Aircraft tracking via Galileo EU–(ENEWSPF)–12 December 2013. ESA’s Galileo satellites have achieved their very first aerial fix of longitude, latitude and altitude, enabling the inflight tracking of a test aircraft. ESA’s four Galileo satellites in orbit have supported months of positioning tests on the ground across Europe since the very[Read More…]
Space
Hubble Space Telescope Sees Evidence of Water Vapor Venting off Jovian Moon
This is an artist’s concept of a plume of water vapor thought to be ejected off the frigid, icy surface of the Jovian moon Europa, located about 500 million miles (800 million kilometers) from the sun.Image Credit: NASA/ESA/K. Retherford/SWRI Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–December 12, 2013. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has observed water[Read More…]
NASA Rover Results Include First Age Measurement on Mars and Help for Human Exploration
Washington, DC—(ENEWSPF)—December 9, 2013. NASA’s Curiosity rover is providing vital insight about Mars’ past and current environments that will aid plans for future robotic and human missions. In a little more than a year on the Red Planet, the mobile Mars Science Laboratory has determined the age of a Martian[Read More…]
CryoSat Measures European Storm Surge
Measuring the storm surge EU–(ENEWSPF)–9 December 2013. ESA’s CryoSat satellite measured the storm surge from the recent North Sea storms, as high waters passed through the Kattegat sea between Denmark and Sweden. During 5–6 December, a major storm passed through northern Europe causing flooding, blackouts, grounding flights and bringing road,[Read More…]
UA Astronomers Discover Planet That Shouldn’t Be There
This is an artist’s conception of a young planet in a distant orbit around its host star. The star still harbors a debris disk, remnant material from star and planet formation, interior to the planet’s orbit (similar to the HD106906 system). (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech) The discovery of a giant planet[Read More…]
New Solar Instrument Reaches Orbit
Low-cost mission will ensure uninterrupted solar energy data used in climate research Minotaur I, Nov. 19. Download here. (Credit: NASA) Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–November 20, 2013. An instrument that measures the sun’s energy output is in orbit after it was launched last night on the U.S. Air Force’s Space Test Program Satellite-3.[Read More…]
Swarm Mission Control Ready for Triple Launch
Swarm mission team in training EU–(ENEWSPF)–19 November 2013. After months of intensive training, the Swarm mission control team are ready for liftoff on Friday. The team will carefully shepherd the trio of magnetic explorers through their critical launch and early orbit phase, ready to react to any problem. The data[Read More…]
Astronomers Answer Key Question: How Common are Habitable Planets?
BERKELEY–(ENEWSPF)–November 5, 2013. NASA’s Kepler space telescope, now crippled and its four-year mission at an end, nevertheless provided enough data to answer its main research question: How many of the 200 billion stars in our galaxy have potentially habitable planets? Based on a statistical analysis of all the Kepler observations,[Read More…]
Moon Mission Beams Laser Data to ESA Station
Focal spot: laser light seen by infrared camera EU–(ENEWSPF)–1 November 2013. ESA’s ground station on the island of Tenerife has received laser signals over a distance of 400 000 km from NASA’s latest Moon orbiter. The data were delivered many times faster than possible with traditional radio waves, marking a[Read More…]
NOAA: Primary GOES-R Instrument Cleared for Installation Onto Spacecraft
Imager will provide greater detail to forecasters Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–October 31, 2013 Rendering of GOES-R spacecraft. Download here. (Credit: Lockheed Martin) A key instrument that will fly on the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite – R (GOES-R) spacecraft, NOAA’s next-generation of geostationary satellites, is cleared for installation on the spacecraft.[Read More…]
