How to land on the Moon
Today, we take it for granted that the Apollo lunar landing was possible, but at the time, no one had done anything remotely like it – let alone in a craft that had never been fully tested.
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Space
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Self-driving spacecraft tech to be road-tested as part of planetary defense mission
ESA has now detailed the side mission it’s planning for the asteroid-visiting spacecraft Hera. After the main work is complete, the probe will test out some new autonomous navigation systems, which should help future spacecraft get around without relying on ground control all the way back on Earth.
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CHEOPS exoplanet observatory cleared for flight
ESA's CHaracterising ExOPlanets Satellite (CHEOPS) has been declared flight ready and is being stored at the Airbus Defence and Space facility in Madrid before being shipped to Kourou, French Guiana, where it will be installed atop a Soyuz-Fregat rocket.
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Van Allen Probes prepare for 15-year plunge into the Earth's atmosphere
The Van Allen Probes have been set on a trajectory that will plunge the radiation belt satellites into the Earth's atmosphere. In order to keep the pair of spacecraft from becoming a hazard to navigation, a series of thruster maneuvers will place them in ever-tightening orbits ending around 2034.
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New JAXA video shows Hayabusa 2 touching down on asteroid Ryugu
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has released footage of the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft descending and making contact with the primordial asteroid Ryugu. During the rendezvous, the probe shot a bullet into the surface to kick up a sample for return to Earth sometime late in 2020.
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NASA to test X-ray communication system on the ISS
Radio waves are still the main way to communicate with spacecraft, but that aging technology could soon get an upgrade that will allow faster data downloads from space. NASA is currently preparing to test out an x-ray communication system on the International Space Station.
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NASA's newest mission to look for life's ingredients and probe the universe's deep past
NASA has selected the newest space mission for its Explorer program: the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx). The spacecraft will search for the ingredients of life in the Milky Way, and peer as far as 10 billion years back in time.
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Weird new landmarks on Ultima Thule come into focus with sharpest image yet
On January 1 the New Horizons probe whizzed past Ultima Thule, a tiny world on the fringe of the solar system. The latest image shows the object closer and in higher resolution than ever before. With that improved clarity comes some intriguing new landmarks on the rocky surface.
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Automation speeds up production of nuclear space fuel
To help power American's deep space probes, The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has automated key steps in the process to make plutonium-238 (PU-238) nuclear fuel for radiothermal generators (RTG).
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Steam-powered space probes could refuel themselves indefinitely
A team of researchers at the University of Central Florida have developed a prototype steam-powered space probe using water as a propellant. The World Is Not Enough spacecraft can operate indefinitely by topping off on ice gathered while visiting asteroids and other bodies to fuel future travels.
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