Space News & Blog Articles

Video: 00:23:29

ESA’s first Earth observation mission dedicated to understanding our planet, the European Remote Sensing satellite (ERS-1), was launched into orbit on 17 July 1991. At the time, it was the most sophisticated Earth observation spacecraft developed and launched by Europe.

Thirty years ago, as the team went through the launch and early-orbit phase, the first synthetic aperture radar images were awaited in Kiruna and Fucino. Featuring video footage taken in 1991, the team involved tells the story of the anxious moments and important breakthroughs they made as the first images arrived.

Features interviews with:

Stephen Coulson, Former Earth Observation Applications Engineer

Mark Doherty, Former Head of ERS Product Control Service

Blue Origin's nonprofit Club for the Future is donating $1 million apiece to 19 space organizations. The money was raised by selling a seat on Blue Origin's upcoming first crewed spaceflight.

The Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage for NASA’s first Space Launch System test flight was stacked on top of the rocket July 5. Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

The upper stage for the first flight of NASA’s Space Launch System was installed on top of the heavy-lift rocket earlier this month, moving the agency one step closer to liftoff of the Artemis 1 test mission to the moon.

Teams inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center lifted the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage on top of the SLS rocket stack July 5. The addition of the upper stage completed stacking of the propulsive elements for the first SLS mission, known as Artemis 1.

Last month, ground crews mounted the SLS core stage between the rocket’s two side-mounted solid-fueled boosters, which were stacked on a mobile launch platform inside the VAB earlier this year. Then teams added the Launch Vehicle Stage Adapter, a conical structure that tapes from the larger diameter of the core stage to the smaller upper stage.

The Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage, or ICPS, was built by United Launch Alliance and is based on the upper stage used on the company’s Delta 4-Heavy rocket. The ICPS will provide the boost to send NASA’s Orion crew capsule out of Earth orbit toward the moon on the Artemis 1 test flight.

No astronauts will fly on the Artemis 1 mission, but the test flight will pave the way for future piloted Artemis lunar missions, beginning with Artemis 2 scheduled for launch in 2023.

Engineers have identified the possible cause of the Hubble Space Telescope's computer problems, and they plan to start implementing a fix on Thursday (July 15).

7-Eleven is sending its Slurpee drink "on a private spaceflight" in celebration of its 94th year in business, and you can help decide one of the key factors — or rather, flavors — of the launch.

Star Trek: Discovery: Season Three"is arriving on Blu-ray, DVD, and Limited Edition Steelbook on July 20 and here's a closer peek into its adventurous story arc.

Astronomers detected a rare teardrop-shaped star that is being ripped apart by an invisible white dwarf, pushing the pair toward an inevitable supernova explosion.

M7 in Scorpius is one of the brightest, most beautiful open clusters in the sky. It's also "home" to a half-dozen other delectable deep-sky sights.

The post In Heaven with M7, a Portal Into the Deep appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The Ingenuity Mars helicopter has proven itself a valuable asset to Perseverance, scouting out terrain that the rover can't cross.

The post Mars Helicopter Scouts Risky Terrain for Perseverance Rover appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The space tourism company Virgin Galactic successfully launched its founder Richard Branson and five other crewmembers into suborbital space on July 11, 2021 in a milestone mission that marked the first fully crewed flight of its VSS Unity space plane. 

The new European-American ocean monitoring satellite Sentinel 6 Michael Freilich has started delivering precise sea-level rise data after six months of technical calibrations.

NASA's Juno flew by Jupiter's Ganymede, the biggest moon in the solar system, on June 7, 2021.

The post Juno’s Ganymede Flyby: Video Update appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory's mission to study Earth's Van Allen radiation belts ended on May 31, after exceeding its original planned lifetime of one year in orbit.

The planets are a dynamic bunch, and throughout the year as seen from Earth, these celestial bodies appear not only to move across the sky but also to brighten and fade in turn.

NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy have teamed up to fund three design concepts for reactors that could become part of a nuclear thermal propulsion system.

The Orion capsule is one step closer to returning to space, this time for a moon mission.

The optics giants will collaborate to bridge the gap between amateur astronomers and professionals.

A Virgin Galactic video of founder Richard Branson's bike ride ahead of his launch into space on the company's Unity 22 flight in New Mexico this week was actually recorded earlier.