Tag: European Space Agency
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Next pair of Galileo navigation satellites encapsulated for launch
The next two Galileo satellites were encapsulated for next week’s launch Wednesday. Photo credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace – Photo Optique Video du CSG – JM Guillon Europe’s nearly $8 billion Galileo navigation system, an analog to the U.S. GPS satellite network, is hitting a stride in production and launches, with another two spacecraft encapsulated Wednesday inside the…
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First German commander among astronauts named for station flights
German Chancellor Angela Merkel congratulates astronaut Alexander Gerst on his selection as commander of the International Space Station’s Expedition 58 crew. Credit: ESA/Grothues International Space Station managers have named crew members to future expeditions to the research lab in 2017 and 2018, including the first German commander of a space mission and Canada’s third astronaut…
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First German commander among astronauts named for station flights
German Chancellor Angela Merkel congratulates astronaut Alexander Gerst on his selection as commander of the International Space Station’s Expedition 58 crew. Credit: ESA/Grothues International Space Station managers have named crew members to future expeditions to the research lab in 2017 and 2018, including the first German commander of a space mission and Canada’s third astronaut…
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Departure of Europe’s first Mars rover delayed to 2020
Artist’s concept of the ExoMars rover. Credit: ESA Europe’s ExoMars rover will not be ready for launch in 2018, officials said Monday, forcing a two-year delay for the ambitious mission to drill into the Martian surface and search for the remnants of past life. Delays in the development of the European-built rover and a Russian…
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Europe’s Sentinel satellites generating huge ‘Big Data’ archive
This full resolution subset of the first Sentinel 1B image captured Thursday shows Norway’s Nordaustlandet island in the Svalbard archipelago, covered by the Austfonna ice cap. Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data [2016], processed by ESA With a second radar surveillance satellite already returning images less than three days after launch, managers in charge of Europe’s…
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Balky navigation unit prompts rare Soyuz launch scrub
The Soyuz rocket sits inside its mobile gantry at the launch pad in French Guiana on Sunday. Credit: ESA–Manuel Pedoussaut, 2016 Russian rocket technicians planned to swap out a failed inertial measurement unit inside a Soyuz rocket overnight Sunday after a failure in the navigation system forced officials to abort the booster’s planned launch of…
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Chinese space lab back on Earth after groundbreaking embryo experiment
Chinese technicians greet the Shijian 10 landing module after its touchdown Monday in the Inner Mongolia region. Credit: Xinhua/Chen Junqing An uncrewed spacecraft landed in China’s Inner Mongolia region Monday after nearly 13 days in orbit carrying an array of microgravity research experiments, including a groundbreaking investigation that showed mammal embryos can develop in space,…
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Moon Village vs. Journey to Mars: Which space vision will the next president pick?
An artist’s conception shows a permanent lunar base that’s part of the European Space Agency’s “Moon Village” vision. (Credit: ESA) COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Over the past eight years, the focus of NASA’s space vision has shifted from the moon, to a near-Earth asteroid, to the journey to Mars. The European Space Agency’s director-general, meanwhile,…
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Chinese research craft launched on two-week mission
The Shijian 10 recoverable satellite lifted off at 1:38 a.m. Beijing time Wednesday. Credit: Xinhua The unpiloted Shijian 10 spacecraft launched from a spaceport in northwestern China on Tuesday with a suite of microgravity research experiments developed by Chinese and European scientists. The bullet-shaped space capsule soared into orbit aboard a Long March 2D rocket at…
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Europe’s ExoMars orbiter smoothly cruising toward red planet
Artist’s concept of the Trace Gas Orbiter releasing the Schiaparelli lander on approach to Mars on Oct. 16. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab Ground controllers are running Europe’s ExoMars orbiter through a post-launch checkup a week after its successful liftoff aboard a Proton rocket, and a first look at the probe’s systems revealed no problems, the mission’s…