space

  1. T

    SpaceIL`s Beresheet space craft to land on the moon today

    If successful , Israel will be the 4th country to land a craft on the moon , and the first time a privately funded organization does this (at a cost of mere 100$ million) more details and links to the live stream...
  2. AlphaAtlas

    No Mans Sky "Beyond" Update Will Feature Multiplayer

    No Man's Sky had a rough launch, to say the least, and most people expected the developers to distance themselves from it as much as they could. Instead, Hello Games has been steadily working No Man's Sky over the years, and the game managed to make a big comeback in 2018. Today, the developers...
  3. AlphaAtlas

    Astronauts From Failed Launch Will Return to the ISS Today

    Last October, three astronauts aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket survived an explosive, mid flight failure. The ancient, Soviet-designed Soyuz rockets are notoriously reliable, with only 1 other recorded manned launch failure in 1975, but the 2018 incident put the future of the International Space...
  4. AlphaAtlas

    Researchers Develop RAM That Works at 300C

    A group of researchers claim to have developed gallium nitride memory devices that can work at temperatures over 300 degrees Celcius (or 572 Fahrenheit, which is coincidentally about 572 Kelvin as well). As any overclocker already knows, silicon-based transistors don't work particularly well...
  5. AlphaAtlas

    HP's Intel and Nvidia Powered ISS Supercomputer is Stuck in Space

    HP and SpaceX sent some servers with off-the-shelf Intel Xeon CPUs and Nvidia Tesla GPUs to the ISS in 2017, and as of 2018, those servers were fully operational. But, according to a recent BBC report, HP's "Spaceborne Computer" was schedules to come back down to Earth about 3 months ago, and...
  6. AlphaAtlas

    Hayabusa2 Probe Captures Dust From an Asteroid

    Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency just confirmed that a probe sent from the Hayabusa2 spacecraft has successfully touched down on the surface of an asteroid. But unlike the previous bouncing probes that landed on Ryugu, this one fired a "bullet" into the asteroid's surface to collect some...
  7. AlphaAtlas

    InSight's Seismometer Gets a Lid

    NASA landed their "InSight" probe on Mars in November last year, and it brought a suite of sensors and gizmos with it. Among other things, NASA wants to dig into the Martian soil with InSight, but deploying the equipment needed to do that is a painfully slow, and risky, process. But yesterday...
  8. AlphaAtlas

    Los Alamos Wants To Slam a Spacecraft Into an Asteroid

    Los Alamos National Laboratory, which is famous for its work on the Manhattan Project and other ventures related to national security, intends to work with NASA to test asteroid deflection strategies. According to the YouTube video they just uploaded, the organizations want to hit Didymoon, a...
  9. AlphaAtlas

    Orion Span Wants to Build a Space Hotel

    Curbed says the Houston-based startup Orion Span wants to build a fully modular space station that functions as a high end hotel. According to the company's plans, the hotel will be able to host up to 6 people for 12 days at a time. Trips start at a cool $9.5 million per person, but the company...
  10. AlphaAtlas

    New Horizons Sends A Sharper Images of Ultima Thule

    The New Horizons probe blew past "Ultima Thule" on News Year's Day in 2019, and managed to snap an image of the object on the way. Unfortunately, bandwidth is limited when the probe is so far away that radio signals take 6 hours to reach Earth, so scientists only got a partial, fuzzy image in...
  11. AlphaAtlas

    Facebook is Building a Space Laser

    IEEE Spectrum says that PointView Tech, a Facebook subsidiary, is building a laser satellite communication facility on the peak of Mount Wilson in California. The publication believes that the company is working on a laser communication satellite codenamed "Athena" and says the company has a...
  12. AlphaAtlas

    China Releases Footage of First Far Side Moon Landing

    China successfully made humanity's first soft landing on the far side of the Moon earlier this year. Fortunately, it's 2019, and we have cameras and transmitters far better than the ones bolted onto Apollo-era spacecraft, so China's National Space Administration just released a video of the Moon...
  13. AlphaAtlas

    Swarm Asks the FCC for Permission to Launch 150 Tiny Satellites

    Earlier this year, Swarm Technologies got in trouble with the FCC for putting four tiny satellites into orbit without permission. Authorities and experts claimed that the tiny objects were too difficult to track, which makes them a danger to other satellites in orbit. Swarm was reportedly fined...
  14. cageymaru

    China Completes Successful Soft Landing on the Far Side of the Moon

    The Chang'e-4 team from China has successfully soft landed a combination lander-rover on the far side of the moon. Because the far side of the moon's view is blocked from Earth, a Queqiao relay satellite was launched in May 2018 to pass information from Chang'e-4 to Earth. The mission carried an...
  15. AlphaAtlas

    Ultima Thule Looks Like a Peanut

    In its close encounter with Ultima Thule on New Year's Day, the New Horizons probe successfully snapped some images of the asteroid. It will supposedly take weeks for the bulk of the data to make it to Earth and get processed, which isn't uprising, as bandwidth can't be particularly high...
  16. AlphaAtlas

    New Horizons Probe to Fly By Strange Kuiper Belt Object Tonight

    NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which launched way back in 2006 and took some gorgeous shots of Pluto in 2015, is set to make a close flyby of a Kuiper Belt object close to New Year's Eve. According to SpaceFlightNow, New Horizons will pass by Ultima Thule at 12:33AM EST, but the data will take...
  17. cageymaru

    SpaceX Wins Military Contract to Experiment with Commercial Space Internet

    Elon Musk's SpaceX has been granted a $28 million Department of Defense (DoD) contract per FA8650-17-S-9300 to research and experiment with establishing connectivity, operational, and special purpose experimentation with U.S. Air Force ground sites and aircraft. In phase two of the experiments...
  18. AlphaAtlas

    SpaceX Launches First National Security Mission

    Earlier this week, SpaceFlightNow reported that SpaceX made their first successful launch with a military payload. The Falcon 9 rocket carried a GPS satellite with the nickname "Vespucci" into orbit. Unlike most Falcon 9 missions, SpaceX didn't try to recover the rocket's first stage, as the...
  19. cageymaru

    Mars Express Images Show the Icy Korolev Crater on the Red Planet

    Pictures of the water ice in the Korolev crater on Mars have been released by the European Space Agency. The icy interior of the crater is maintained by a phenomenon know as an 'ice trap'. This occurs naturally when "the air moving over the deposit of ice cools down and sinks, creating a layer...
  20. cageymaru

    The FCC Has Levied a $900,000 Fine Against Swarm for Unauthorized Satellite Launch

    Swarm Technologies Inc has been ordered to pay a $900,000 fine by the FCC for "unauthorized deployment and operation of satellites, unauthorized operation of earth ground stations, and other unauthorized operation and testing of radio frequency equipment." The FCC had denied Swarm Technologies'...
  21. AlphaAtlas

    Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo Reaches Space

    Following a deadly crash back in 2014, Virgin Galactic has been reworking and retesting their plane-based launch platform for the past few years. The company completed their second supersonic flight earlier this year, and according to Twitter, SpaceShipTwo made it all the way to space in a test...
  22. AlphaAtlas

    Astronauts are Inspecting the ISS's Air Leak Right Now

    The ISS suffered from an air leak earlier this year, and authorities later discovered that the leak was likely "man made." Fortunately, astronauts managed to patch the leak from the inside fairly quickly, but the actual inspection of the leak was delayed by the failure of a manned launch to the...
  23. AlphaAtlas

    JPL Uploads The Sound of Wind on Mars

    NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory just uploaded processed sensor recordings of "wind" on Mars. The vibrations from Insight's seismometer are very low frequency, but are still audible without having to be sped up, which makes them a great bass test for your PC. NASA also uploaded the raw sounds to...
  24. AlphaAtlas

    SpaceX Breaks Records With Falcon 9 Launch

    On Monday, SpaceX successfully launched a rocket carrying 64 small satellites. While this doesn't top the 104-satellite record set by an Indian rocket last year, it did set the record for the highest number of satellites ever launched by a U.S. rocket. It was also SpaceX's 19th launch this year...
  25. AlphaAtlas

    ISS Crew Members Reach Space Following Botched Launch

    After a successful Soyuz launch early this morning, three astronauts are on their way to the International Space Station. Following a failed manned launch earlier this year, experts were worried about the future of the ISS, as the Soyuz rocket is currently the only platform capable of shuttling...
  26. AlphaAtlas

    NASA's InSight Probe Will Land On Mars Today

    NASA's InSight Mars Lander is scheduled to touch down on the red planet at around 2PM CST today. The craft has traveled over 300 million miles over the course of 7 months, and with the planet in the sights of the spacecraft's cameras, engineers have already made the last major course corrections...
  27. AlphaAtlas

    NASA Picks Landing Site for 2020 Mars Rover

    In a press release, NASA announced the landing site for the upcoming Mars 2020 Rover mission. The ancient, dry river basin outside the Jezero Crater is a science treasure trove, but NASA says that landing in the area was cost prohibitive until now. Scientists claim that signs of organic...
  28. AlphaAtlas

    Cargo Crafts Successfully Dock With ISS

    Following the failure of a manned launch to the ISS, the future of Earth's only manned space station has been brought in to question. The US. and Russia simultaneously launched unmanned resupply missions to the ISS over the weekend, and fortunately, both of them made it to the space station...
  29. AlphaAtlas

    Small Rocket Launches are Turning Into Big Business

    While enormous rockets like the Falcon Heavy and the BFR tend to dominate the headlines and the public's imagination, the New York Times asserts that the small rocket industry is experiencing a kind of renaissance. Tasks that previously required car-sized satellites can now be accomplished by...
  30. AlphaAtlas

    Parker Solar Probe Survives its First Pass Around the Sun

    The Parker Solar Probe left Earth and started barreling towards the Sun back in August, and NASA reports that it just recently survived its first close encounter with the Sun. The spacecraft came within 15 million miles of its surface, smashing the previous record of f 26.55 million miles set in...
  31. AlphaAtlas

    Damaged Sensor Pin was the Cause of Failed ISS Crew Launch

    Russia's Space Agency, Roscosmos, has been thoroughly investigating the botched launch of a mission to the ISS. According to a press release, a damaged sensor pin led to an "abnormal" separation of one of the boosters. Up until recently, the ancient Soyuz launch system was notoriously reliable...
  32. AlphaAtlas

    The ISS's Supercomputer is Ready for Service

    SpaceX sent an HP supercomputer to the ISS over a year ago, and now, after an extensive testing period, that supercomputer is available for astronauts to use. According to HP, performing calculations onboard the space station instead of on ground-based stations will save precious time and...
  33. AlphaAtlas

    NASA Details Plan to Turn Rocks Into Rocket Fuel on Mars

    In a piece on Spectrum, NASA detailed their plans to mine dust on heavenly bodies in our solar system, and turn it into rocket fuel. That already sounds difficult, but according to NASA "Swamp Works" team leader Kurt W. Leucht, mining on Mars is even harder than you'd think. For example, it...
  34. AlphaAtlas

    China to Launch an Artificial Moon

    Local, state-owned newspapers in Chengdu, China announced a plan to launch an artificial moon above the city in 2020. The satellite would reflect sunlight to an area between 10 and 80 kilometers in diameter, and shine 8 times brighter than Earth's own moon. The plan is to at least partially...
  35. AlphaAtlas

    Nvidia Fakes the Moon Landing

    Mankind landed on the moon over 49 years ago. But in addition to making history, those brave astronauts created a myth that still persists to this very day. Many people still believe that NASA "faked" the moon landing, and Nvidia set out to prove them wrong using their raytracing technology...
  36. AlphaAtlas

    Flight Club Simulates Space Launches

    KSP may be a great space flight sim, but it's not exactly realistic. If you've ever wanted to simulate a specific launch, developer Declan Murphy created a cool site to do it. Flightclub.io lets you input detailed staging information, specify launch sites, program events at specific times, then...
  37. AlphaAtlas

    Soyuz Launch Aborted With ISS Crew On Board

    A Soyuz rocket carrying ISS crew members aborted a launch mid flight today. 2 minutes into the launch, as the boosters separated from the main vehicle, parts started flying off while translators monitoring the live feed yelled "booster failure!." The MS-10 capsule carrying the astronauts...
  38. AlphaAtlas

    Hubble Telescope Goes into Safe Mode

    After another gyroscope failure, the Hubble Space Telescope went into a "safe mode" this weekend. Only 2 of the Hubble's 6 onboard gyroscopes are working now, and it needs at least 3 to function properly. While operators on the ground saw this kind of failure coming and planned for it, the lost...
  39. AlphaAtlas

    Amazon Partners With Iridium to Bring Internet to the Whole Planet

    Amazon announced a partnership with Iridium Communications, with the goal of developing a satellite network for Internet of Things devices called CloudConnect. Iridium CEO Matt Desh told CNBC that he intends to cover the "whole planet," and expects the service to launch in 2019. SpaceX is almost...
  40. AlphaAtlas

    Japan Launched Two Rovers at an Asteroid

    Today, Japan launched 2 small rovers at an asteroid from the Hayabusa2 spacecraft. The original mission launched in 2014, and took some stunning fly-by shots of the Earth in 2015 on its way out. The 2 diminutive drones measure 18cm by 7cm, weigh 1.1kg each, and feature small motors to "hop"...
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