OrbitalHub

ESA dixit:

“ESA and European industry are currently developing a new-generation launcher: Ariane 6. This follows the decision taken at the ESA Council meeting at Ministerial level in December 2014, to maintain Europe’s leadership in the fast-changing commercial launch service market while responding to the needs of European institutional missions. This move is associated with a change in the governance of the European launcher sector, based on a sharing of responsibility, cost and risk by ESA and industry.

The participating states are: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

The overarching aim of Ariane 6 is to provide guaranteed access to space for Europe at a competitive price without requiring public sector support for exploitation. Different concepts have been examined for Ariane 6 such as single- and dual-payloads, solid or cryogenic propulsion for the main stage, and the number of stages (three or more), all to cover a wide range of missions: GEO, either directly or through intermediate orbits, in particular GTO and LEO; Polar/SSO; MEO or MTO.

The targeted payload performance of Ariane 6 is over 4.5 t for polar/Sun-synchronous orbit missions at 800 km altitude and the injection of two first-generation Galileo satellites. Ariane 6 can loft a payload mass of 4.5–10.5 tonnes in equivalent geostationary transfer orbit.

The exploitation cost of the Ariane 6 launch system is its key driver. Launch service costs will be halved, while maintaining reliability by reusing the trusted engines of Ariane 5. The first flight is scheduled for 2020.”

Video credit: ESA

On November 28, 2017, 08:41 Moscow time, a space vehicle Soyuz-2.1b lifted off from Vostochny Cosmodrome. The upper stage Fregat successfully placed into orbit a Meteor-M spacecraft.

~ dj.

Video credit: Roscosmos

NASA dixit:

“NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik captured this footage with a GoPro camera on October 20, 2017 during a spacewalk outside the International Space Station. Bresnik reflected on this quiet moment, ‘Sometimes on a #spacewalk, you just have to take a moment to enjoy the beauty of our planet Earth. This Go-Pro footage is from our spacewalk where Joe Acaba and I refurbished the Canadarm2 robotic arm and the Dextre robotic arm extension.'”

Video credit: NASA

Planetary Resources dixit:

“Asteroid mining is the key to our future expansion into space.

Planetary Resources is conducting the first commercial exploration of resources on near Earth asteroids.

The first resource that we’re interested in is water. Water, when you break it down into the elements Hydrogen and Oxygen, is rocket fuel – currently the best way to get around the Solar System.

In much the same way that the economic activity on Earth is enabled by fossil fuels, in space, we will have a water-based economy. The Earth’s gravity well is so deep that the cost of bringing propellant from Earth to fuel that economy in space will be prohibitive.”

Read more about how asteroid mining is the key to our future expansion into space.

Video credit: Planetary Resources

ESA dixit:

“It’s the perfect meeting of old and new. Astronomers have combined recent data from ESA’s Gaia mission with a simple analysis technique from the 18th century to discover a massive star cluster that had previously escaped detection. Subsequent investigations are helping to reveal the star-forming history of our Galaxy, the Milky Way. “

Video credit: ESA

NASA dixit:

“The first flight of an advanced supersonic parachute system for Mars 2020—NASA’s next Mars rover. This video is narrated by Ian Clark, the test’s technical lead from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The test took place on October 4, 2017, at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia. At the moment of full inflation, the parachute is going 1.8 times the speed of sound or nearly 1,300 miles an hour, and generating nearly 35,000 pounds of drag force—drag that would be necessary to help slow a payload down as it was entering the Martian atmosphere. This is the first of several tests in support of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission.”

Video credit: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory