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Space News & Blog Articles
Tune into the SpaceZE News Network to stay updated on industry news from around the world.
Midnight sun: What it is and how to see it
Experience the wonders of the midnight sun, a natural phenomenon where the sun never sets. Learn where you can witness this endless daylight and the science behind the strange phenomenon.
Comet 13P/Olbers Juices Up June Skies
June brings heat and bugs but also a moderately bright, early-evening comet that returns every 69 years.
EarthCARE on cloud nine after smooth start to mission
ESA’s EarthCARE mission has completed its important ‘Launch and Early Orbit Phase’ and is ready to begin the commissioning of its four scientific instruments. The data they gather will improve our understanding of the role that clouds and aerosols play in Earth’s radiation balance and benefit both climate modelling and weather forecasting.
First detection of negative ions on the Moon
The first ESA instrument to land on the Moon has detected the presence of negative ions on the lunar surface produced through interactions with the solar wind.
Europe’s largest ground segment updated with no user impact
Over 200 dedicated professionals from ESA, EUSPA and European industry across four Galileo centres and seven external entities have seamlessly upgraded Galileo’s massive ground segment. In a remarkable feat of coordination and precision involving the deployment of 400 items, and after five months of rehearsals, Galileo’s ground segment, the largest in Europe, has transitioned seamlessly to System Build 2.0.
Aurora-like STEVE phenomenon has a 'secret twin' that appears only before dawn, study finds
An atmospheric phenomenon known as STEVE has a secret twin that appears before the break of dawn and flows in the opposite direction, new research finds.
Father's Day telescope deals: Save $400 on Unistellar smart telescopes
These Father's Day Unistellar smart telescope deals are sitewide
Live coverage: NASA, Boeing and ULA prepare third launch attempt of the Starliner Crew Flight Test
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft aboard is seen on the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 ahead of the NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test, Friday, May 31, 2024 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test is the first launch with astronauts of the Boeing CFT-100 spacecraft and United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. The flight test, targeted for launch at 12:25 p.m. EDT on Saturday, June 1, serves as an end-to-end demonstration of Boeing’s crew transportation system and will carry NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to and from the orbiting laboratory. Image: NASA/Joel Kowsky
Launch teams are hoping that the third time will be the charm for the first crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. It’s most recent launch attempt came within minutes of sending Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on their way to the International Space Station, but was tripped up at the finish line when one of three redundant computers ran into trouble.
Despite gyro failure, NASA says Hubble Space Telescope still up to world-class science
The Hubble Space Telescope is seen after its release from the space shuttle Columbia during a 2002 servicing mission. Credit: NASA
Trouble with one of the Hubble Space Telescope’s three remaining gyroscopes, critical for aiming and locking onto targets, has prompted mission managers to switch to a backup control mode that will limit some observations but keep the iconic observatory running well into the 2030s, officials said Tuesday.
“We still believe there’s very high reliability and likelihood that we can operate Hubble very successfully, doing groundbreaking science, through the rest of the 20s and into the 2030s,” Patrick Crouse, the Hubble project manager, told reporters during an afternoon teleconference.
At the same time, Mark Clampin, director of astrophysics at NASA Headquarters, said the agency had ruled out, at least for now, a proposed commercial mission to boost Hubble to a higher altitude using a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft. The flight was suggested by SpaceX and Crew Dragon veteran Jared Isaacman as a way to extend Hubble’s lifetime.
By boosting the telescope to a higher altitude, the subtle effects of “drag” in the extreme outer atmosphere, which act to slowly but surely pull spacecraft back to Earth, could be reduced. Isaacman, a billionaire who chartered the first fully commercial flight to low-Earth orbit in 2021, is in training to lead three more SpaceX “Polaris” missions, including a flight this summer in which he plans to become the first private citizen to stand in an open hatch and float, if not walk, in space.
But project managers said Tuesday Hubble is in no danger of falling back to Earth anytime soon. The latest calculations show the observatory will remain in orbit until at least 2035, allowing time to consider possible options, if warranted, down the road.
“After exploring the current commercial capabilities, we are not going to pursue a reboost right now,” Clampin said. “We greatly appreciate the in-depth analysis conducted by the NASA and (the SpaceX-Isaacman) program and our other potential partners, and it’s certainly given us better insight into the considerations for developing a future commercial reboost mission.
“But our assessment also raised a number of considerations, including potential risks such as premature loss of science and some technology challenges. So while the reboost is an option for the future, we believe we need to do some additional work to determine whether the long-term science return will outweigh the short-term science risk.”
Japan’s Lunar Lander Fails to Check-in
On January 19th, 2024, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) successfully landed its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) on the lunar surface. In so doing, JAXA became the fifth national space agency to achieve a soft landing on the Moon – after NASA, the Soviet space program (Interkosmos), the European Space Agency, and the China National Space Agency (CNSA). SLIM has since experienced some technical difficulties, which included upending shortly after landing, and had to be temporarily shut down after experiencing power problems when its first lunar night began.
SpaceX launches 20 Starlink satellites on 14th anniversary of the first Falcon 9 launch
A Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on the Starlink 8-5 mission on June 4, 2024. The mission coincided with the 14th anniversary of the first Falcon 9 launch in 2010. Image: Spaceflight Now
SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket on Tuesday night, 14 years to the day when the rocket made its launch debut from the same pad. Since that day, SpaceX launched more than 340 Falcon 9 rockets, 285 of which were using previously flown boosters.
Human-caused global warming at all-time high, new report concludes
We have about five years worth of carbon emissions before we drive global warming beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit), a new report concluded.
SpaceX launches 20 Starlink satellites, including 13 direct-to-cell craft
SpaceX launched another batch of its Starlink internet satellites on June 4, including 13 that can beam service directly to smartphones.
The Hubble Space Telescope is old. Here's NASA's new plan to keep it alive through 2035
The Hubble Space Telescope will soon go into one-gyroscope mode, a move that will decrease the iconic observatory's productivity but give it margin for the future.
How Mars’ Moon Phobos Captures Our Imaginations
For a small, lumpy chunk of rock that barely reflects any light, Mars’ Moon Phobos draws a lot of attention. Maybe because it’s one of only two moons to orbit the planet, and its origins are unclear. But some of the attention is probably because we have such great images of it.
SpaceX lands FAA license for next Starship megarocket launch on June 6
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), on Tuesday (June 4), issued a launch license to SpaceX for its Starship Flight 4 test mission currently scheduled to lift off no earlier than Thursday, June 6.
Intricate lava trails on Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io seen from Earth (image)
Extremely high quality images of Jupiter's moon Io, taken by the SHARK-VIS camera on Earth, reveal a major resurfacing event.
NASA has a New Database to Predict Meteoroid Hazards for Spaceflight
There are plenty of problems that spacecraft designers have to consider. Getting smacked in the sensitive parts by a rock is just one of them, but it is a very important one. A micrometeoroid hitting the wrong part of the spacecraft could jeopardize an entire mission, and the years of work it took to get to the point where the mission was actually in space in the first place. But even if the engineers who design spacecraft know about this risk, how is it best to avoid them? A new programming library from research at NASA could help.
