NASA is racing to build a permanent settlement near the lunar south pole. The space agency claims its Moon base will cover “hundreds of square miles,” meaning mobility will be key. Enter Pegasus, one of two Lunar Terrain Vehicles (LTVs) chosen by NASA to fly to the Moon with the first Artemis astronauts.
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Category: Space Systems, Engineering
Tags: Lunar, Transport,…
Earlier this month, the Artemis II astronauts took the ultimate roadtrip: a flyby of the Moon, on which they brought the entire world along.
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Category: Space Systems, Engineering
Tags: Space exploration, Astronauts, xxShowcase, artemis, NASA
Engineers at MIT have successfully tested a hybrid propulsion system for small satellites that combines the raw punch of chemical rockets with the long-haul efficiency of electric thrusters – and crucially, both run on the same fuel. This tech could propel cheap, briefcase-sized spacecraft to Mars and beyond.
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Category: Space Systems, Engineering
Tags: MIT, Satellite,…
Sure, space travel sounds exciting, but space travelers are still workers – workers who could ordinarily go to restaurants for lunch or go home for dinner. And while the dining habits of cosmonauts, astronauts, taikonauts, and other void-venturers might seem trivial to us Earth-bound folks who’ll never get to traipse among the stars, space travelers do face serious complications from their truly…
SpaceX has once again set the record for flying the largest and most powerful rocket in history. It's also on the verge of launching more satellites than the rest of the world combined since Sputnik. Are we witnessing the beginning of a new Space Age?
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Category: Space Systems, Engineering
Tags: SpaceX, Boeing, Rocket, Rocket Lab, Starlink, Starship, xxShowcase
Blue Origin's space ambitions have suffered a major setback as its New Glenn rocket exploded in a fireball on the launch pad at about 7:00 pm EDT at Launch Complex 36 (LC-36), Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida during an engine test.
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Category: Space Systems, Engineering
Tags: New Glenn, Blue Origin, Rocket, Accidents
Using an instrument called HiPERCAM, is attached to the Gran Telescopio Canarias in La Palma, Spain, a team of researchers recently found that the near-Earth asteroid 2022 OB5 is rotating once every 1.542 minutes, classifying the space rock as an "ultra-fast rotator."
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Category: Space Systems, Engineering
Tags: Asteroid Mining
Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, have demonstrated that the blades of their next-generation Mars helicopter rotors can punch past the speed of sound and come out intact. In recent tests, a three-bladed rotor reached Mach 1.08 in simulated Martian conditions, boosting lift capacity by 30% without a single blade fracturing.
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The first human Mars explorers won’t have it easy. Every additional day in deep space will increase their exposure to deadly cosmic radiation, while isolation gnaws at their minds and microgravity erodes their muscles.
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Category: Space Systems, Engineering
Tags: NASA, Ion propulsion, Mars, JPL
The first human Mars explorers won’t have it easy. Every additional day in deep space will increase their exposure to deadly cosmic radiation, while isolation gnaws at their minds and microgravity erodes their muscles.
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Category: Space Systems, Engineering
Tags: NASA, Ion propulsion, Mars, JPL
Atari made it look so simple: press a few buttons to move, rotate, vanish through hyperspace, fire missiles, and boom: total asteroid destruction.
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Category: Space Systems, Engineering
Tags: UC San Diego, Asteroid, Moon, University of Arizona
If an alien in the Alpha Centauri star system were craving pizza, it would take tens of thousands of years to deliver it using today’s rocket technology. According to a press release, researchers at Texas A&M University have developed a technology that could one day reduce delivery to a mere 20 years using nothing but light for propulsion.
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Category: Space Systems,…
On April 23rd, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched several satellites into low-Earth orbit including a 10-cm (3.9-inch) "origami" cube satellite with a reflectarray antenna that unfurls, origami-like, to 25 times its size when folded.
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Category: Space Systems, Engineering
Tags: Rocket Lab, JAXA, Origami, CubeSat, Folding
Humanity took its first step back to the Moon after 53 years as the US Artemis II circumlunar mission lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39B in Florida at 6:35 PM EDT with four astronauts aboard.
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Category: Space Systems, Engineering
Tags: artemis, Space Launch System, Moon