Momentus Signs Launch Service Agreements with Pixxel
Momentus signed two new launch service agreements with Pixxel and GP Advanced Projects. Momentus will deliver Pixxel's second smallsat to Sun-Synchronous Orbit (SSO) orbit in December 2021 onboard a SpaceX Falcon-9 launch. Additionally, GP Advanced Projects' FEES2 Picosatellite will fly on Vigoride's second demo mission in April 2021.
Pixxel is building a constellation of earth imaging small satellites that can provide real-time remote sensing data globally. The Momentus Shuttle Service will provide a rideshare for multiple Pixxel spacecraft to predefined orbits.
GP Advanced Projects' Flexible Experimental Embedded Satellite (FEES) is a picosatellite platform for autonomous in-orbit validation and testing. A first model will fly onboard G.A.U.S.S. Unisat-7 satellite launched on a Soyuz, and Momentus will fly the enhanced FEES2 variant on a Vigoride shuttle via a Falcon-9 rocket in the first half of 2021.
Sep 24, 2020
NASA Outlines Plan for First Woman on Moon by 2024
The US space agency (NASA) has formally outlined its $28bn (£22bn) plan to return to the Moon by 2024.
As part of a programme called Artemis, NASA will send a man and a woman to the lunar surface in the first landing with humans since 1972.
But the agency's timeline is contingent on Congress releasing $3.2bn for building a landing system.
Astronauts will travel in an Apollo-like capsule called Orion that will be launched on a powerful rocket called SLS.
NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said that the $28bn represents the costs associated for the next four years in the Artemis programme to land on the Moon. SLS funding, Orion funding, the human landing system and of course the spacesuits - all of those things that are part of the Artemis programme are included.
Sep 23, 2020
Indian Scientists Finds X-ray Signature of Boundary Around Black Holes
A team of international scientists, led by those from India, has found a distinctive signature of cosmic X-rays to identify the boundary around black holes, which "unmistakably separate them" from other objects in the cosmos such as neutron stars that are comparable in mass and size.
According to the astrophysicists, including Sudip Bhattacharyya from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai, the current discovery is by far the strongest steady signature of the smaller, but more extreme stellar-mass black holes to date, from the cosmic X-rays observed with a satellite.
Although black holes do not have a surface, it is confined within an invisible boundary, called an event horizon, from within which nothing, not even light, can escape.
Sep 22, 2020
India-Japan Moon Mission: ISRO Forms Study Group
The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), which is working on its second Moon landing mission — Chandrayaan-3 — for next year, has now formed a study group for another moon mission along with Japan.
The India-Japan mission, a joint initiative between ISRO and Japanese space agency JAXA, was in the cold storage as ISRO was focusing on its own moon and human missions. Senior scientists have now confirmed that it is back on the space agency's agenda.
As part of the mission, Japan will be launching a joint lunar mission — Lunar Polar Exploration (LPE) — and as details shared by JAXA, the mission will be launched after 2023 and will involve a lander and a rover.
JAXA diagrams show that the Japanese would be building the overall landing module and the rover, while ISRO would
develop the lander system. The mission will be launched from Japan, and the designated launch vehicle is the H3 rocket, manufactured by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
Sep 19, 2020
Twitter Beefs up Security on Big-name Accounts Ahead of US Election
Twitter is beefing up its security ahead of 2020 November's US presidential election — a bid to avoid another debacle like the bitcoin scam earlier this year, which saw the accounts of Joe Biden and Barack Obama get hijacked by hackers.
Moving forward, accounts that Twitter designates as high-profile will be required or recommended to implement security measures including two-factor authentication and strong passwords.
High-profile accounts will include members of the executive branch and Congress, governors and secretaries of state, presidential campaigns as well as "major US news outlets and political journalists."
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