Space

It’s a good thing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has plenty of time to prepare for its next generation of polar-orbiting weather satellites — because the changes the agency is contemplating are dramatic. Instead of flying satellites the size of pickup trucks like the current Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), NOAA is exploring the

Updated 5:30 p.m. Eastern to revise location of company headquarters. WASHINGTON — Earth imaging company Satellogic announced July 6 it will go public through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), raising the funding it needs to build out a constellation of 300 spacecraft. Satellogic said it will merge with CF Acquisition Corp.

HELSINKI — China launched a Tianlian data tracking and relay communications satellite Tuesday, marking the country’s third successful mission in four days. A Long March 3C lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, southwest China, at 11:53 a.m. Eastern July 6, sending the Tianlian-1 (05) satellite into geosynchronous transfer orbit. China’s main space contractor

Can you make a black hole out of light? Learn about the strange theoretical object called the ‘Kugelblitz’. Hosted by: Hank Green ———- Support SciShow by becoming a patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scishow ———- Dooblydoo thanks go to the following Patreon supporters — we couldn’t make SciShow without them! Shout out to Justin Ove, Andreas Heydeck,

Orbital transfer and servicing providers are bracing for a space tug of war as they jostle for position in an increasingly crowded market. Newcomers are flooding into a space tug industry that has only emerged in recent years, pushing their own ideas to give operators greater flexibility for deploying and maintaining satellites. At one end

NASA’s Human Landing System (HLS) program is the biggest bet the agency has made on the commercial space industry since the commercial crew program a decade ago. NASA decided to procure landing services rather than the landers themselves, awarding a $2.9 billion contract to SpaceX April 16 to fund development of a lunar lander based

expands TAMPA, Fla. — OneWeb is shifting focus to the southern hemisphere after completing coverage north of 50 degrees latitude, following the launch of its latest batch of broadband satellites July 1. Arianespace launched 36 satellites at 8:48 a.m. Eastern in its eighth mission for the low-Earth-orbit startup, increasing the size of its constellation to

Hausjärvi, FINLAND — Two Shenzhou-12 astronauts conducted a spacewalk late Saturday to carry to install equipment required for the long-term operation of China’s space station. Liu Boming opened the hatch of the Tianhe module at 8:11 p.m. Eastern June 3 and was later joined outside by Tang Hongbo. Activities were completes at 2:57 a.m. June

WASHINGTON — A multibillion-dollar radio telescope is moving into its construction phase while still working to raise funding and deal with satellite megaconstellations whose interference “change the game” for their plans. In a June 29 talk at the annual meeting of the European Astronomical Society, Philip Diamond, director general of the Square Kilometer Array (SKA)

The memorandum with Libre Space Foundation is Space Command’s 100th commercial space situational awareness data sharing agreement. WASHINGTON — U.S. Space Command announced July 1 it has signed a data-sharing agreement with the Libre Space Foundation, a non-profit that promotes open access to information about space. “Space situational awareness, which requires these types of cooperative

One way to help us live on Mars would be to terraform the planet. Some scientists think we might be able to do that by giving it a new magnetic field! Host: Caitlin Hofmeister ———- Support SciShow by becoming a patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scishow ———- Dooblydoo thanks go to the following Patreon supporters: Kelly Landrum

WASHINGTON — NASA is taking a slow and deliberate approach to restoring operations of the Hubble Space Telescope, which has been out of service since mid-June when a payload computer malfunctioned. Hubble stopped science operations June 13 when the payload computer, which runs the telescope’s instruments, malfunctioned. An initial investigation suggested the problem was with

WASHINGTON — NASA is seeking proposals to begin the next phase of Artemis lunar lander services, moving quickly despite unresolved protests about its selection of SpaceX to develop a lunar lander. NASA issued a request for proposals July 1 for what it calls “Sustainable Human Landing System Studies and Risk Reduction.” The solicitation, Appendix N

On Dec. 6, 2020, a Japanese spacecraft raced back from deep space at more than 26,000 mph (11.7 km/s), dropped a capsule into Earth’s atmosphere and sped away. The payload was recovered as intended in the Australian outback, and within it were more than 5 grams of material collected from the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu. The