the first version of its Blue Moon lunar lander, a precursor to a future crewed lunar lander it is developing for NASA, in 2025.

"This lander, we're expecting to land on the moon between 12 to 16 months from today," he said, referring to a full-sized mockup of the lander behind him. "That is what our team is aiming towards."

The Mark 1 lander is a cargo vehicle that is a technology demonstrator. Blue Origin disclosed the mockup in October and said at the time it planned to launch its first Mark 1 lander, designated MK1-SN001, on a "Pathfinder Mission" to test key technologies such as its BE-7 engine.

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NASA And Boeing Delay Starliner Capsule's 1st Astronaut Launch To Early May

The long-delayed first crewed mission of Boeing's new Starliner capsule has been pushed back again.

Boeing has been developing Starliner under a multibillion-dollar contract the company signed with NASA in September 2014. The capsule has launched on two uncrewed test flights to date, both of which targeted the ISS.

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Cellular Starlink System Works On IPhone, Pixel, Galaxy Devices

SpaceX: Cellular Starlink System Works on iPhone, Pixel, Galaxy Devices | PCMag

“Among other results, the satellites have been able to communicate with multiple models of unmodified Samsung, Apple, and Google devices using (T-Mobile’s) PCS G Block spectrum, including in urban and rural areas, indoors and outdoors, and in clear sky and under tree cover,” the company says.

Specifically, SpaceX used unmodified phone models from the Galaxy, iPhone, and Pixel lineups. “These devices have properly communicated for the duration of the satellite pass and did not experience harmful interference from adjacent-band devices,” the company says.

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Friday, March 8, 2024

NASA Says 5 Asteroids Will Pass Earth In The Coming Days; From Size To Speed, Know All About The Space Rocks | ...

NASA says 5 asteroids will pass Earth in the coming days; From size to speed, know all about the space rocks | ...

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Crew Swap Underway Amid Advanced Space Science

The four homebound crew members on Wednesday checked the pressure suits they will wear inside "Endurance" during the ride back to Earth. At the end of the day, they joined the seven other orbital residents and reviewed everyone's roles and responsibilities in the unlikely event of an emergency aboard the station.

There was still time for science in space as Dominick set up medical hardware including an ultrasound scanner and blood pressure measurement gear. He then conducted scans on NASA Flight Engineer Loral O'Hara and measured her blood pressure collecting data for the CIPHER suite of 14 human research experiments. CIPHER is documenting an astronaut's health during a long-term spaceflight.

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Thursday, March 7, 2024

Huge Remote Controlled Vessels Are Setting Sail

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Scientists Look For Signs Of Alien Technology In Mysterious Perfectly Synchronised Solar System | The ...

Scientists are looking for evidence of alien technology in a faraway solar system with the most perfect mathematical alignment and synchrony of planets ever seen.

The solar system, about 100 light years away from ours, has six planets orbiting an orange dwarf star called HD 110067.

Each of the planets, researchers say, orbits in harmony with its adjacent ones in extremely rare perfect synchrony, suggesting they likely remain undisturbed since their formation a billion years ago.

The six planets, scientists found, move similar to a perfectly synchronized symphony known as resonance that is "precise" and "very orderly".

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Wednesday, March 6, 2024

We Need To Investigate UFOs. But Without The Distraction Of Conspiracy Theories | Scientific ...

We Need to Investigate UFOs. But Without the Distraction of Conspiracy Theories | Scientific ...

A former government official calls for investigating unidentified anomalous phenomena without succumbing to conspiracy theories about extraterrestrials

Little else titillates and piques the national interest like unidentified flying objects and space aliens. After more than a century of films featuring intelligent creatures from other worlds, and over seven decades after the U.S. government began investigating them, UFOs remain a flashpoint for conspiracy theorists and science deniers. By any name, UFOs or unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) conjure the most vivid images and plots allowed by Hollywood and novels alike. Who doesn’t want to believe?

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Terran Orbital Awarded Up To $45 Million IDIQ By NASA To Support Space Technology Advancement

The five-year agreement enables Terran Orbital to provide space vehicles and payload integration services for a variety of missions. These missions will utilize Terran Orbital's proven space vehicle platforms and are intended to advance technological maturity of systems that will transform the landscape of space exploration, discovery, and space commerce.

"We are honored to be selected by NASA for this exciting opportunity," said Marc Bell, Co-Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Terran Orbital. "Terran Orbital's expertise and innovative space vehicle platforms have the potential to play a pivotal role in advancing the next generation of space technologies."

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Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Delays Trigger Concerns About NASA's Plan To Return Astronauts To The Moon Ahead Of China

Decades after the U.S. began and won a space race with the Soviet Union, NASA is shooting for the moon once again – this time with China as a competitor.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has publicly expressed concern about China getting to the south pole first and staking a claim.

No Americans have stepped foot on the moon's surface since 1972, the last year of NASA's Apollo missions, which safely landed Neil Armstrong and 11 more astronauts.

The agency is paying Elon Musk's SpaceX to take NASA's crews from the Orion Spacecraft down to the moon. In 2021, NASA signed a nearly $3 billion contract with SpaceX to use its new Starship mega rocket and lunar lander for the first Artemis astronauts.

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Blue Origin Is Getting Serious About Developing A Human Spacecraft

Blue Origin is getting serious about developing a human spacecraft | Ars Technica

The space company named Blue Origin is having a big year. New chief executive Dave Limp, who arrived in December, is working to instill a more productive culture at the firm owned by Jeff Bezos. In January, the company's powerful BE-4 rocket engine performed very well on the debut launch of the Vulcan booster. And later this year, possibly as soon as August, Blue Origin's own heavy-lift rocket, New Glenn, will take flight.

But wait, there's more. The company has also been hard at work developing hardware that will fly on New Glenn, such as the Blue Ring transfer vehicle that will be used to ferry satellites into precise orbits. In addition, work continues on a private space station called Orbital Reef.

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NASA Space Photo Shows Sky Holes Near Florida

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Monday, March 4, 2024

SpaceX Fuels Up Massive Starship Megarocket In Test For 3rd Launch (Photos)

SpaceX's next Starship to fly has passed a critical fueling test, setting the stage for a highly anticipated third launch attempt of the world's biggest rocket.

If you can't see SpaceX's Starship in person, you can score a model of your own. Standing at 13.77 inches (35 cm), this is a 1:375 ratio of SpaceX's Starship as a desktop model. The materials here are alloy steel and it weighs just 225g.

The FAA investigation identified 17 corrective actions for SpaceX to tackle before its next Starship launch. Those actions include 10 fixes on the 165-foot-tall (50 m) Starship vehicle and seven on the Super Heavy booster.

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NASA's DART Impact Changed Surface Of Asteroid, Proving Planetary Defense Method

A video NASA released on Wednesday shows the debris caused by the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission spacecraft slamming into the asteroid Dimorphos. (Courtesy: NASA / ESA / STScI / Jian-Yang Li (PSI) / Joseph DePasquale (STScI))

Nearly two years after NASA 's DART spacecraft intentionally crashed into an asteroid to test a planetary defense method, scientists continue to see results from the mission showing that this plan could work when Earth needs protection from an incoming asteroid.

The Double Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) was a NASA mission designed to test the kinetic impact theory, a planetary defense method using one object to change the orbit of another with brute force. 

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LEGO City Space Science Lab (60439) Pre-Order On LEGO Shop

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Sunday, March 3, 2024

Experts Contradict Seoul’s Claim That North Korean Satellite Is ‘Just Orbiting’

Experts contradict Seoul's claim that North Korean satellite is 'just orbiting' | NK News

North Korea's first military spy satellite launched last year is functioning normally and able to adjust its orbit, aerospace experts have assessed, counter to the South Korean defense chief's claim that the satellite is "just orbiting without activity."

The DPRK has "control over the satellite and can command it to change its orbital altitude," Marco Langbroek, a lecturer at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering of Delft Technical University, told NK News on Wednesday.

Anton Sokolin is the data correspondent at NK News. He previously worked at Reuters, TASS and the Korea Trade Promotion Corporation (KOTRA).

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China’s Bureaucrats Turn To AI, Handwriting Robots To Cope With Official Paperwork | South China Morning ...

The authorities have yet to produce specific rules on using AI or robotics to write government reports, but there are all already a slew of laws and regulations governing the field, including the recently updated official secrecy law and the State Council's first AI regulation issued last year.

Some officials have also let their subordinates try out the technology for some routine tasks, although they have warned there are limits to what can be done.

Tim Tian, a section head in the Zhejiang provincial government in eastern China, said some of his younger subordinates are using the latest AI platforms to draft speeches for their bosses and produce reports for the various inspection groups.

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World's Largest Rooftop Solar Power Plant To Be Built In Denmark

World's Largest Rooftop Solar Power Plant To Be Built In Denmark - CleanTechnica

SolarFuture was established in 2014 with a focus on profitable solar cell solutions for industry and agriculture. Over the years, this has resulted in a number of projects that stand out in terms of both complexity and locations, including completed installations on the roof of the Opera in Copenhagen and several ground-based installations for the Øresund Bridge that connects Denmark and Sweden.

The solar company SolarFuture ApS from Albertslund has landed the order to establish a 35 MW rooftop solar power plant at DSV’s new logistics center in Horsens — a spectacular project that puts both DSV and SolarFuture on the world map in the solar cell industry. The establishment of the construction site has just begun and is expected to be completed in December 2024.

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A Baby Star's Planet-forming Disk Has 3 Times More Water Than All Of Earth's Oceans

Astronomers have discovered that a planet-birthing disk of gas and dust that surrounds an infant star is drenched with enough water to fill Earth's oceans three times over.

"Our recent images reveal a substantial quantity of water vapor at a range of distances from the star that includes a gap where a planet could potentially be forming at the present time," Facchini added.

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