Europe develops self-removal technology for spacecraft

A new European project has an ambitious goal of cleaning up space for future generations. The Technology for Self-Removal of Spacecraft (TeSeR) program, introduced in May 2016, will develop a prototype for a module that will ...

Invisible NASA network transports satellite secrets to earth

Around the world in 80 days? When Jules Verne wrote the novel, that seemed an impossible speed, but almost 150 years later, a NASA team has reduced the trip to minutes for data coming from some of today's spacecraft.

Successful test flights for Mars landing technology

It's tricky to get a spacecraft to land exactly where you want. That's why the area where the Mars rover Curiosity team had targeted to land was an ellipse that may seem large, measuring 12 miles by 4 miles (20 by 7 kilometers).

Twenty-two thousand trips around the planet

Four years after its launch, Swisscube, the small satellite developed by EPFL's Space Center, is still in operation. Some of the technological choices made and considered audacious at the time have yielded valuable lessons ...

After 10 years of service, NOAA retires GOES-12 satellite

GOES-12 has seen it all, from Hurricane Katrina that hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, to the Christmas blizzard that crippled the Central United States in 2009. It even traveled south of the equator to provide coverage for South ...

New technology could revolutionize satellite use

(Phys.org) —New technology being tested by the University of Maryland's Space Power and Propulsion Laboratory (SPPL) on the International Space Station could revolutionize the capabilities of satellites and future spacecraft ...

NASA's OPALS to beam data from space via laser

(Phys.org) —NASA will use the International Space Station to test a new communications technology that could dramatically improve spacecraft communications, enhance commercial missions and strengthen transmission of scientific ...

Final curtain for Europe's deep-space telescope

The deep-space telescope Herschel took its final bow on Monday, climaxing a successful four-year mission to observe the birth of stars and galaxies, the European Space Agency (ESA) said.

New research key to revolutionary 'green' spacecraft propellant

In 2015, NASA, for the first time, will fly a space mission utilizing a radically different propellant—one which has reduced toxicity and is environmentally benign. This energetic ionic liquid, or EIL, is quite different ...

PhoneSat: Smart, small and sassy

(Phys.org)—The fast-paced proliferation and popularity of mobile devices here on Earth, like smartphones loaded with powerful operating systems, will find a new niche market– this time in space, thanks to NASA's trailblazing ...

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