Aide to Russian space chief held on treason charges

Moscow (AFP) July 7, 2020 A former journalist and aide to the head of Russia's space agency Roscosmos was detained on Tuesday on treason charges, the agency said. Roscomos said a probe was under way and that it was "fully cooperating with the investigative authorities". The agency said in a statement that the detention of Ivan Safronov...

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Rocket Lab promises customers to 'Leave No Stone Unturned' launch failure

Moscow (Sputnik) Jul 07, 2020 Founded in 2004, the private US aerospace company has put 53 spacecraft into low-Earth orbit and most of its missions have been successful. Saturday's launch was initially scheduled for 5 July, however, due to a bad weather forecast, the company moved it one day earlier, a rare occurrence in the space industry. ...

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Researchers foresee linguistic issues during space travel

Lawrence KS (SPX) Jul 07, 2020 It lacks the drama of a shape-shifting alien creature, but another threat looms over the prospect of generations-long, interstellar space travel: Explorers arriving on Xanadu could face problems communicating with previous and subsequent arrivals, their spoken language having changed in isolation along the way. ...

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NASA awards Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor-2 Spacecraft contract

San Diego CA (SPX) Jul 03, 2020 NASA has awarded the Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor-2 (TSIS-2) Spacecraft contract to General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems Group of San Diego, California. This is a hybrid firm-fixed price, time and materials contract in the amount of approximately $32.9 million. The base contract is for spacecraft...

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Student space simulation is seeking astronauts

Lausanne, Switzerland (SPX) Jul 07, 2020 Seven astronaut positions are available for an analogue space mission. The EPFL Space@yourService student association launched the recruitment of analogue astronauts on the 15th of June 2020. It will end the on 7th of July at midnight (swiss time). They will participate in its second mission, ASCLEPIOS...

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Scientific 'red flag' reveals new clues about our galaxy

Daytona Beach FL (SPX) Jul 07, 2020 Figuring out how much energy permeates the center of the Milky Way - a discovery reported in the July 3 edition of the journal Science Advances - could yield new clues to the fundamental source of our galaxy's power, said L. Matthew Haffner of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. The Milky Way's nucleus...

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Summer road trip for Curiosity rover has begun

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 07, 2020 NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has started a road trip that will continue through the summer across roughly a mile (1.6 kilometers) of terrain. By trip's end, the rover will be able to ascend to the next section of the 3-mile-tall Martian (5-kilometer-tall) mountain it's been exploring since 2014, searching for conditions...

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Launch campaign for 2nd Mission Extension Vehicle begins at Kourou

Kourou, French Guiana (SPX) Jul 02, 2020 Northrop Grumman has reported the arrival of the company-built Galaxy 30 (G-30) spacecraft for Intelsat and the Mission Extension Vehicle 2 (MEV-2) at the launch site in Kourou, French Guiana. The vehicles are scheduled to launch late July 2020, in a stacked configuration onboard an Ariane 5 rocket. ...

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NASA's Venus Rover Challenge winners announced

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 07, 2020 How do you design a vehicle that can withstand the furnace-like heat and crushing pressures of Venus? One idea being explored by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California is a wind-powered clockwork rover, and it's just been given a boost by designers, the maker community, and citizen scientists from...

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Exotic never before seen particle discovered at CERN

Manchester UK (SPX) Jul 03, 2020 The Large Hadron Collider Beauty (LHCb) project has observed an exotic particle made up of four charm quarks for the first time. The LHCb collaboration has observed a type of four-quark particle never seen before. The discovery, presented at a recent seminar at CERN and described in a paper published this...

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