Spacecraft propulsion traditionally relies on volatile fuels and separate, bulky systems for different types of maneuvering in space. NASA is working to change that paradigm. Engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, recently completed a rigorous series of environmental and physical tests on a new small satellite designed to make spaceflight safer […]
New animations from NASA’s PREFIRE mission reveal two years of seasonal temperature swings at the Arctic and Antarctic.
A team of NASA-sponsored scientists and engineers has developed a novel approach to observing high-energy particles in the near-Earth space environment, incorporating miniaturized sensors into a compact, multi-view particle detection instrument unlike any before it. Built for NASA’s Relativistic Electron Atmospheric Loss (REAL) CubeSat mission, the innovative instrument (also called REAL) enables more complete measurements […]
NASA has selected Rocket Lab to provide the launch service for both the agency’s PolSIR (Polarized Submillimeter Ice-cloud Radiometer) and Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor-2 (TSIS-2) missions. The two selections are part of NASA’s Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR) launch services contract. This contract allows the agency to award fixed-price indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity launch […]
NASA astronaut Chris Williams pointed a camera out a window on the cupola as a set of CubeSats were deployed outside the Kibo laboratory module by a small satellite orbital deployer into Earth orbit. Students from Mexico, Italy, Thailand, Malaysia, and Japan designed the shoe-boxed satellites for a series of Earth observations and technology demonstrations. CubeSats are a class of nanosatellites – small spacecraft […]
Started by an engineer who worked on the space shuttle program, and at Blue Origin, Space Beyond has a spot on a 2027 Falcon 9 flight.
A new NASA spacecraft called Pandora is awaiting launch ahead of its journey to study the atmospheres of exoplanets, or worlds beyond our solar system, and their stars. Along for the ride are two shoebox-sized satellites called BlackCAT (Black Hole Coded Aperture Telescope) and SPARCS (Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat), as NASA innovates with ambitious science […]