Category: MISC

NASA’s Perseverance rover lands hopefully on Mars around Wednesday February 18th 2021 and one thing that should definitely get you excited about is the helicopter that will also be deployed.

Each battery charge holds enough juice for only 90 seconds of flight time but that should be enough to send back some impressive videos for all of us back on Earth to watch.

I’m sure Teddy Tzanetos, MiMi Aung and our main man Bob Balaram (the small team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory responsible for the helicopter) are chewing their nails off. We love crazy ideas and will all be cheering with you when we see the helicopter do that first selfie with Perseverance down below!

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/6-things-to-know-about-nasas-mars-helicopter-on-its-way-to-mars/

SpaceX has broken the record for the number of satellites launched in a single launch.

143 payloads went up yesterday (Sunday 24th January 2021) with “The Falcon” rocket – the most ever deployed on a single mission.

Well done to SpaceX and all the satellite makers. Also, good job Elon!

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55775977

A contract has been signed between the UK Space Agency and Rolls-Royce to make a study into the options for using nuclear power for space exploration.

It’s not made clear what exactly the nuclear power will be used for since there have been past and present space missions that use nuclear technology for various purposes.

Most probably nuclear powered propulsion, but we’ll know more in the near future.

Rolls-Royce & UK Space Agency launches first study into nuclear power for space exploration

The first ever cube satellite with a hall-effect electric propulsion has been launched by Exotrail.

This allows the cubesat to perform advanced and automatic manoeuvres.

Exotrail paves the way for new space mobility with
first of its kind successful in-orbit demonstration mission

Virgin Orbit has launched its first set of satellites into space which is great news for small satellite operators.

Congratulations to the team and Sir Richard Branson!

BBC News: Branson’s Virgin rocket takes satellites to orbit

The instruments for the ESA Euclid space telescope, scheduled for launch in 2022, have been integrated after passing the qualification and acceptance review. Congratulations to the team!

https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2020/12/Instruments_installed_on_Euclid_spacecraft

The Space Weather Service Network Portal has been updated.

https://swe.ssa.esa.int/release-notes-3.2

The latest data collected from the Gaia spacecraft has been released.

Basically a 3D space catalog with billions of astronomical objects.

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Gaia/Gaia_s_new_data_takes_us_to_the_Milky_Way_s_anticentre_and_beyond