Join our newsletter to get the latest military space news every Tuesday by veteran defense journalist Sandra Erwin. HELSINKI — China launched a new communication engineering test satellite early Tuesday, adding to a series of satellites potentially for undisclosed military purposes. A Long March 3B rocket lifted off at 12:56 a.m. Eastern (0556 UTC) Dec. […]
A CubeSat mission to Phobos could map staging bases for a Mars landing (Image Credit: Phys.org) Engineering Model of the Perseus Spacecraft. Credit: Nallapu et al. The moons of Mars are garnering increased attention, not only because they could provide a view of the solar system’s past but also because they could […]
NASA is seeking ideas for rescuing an astronaut from the moon (Image Credit: Phys.org) Logo of the South Pole Safety Challenge Credit: NASA / HeroX Space exploration is a dangerous business, especially when squishy living organisms, such as humans, are involved. NASA has always prided itself on how seriously it takes the […]
Interstellar objects can’t hide from Vera Rubin (Image Credit: Phys.org) Artist impression of the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov as it travels through our solar system. Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF, S. Dagnello We have studied the skies for centuries, but we have only found two objects known to come from another star system. The first interstellar […]
China set to build next-generation BeiDou system (Image Credit: Sat News) A Long March 3B lifts off from Xichang carrying the 59th and 60th Beidou navigation satellites into orbit, Sept. 19 (UTC), 2024. Credit: CASC China is planning to develop its next-generation BeiDou system, which will be technologically more advanced and functionally […]
BepiColombo’s fifth Mercury flyby (Image Credit: Phys.org) Credit: European Space Agency On Sunday 1 December 2024, BepiColombo flew past the planet Mercury for the fifth time, readying itself for entering orbit around the solar system’s mysterious innermost planet in 2026. The spacecraft flew between Mercury and the sun, getting to within 37,630 […]
Astronomers pinpoint the origin of mysterious repeating radio bursts from space (Image Credit: Phys.org) Northeastern University researchers have shown that our visible universe and invisible dark matter likely co-evolved from the time of the Big Bang. Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Slowly repeating bursts of intense radio waves from space have puzzled astronomers […]
Trump may cancel NASA’s powerful SLS Moon rocket—what that would mean for Elon Musk and the future of space travel (Image Credit: Phys.org) Credit: NASA/MSFC Since Donald Trump’s recent electoral victory, rumors and speculation have circulated that Nasa’s giant moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), could be under threat. The rocket […]
Proba-3: Flying two spacecraft is harder than one (Image Credit: Phys.org) Proba-3’s pair of spacecraft will be in a highly elliptical orbit around Earth, performing formation flying maneuvers as well as scientific studies of the solar corona through creating prolonged solar eclipses on demand. The Occulter spacecraft has solar panels on its […]
A new reconfigurable structure could be used to make space habitats (Image Credit: Phys.org) Depiction of the two use cases in the current study—habitat domes and variable focal length mirrors. Credit: arXiv (2024). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2411.15266 Even some fields that seem fully settled will occasionally have breakthrough ideas that have reverberated impacts on […]
