NASA updating policy for rideshare missions
Original Publication Date: 2023-12-04 01:28
NASA is developing an updated rideshare policy for science missions. It reflects both new launch opportunities as well as challenges faced in accommodating secondary payloads. The current policy has been used to enable launches of several science and technology demonstration missions. NASA established a rideshare office to coordinate those opportunities in 2020.
UPDATE: Lift-off for EIRSAT-1, Ireland’s first ever satellite – SatNews
Original Publication Date: 2023-12-03 00:00
EIRSAT-1 was designed, built, and tested by students from University College Dublin (UCD) participating in ESA Academy’s Fly Your Satellite! Program. Six years of hard work and dedication paid off in spectacular fashion today, as the Educational Irish Research Satellite successfully blasted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.
Vector Space Biosciences reveals smallsat drug repurposing platform using data from space – SatNews
Original Publication Date: 2023-12-04 00:00
Vector Space Biosciences, Inc. In collaboration with Oracle and NVIDIA, has a new smallsat launch platform designed for biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. The platform is powered by… 1) A biosciences lab 2) A CubeSat lab 3) A language modeling/AI lab that includes an ensemble of small, highly targeted, biological language modeling and large biological language modeling. This pipeline enables the development of countermeasures against diseases associated with stressors resulting from human spaceflight.
Marlink adds Starlink + Eutelsat OneWeb to PONANT hybrid network for 1st triple LEO North Pole service – SatNews
Original Publication Date: 2023-12-03 00:00
Marlink has completed the integration of Starlink and Eutelsat OneWeb LEO internet services on PONANT’s Le Commandant Charcot, the world’s only luxury icebreaker. The installation is the first in the maritime sector to combine Marlink’s Sealink GEO VSAT, with Starlink, Eutelson OneWeb and Iridium LEO services.
Smiths Interconnect awarded million£ in funding from the UK Space Agency – SatNews
Original Publication Date: 2023-12-03 00:00
Smiths Interconnect has received £1,907,065 in funding from the UK Space Agency through its Space Clusters Infrastructure Fund. The funding will be used by Smiths Interconnect to enhance the company’s Space Qualification Laboratory in Dundee, Scotland. The lab simulates the extreme conditions of space to assure the quality and durability of space components.
Lockheed Martin selected for USSF OPIR ODETT prototype development – SatNews
Original Publication Date: 2023-12-03 00:00
Lockheed Martin will receive $5.2 million to create prototypes that will exploit data and optimize value from current space sensing investments. The project’s expected period of performance is four years. Lockheed Martin is expected to deliver and perform a series of prototype demonstrations which will show an increasing level of maturity in the prototype.
Webb discovers that rocky planets can form in more extreme environments
Original Publication Date: 2023-12-02 21:26
James Webb Space Telescope has detected water and other molecules in the inner, rocky-planet-forming regions of a protoplanetary disk located around a star. The star itself is located in one of the most extreme environments in our galaxy — a region wherein massive stars are formed. Typically, rocky planet formation is found in the protoplanetary disks of stars located in regions where low-mass stars are formed.