https://phys.org/space-news/space-exploration en-us Space exploration news and updates. Space missions and science news. Planet exploration and more. With NASA gearing up to send humans back to the moon in the next few years with the Artemis missions with the goal of establishing a permanent outpost at the lunar south pole, nations are making efforts to contribute to Artemis and a permanent presence on our nearest celestial neighbor. https://phys.org/news/2023-12-europe-multi-purpose-habitat-moon.html Space Exploration Fri, 01 Dec 2023 10:49:03 EST news620650141 A new study develops a theory of how magnetic switchbacks are formed around the sun. This quantitative model can be used to predict magnetic field variations and potentially explain the heating and acceleration of the solar wind. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-theory-magnetic-switchbacks-solar.html Astronomy Space Exploration Thu, 30 Nov 2023 15:42:04 EST news620581322 New ideas in space exploration come from all corners, and, by and large, the community welcomes anybody interested in the field. Having just read "A City on Mars," it seems that even people who disagree with the idea that the age of space settlement is imminent will be accepted into the fold by enthusiasts. Now, a new entrant has joined—Daniel Akinwumi is a Nigerian graduate student at the University of Strathclyde who recently posted his master's thesis to ResearchGate detailing the design of the "intergalactic hub," or I-HUB. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-space-station-sunearth-l2.html Space Exploration Thu, 30 Nov 2023 14:43:03 EST news620577781 Most NASA missions feature one spacecraft or, occasionally, a few. The agency's Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment (SunRISE) uses half a dozen. This month, mission members completed the construction of the six identical cereal box-size satellites, which will now go into storage and await their final testing and ride to space. SunRISE will launch as a rideshare aboard a United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket, sponsored by the United States Space Force (USSF)'s Space Systems Command (SSC). https://phys.org/news/2023-11-nasa-pack-mini-satellites-ready-moment.html Astronomy Space Exploration Thu, 30 Nov 2023 13:18:23 EST news620572701 NASA conducted the third RS-25 engine hot fire in a critical 12-test certification series Nov. 29, demonstrating a key capability necessary for flight of the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket during Artemis missions to the moon and beyond. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-nasa-in-flight-capability-artemis-moon.html Space Exploration Thu, 30 Nov 2023 12:54:04 EST news620571242 Ever want to play a game of cosmic billiards? That's commonly how the DART mission was described when it successfully changed the orbit of a near-Earth asteroid last year. If you want an idea of how it works, just Google it and an Easter egg from the search giant will give you a general idea. But DART was more like trying to brute force a billiards break—there are many other things you can do with a set of asteroids and impactors on the galactic stage. One of the more interesting is to try to force two asteroids together to form a "contact binary"—the goal of a mission design put forward by a group of scientists from Cornell in a recent paper in Acta Astronautica. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-contact-binary-asteroids-common-weve.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Thu, 30 Nov 2023 12:35:04 EST news620570102 The satellite discovered during the first asteroid encounter of NASA's Lucy mission has an official name. On Nov. 27, 2023, the International Astronomical Union approved the name "Selam" or ሰላም, which means "peace" in the Ethiopian language Amharic, for Dinkinesh's moon. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-satellite-nasa-lucy-mission.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Thu, 30 Nov 2023 12:28:04 EST news620569682 The European Space Agency announced on Thursday that the long-delayed first launch of its next-generation Ariane 6 rocket will take place between June 15 and July 31 next year. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-europe-ariane-rocket-june-july.html Space Exploration Thu, 30 Nov 2023 09:44:52 EST news620559889 More than 50 years after the last Apollo mission, the United States will try once again to land a craft on the moon on January 25, said the head of what could be the first private company to successfully touch down on the lunar surface. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-years-moon-january.html Space Exploration Thu, 30 Nov 2023 03:03:12 EST news620535787 SpaceX chalked up another Starlink mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to mark the Space Coast's 66th launch of the year. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-spacex-space-coast-66th-year.html Space Exploration Tue, 28 Nov 2023 14:17:30 EST news620403448 I'm sure many readers of Universe Today are, like me, fans of the science fiction genre. From the light sabers of "Star Wars" to the neuralyzer of "Men in Black," science fiction has crazy inventions aplenty and once science fiction writers dream it, scientists and engineers try and create it. Perhaps the holy grail of science fiction creations is the warp drive from "Star Trek" and it is fair to say that many have tried to work out if it is even possible to travel faster than the speed of light. To date, alas, to no avail but if the warp drive eludes us, what about faster-than-light communication. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-warp-impossible-faster-than-light-communication-table.html Space Exploration Tue, 28 Nov 2023 13:28:03 EST news620400481 When spacecraft return to Earth, they don't need to shed all their velocity by firing retro-rockets. Instead, they use the atmosphere as a brake to slow down for a soft landing. Every planet in the solar system except Mercury has enough of an atmosphere to allow aerobraking maneuvers, and could allow high-speed exploration missions. A new paper looks at the different worlds and how a spacecraft must fly to take advantage of this "free lunch" to slow down at the destination. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-aerocapture-free-lunch-space-exploration.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Tue, 28 Nov 2023 13:22:05 EST news620400122 On November 17, 2023, the Polarimeter to UNify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission achieved an important milestone, passing its internal system integration review and clearing the mission to start integrating its four observatories. Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) leads PUNCH, a NASA Small Explorer (SMEX) mission that will integrate understanding of the sun's corona, the outer atmosphere visible during total solar eclipses, with the "solar wind" that fills and defines the solar system. SwRI is also building the spacecraft and three of its five instruments. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-mission-advances.html Space Exploration Mon, 27 Nov 2023 12:57:57 EST news620312275 China has repeatedly stunned the U.S. intelligence community in the last five years with rapid progress in its space exploration program, landing a rover on the far side of the moon and completing its very own space station orbiting Earth. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-nasa-urgency-mars-idaho-scientists.html Space Exploration Mon, 27 Nov 2023 07:33:42 EST news620292816 In March 2022, a defunct part of a space rocket hurled toward the moon's surface and impacted near the Hertzsprung Crater, an enormous impact feature on the far side of the moon that is never directly visible from Earth. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-tracking-errant-space-rocket-mysterious.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Sat, 25 Nov 2023 09:40:01 EST news619511639 More information is always better when it comes to publicly funded space exploration projects. So it's welcome when a NASA engineer takes time out of the assuredly busy work lives to provide an update on everyone's favorite helicopter on Mars. Ingenuity has been having a rough few months, and a new article entitled "The Long Wait," posted by Travis Brown, Chief Engineer on the Ingenuity project, on NASA's website, provides a good amount of detail as to why. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-nasa-ingenuity-flights.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Fri, 24 Nov 2023 13:56:03 EST news620056561 Down on the ground, death equals stillness—but not in space. Abandoned satellites are prone to tumble in unpredictable ways, and an ESA project with the Astronomical Institute of the University of Bern sought to better understand this behavior. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-satellite-death-spiral.html Space Exploration Fri, 24 Nov 2023 13:48:02 EST news620056081 Ever since the telescope was invented in 1608, astronomers have striven for bigger and better telescopes. When it comes to instruments to observe the sky, bigger really is better whether you are observing faint galaxies or planets a larger collector gives higher resolution and brighter images. A paper by Takahiro Ito from the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science in Japan recently posted to the arXiv preprint server looks into different kinds of orbits around Earth which support multiple telescope systems known as interferometers at different orbits. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-paper-explores-ideal-orbits-space-based.html Astronomy Space Exploration Fri, 24 Nov 2023 12:03:02 EST news620049781 The European Space Agency's Ariane 6 rocket has successfully completed a dress rehearsal, test-firing its engine in preparation for a maiden voyage scheduled for 2024. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-europe-ariane-rocket-successfully-hot-fire.html Space Exploration Fri, 24 Nov 2023 02:39:08 EST news620015939 For the first time in history, two planets have been home to testing future aircraft designs. In this world, a new rotor that could be used with next-generation Mars helicopters was recently tested at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, spinning at near-supersonic speeds (0.95 Mach). Meanwhile, the agency's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has achieved new altitude and airspeed records on the Red Planet in the name of experimental flight testing. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-nasa-worlds-future-mars-helicopter.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Wed, 22 Nov 2023 16:07:42 EST news619891657 During missions into space, astronauts are exposed to high levels of galactic cosmic radiation and weightlessness. Simulation experiments in male rats indicated that these aspects of spaceflight can negatively affect vascular tissues relevant to erectile dysfunction, even after a period of long-term recovery. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-spaceflight-men-erectile-dysfunction.html Space Exploration Wed, 22 Nov 2023 03:00:01 EST news619788002 U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) researchers have discovered solar-wind hydrogen in lunar samples, which indicates that water on the surface of the moon may provide a vital resource for future lunar bases and longer-range space exploration. Space-based resource identification is a key factor in planning for civilian- and government-led space exploration. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-hydrogen-lunar-samples-resource-availability.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Tue, 21 Nov 2023 12:19:02 EST news619791541 The business of sending humans into space has not yet risen to the levels seen during the space shuttle program, but 2024 could see the most U.S.-based orbital launches in 15 years. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-space-coast-gears-astronaut.html Space Exploration Mon, 20 Nov 2023 17:00:01 EST news619721422 On 17 November 2023, ESA's Juice spacecraft carried out one of the largest and most important maneuvers in its eight-year journey to Jupiter. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-juice-hard-first-ever-earthmoon-flyby.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Mon, 20 Nov 2023 15:15:03 EST news619715701 A little more than a year ago, a NASA flight test article came screaming back from space at more than 18,000 mph, reaching temperatures of nearly 2,700°F before gently splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. At that moment, it became the largest blunt body—a type of reentry vehicle that creates a heat-deflecting shockwave—ever to reenter Earth's atmosphere. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-nasa-flawless-shield-demo.html Space Exploration Mon, 20 Nov 2023 14:50:01 EST news619713494 An international team of astrophysicists, aerospace engineers and balloonists has found that data recovery capsules are a viable means of ensuring data integrity in the event of loss of flight capabilities or communications abilities in balloon-based telescope projects. In their paper published in a special issue of Aerospace, the group describes their test of four Data Recovery System (DRS) capsules containing 5 TB of telescopic data sent aboard a helium-filled, super-pressurized balloon. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-recovery-capsules-loss-balloon-based-telescopes.html Space Exploration Mon, 20 Nov 2023 11:30:01 EST news619700221 Australians began voting Monday on a name for the country's first home-made moon rover, with a shortlist including "Mateship", "Roo-ver" and "Kakirra"—an Indigenous word for the Earth's satellite. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-australians-vote-home-made-moon-rover.html Space Exploration Mon, 20 Nov 2023 04:10:09 EST news619675806 SpaceX on Saturday made progress in the second test launch of its mammoth Starship rocket, with the booster separating from the spaceship, but both then exploding shortly after over the ocean. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-starship-ship-booster.html Space Exploration Sun, 19 Nov 2023 06:25:50 EST news619597546 SpaceX launched its mega rocket Starship but lost both the booster and the spacecraft in a pair of explosions minutes into Saturday's test flight. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-spacex-giant-rocket-pair-explosions.html Space Exploration Sat, 18 Nov 2023 09:49:43 EST news619523377 SpaceX is poised Saturday for the second test launch of Starship, the largest rocket ever built that Elon Musk hopes will one day colonize Mars, while NASA awaits a modified version to land humans on the moon. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-spacex-poised-mega-starship-rocket.html Space Exploration Sat, 18 Nov 2023 06:16:40 EST news619510591