Rendering of IKAROS with sail extended. Credit: JAXA It’s the season of star sailing! Amongst
Solar Sail Symposium in July
The 2nd International Symposium on Solar Sailing (ISSS 2010) draws closer, the event occurring July 20-22 at New York City College of Technology of the City University of New York. The focus will be on recent advances in solar sailing technologies and near-term solar sailing missions, with coverage of hardware, enabling [...]
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/US-Air-Force-Launches-New-Spacecraft-Amid-Rumours-It-Has
X-37B in the Atlas V payload fairing prior to liftoff. Credit: USAF The U.S. Air Force’s eveni
Are there better ways of studying the raw data from SETI? We may know soon, because Jill Tarter has announced that in a few months, the SETI Institute will begin to make this material available via the SETIQuest site. Those conversant with digital signal processing are highly welcome, but so are participants from the general [...]
Sometimes, words are not enough to describe views of the universe when captured through the lens of the Hubble Space Telescope. This is one of those moments.
Kicking off its 20th anniversary (yes, that super-sized telescope has been in space that long — I would say that I remember it being launched, but I don’t, because [...]Post from: Astroengine.comHubble Conquers Mystic Mountain
Simulators prepare star trackers for spaceflight Space blog Simulators prepare star trackers for spaceflight SSTL’s Optical Payload Group is currently building two Dynamic Multi Star-field Simulators DMSS at its Sevenoaks facility that will be used to test star trackers that will be flown in space under simulated operating conditions here on Earth . Star trackers are an essential subsystem in any satellite , providing information that allows the spacecraft's on board computer to determine its orientation or pointing” at any point in . time DMSS assembly They work by taking an image of a region of the sky using a specially designed optical camera , and comparing successive images to determine how much the orientation of the satellite has . drifted This information is then sent to an
Just as SETI is redefining its parameters, astrobiology has been going through a shift that widens our notion of habitable zones. Not so long ago, the concept seemed simple. Take a Sun-like star and figure out at what distance a planet could maintain liquid water on its surface. Assume, in other words, that the life [...]
In light of all of our (the U.S.’s) budget woes, the looming retirement of the Space Shuttle, 
The discovery that the universe’s expansion is accelerating has led some to wonder whether General Relativity breaks down at large scales. But new work by Fabian Schmidt and colleagues at Caltech seems to play down a rival theory known, economically enough, as f(R). If, under General Relativity, we see dark energy in terms of a [...]
Things have been moving fast for NASA in recent weeks, culminating in President Obama’s inspiring speech at Kennedy Space Center on Thursday. I haven’t commented on the new direction for the US space agency’s direction thus far as I’ve needed some time to digest the ramifications of these plans. But generally, I’m positive about the [...]Post from: Astroengine.comNASA’s Asteroid Mission: Scary but Useful
Hubble 3D IMAX movie
What a great IMAX movie. Thursday I visited Chicago’s Navy Pier to take some photographs and attend a screening of the latest IMAX movie - Hubble 3D. I had a number of free passes so I and several friends from the National Space Society met up to see the movie.
According to [...]
Will volcanic ash affect satellite communications Space blog Will volcanic ash affect satellite communications This week , an enormous cloud of volcanic ash is sweeping over Northern Europe , grounding aeroplanes and bringing the jet-setters to a standstill One could be forgiven for taking it all for a hoax there’s nothing for the common Earth dweller to see but it’s bringing some businesses to a standstill as they struggle to make their meeting’s . commitments The reason this ash cloud cannot be seen is that the ash cloud is moving relatively high in the atmosphere , although meteorologists say there are signs some dust is settling at lower levels which could begin affecting the health of those with respiratory conditions such as asthma . However the risk to aircrafts is very real as
What happens when you put a snowball in front of an open fireplace? It melts. What happens when you throw a comet at the Sun? Erm… it doesn’t end well. In fact, as this daredevil comet proves, comets get vapourized very quickly. And the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) captured the whole event, here’s a [...]Post from: Astroengine.comComet Fights with the Sun. Loses.
The UK has started its own space agency (at long last) and the agency has a logo. The latter is the big news here.
At a time when motivation for manned spaceflight by NASA is dwindling and yet private industry is forcing its foot in the door of getting stuff into space, it’s nice to hear [...]Post from: Astroengine.comI, For One, Welcome Our New BritSpace Overlords
Firstly, apologies that it’s been over a month since last posting to Astroengine.com. Call it slacking off, call it a sabbatical, either way, it’s not good. I’ve actually prepared several half-finished articles, but I just never got around to completing them. However, I have been on writing overdrive over at Discovery News, so if I [...]Post from: Astroengine.comThen Spitzer Imaged Baby Stars in the Orion Nebula…
Student space project gathers speed Space blog Student space project gathers speed It’s been a few months since our blog about the Engineering Education Scheme EES The aim of the scheme is to provide students aged 16 and 17 with experience in engineering , science and technology in order to make informed decisions about their future education and . career The students from Farnborough 6th Form College are investigating ways to detect signals in space that offer a precursor to earthquakes . In this respect , it also has something in common with the POISE space experiment that SSTL helped students to develop on behalf of the British National Space Centre BNSC Rhys Llewellyn and Calum Jones working on the satellite . model In January , despite the unusually heavy snow the students managed toStudent space project gathers speed Space blog Student space project gathers speed It’s been a few months since our blog about the Engineering Education Scheme EES The aim of the scheme is to provide students aged 16 and 17 with experience in engineering , science and technology in order to make informed decisions about their future education and . career The students from Farnborough 6th Form College are investigating ways to detect signals in space that offer a precursor to earthquakes . In this respect , it also has something in common with the POISE space experiment that SSTL helped students to develop on behalf of the British National Space Centre BNSC Rhys Llewellyn and Calum Jones working on the satellite . model In January , despite the unusually heavy snow the students managed to
Meet Surrey at Satellite 2010 Space blog Meet Surrey at Satellite 2010 SSTL and its US operation SST US are attending the Satellite 2010 exhibition at National Harbor , Maryland , USA from 16-18 March 2010. Visit Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd on stand 1925. SST US CEO John Paffett will be joined by Kathryn O'Donnell , Yasrine Ibnyahya and Simon Crouch from SSTL and Brent Abbott , Becky Yoder and Katherine Defoe from SST US . Come and find out about how we deliver low risk high performance satellites at a fraction of the price usually associated with such levels of capability . This entry was posted by Robin Wolstenholme on Wednesday , March 3. 2010 at 13:58. and is filed under In the news You can leave a response or trackback from your own blog . All new comments are subject toChandrayaan-1 finds water on the Moon Space blog Chandrayaan-1 finds water on the Moon Using data from a NASA radar that flew aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft , scientists have detected ice deposits on the Moon near its north pole . This is exciting news the World over because water is a key factor in the ability of an extra terrestrial environment to support life . The SSTL team is also watching with great interest because the payload is controlled by a specially built on-board computer OBC built by its team in Guildford its first to be flown onboard a lunar mission . The OBC is programmed to control the instrument and to store the payload data which is then beamed back to the astounded NASA scientists on . Earth NASA's Mini-SAR instrument found more than 40 small craters with