Expedition Space: Space Launch, Events, News

Sharp telescopic views of NGC 3628 show a puffy galactic disk divided by dark dust lanes. Of course, this portrait of the magnificent, edge-on spiral galaxy puts some astronomers in mind of its popular moniker, the Hamburger Galaxy. It also reveals a small galaxy nearby (below), likely a satellite of NGC 3628, and a very faint but extensive tidal tail. The drawn out tail stretches for about 300,000 light-years, even beyond the left edge of the frame. NGC 3628 shares its neighborhood in the local universe with two other large spirals M65 and M66 in a grouping otherwise known as the Leo Triplet. Gravitational interactions with its cosmic neighbors are likely responsible for creating the tidal tail, as well as the extended flare and warp of this spiral's disk. The tantalizing island universe itself is about 100,000 light-years across and 35 million light-years away in the northern springtime constellation Leo. via NASA https://ift.tt/zGbBQpM

Spiral arms seem to swirl around the core of Messier 96 in this colorful, detailed portrait of a beautiful island universe. Of course M96 is a spiral galaxy, and counting the faint arms extending beyond the brighter central region it spans 100 thousand light-years or so. That's about the size of our own Milky Way. M96 is known to be 38 million light-years distant, a dominant member of the Leo I galaxy group. Background galaxies and smaller Leo I group members can be found by examining the picture. The most intriguing one is itself a spiral galaxy seen nearly edge on behind the outer spiral arm near the 1 o'clock position from center. Its bright central bulge cut by its own dark dust clouds, the edge-on background spiral appears to be about 1/5 the size of M96. If that background galaxy is similar in actual size to M96, then it would be about 5 times farther away. via NASA https://ift.tt/oTOeI2H

by Jeff Foust WASHINGTON — Blue Origin completed another test flight of its New Shepard vehicle April 14, putting the company on the verge of finally flying people. Blue Origin’s New Shepard vehicle lifted off from the company’s West Texas test site, known as Launch Site One by the company, at 12:51 p.m. Eastern. The capsule, separating from its booster after the powered phase of flight, reached a peak altitude of about 106 kilometers before parachuting to a soft landing 10 and a half minutes after liftoff, three minutes after the booster made a powered landing. The flight profile for the mission, designated NS-15 by the company, closely followed previous test flights. They key differences for this flight were the activities before and after the flight, as the company tested procedures it will use for later crewed flights . About 45 minutes before liftoff, four Blue Origin employees playing the role of customers drove to the pad with other personnel, simulating the activities bef...

by Jason Rainbow TAMPA, Fla. — Astranis, a startup developing small geostationary satellites, has raised $250 million in a funding round that values the company at $1.4 billion. Funds managed by BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, led the Series C financing round.  It means San Francisco-based Astranis has raised more than $350 million to expand its microsatellite platform, following a $90 million debt and equity round in February 2020. At around 350 kilograms, the venture is developing one of the smallest geostationary spacecraft in the commercial industry.  Astranis is focusing on the affordable broadband market. One of its first customers is U.S.-based Pacific Dataport, which will lease the 7.5 gigabits per second capacity on its first commercial satellite for internet services across Alaska. “We already had the funding in hand to start service with our first commercial satellite, the satellite we’re launching later this year for Alaska,” Astranis co-f...

by Andrew Parsonson VALLETTA, Malta — European launch provider Arianespace announced April 13 that it would provide a free cubesat launch  to one deserving space technology startup, lab or university. The “Destination: A Better Life on Earth” competition is part of Airanespace’s plan to unveil a range of smallsat rideshare offerings in June at VivaTech 2021, the fifth edition of an annual technology conference held in Paris.  In addition to the launch provider’s Small Spacecraft Mission Service that debuted aboard a Vega launch vehicle in September , Arianespace will introduce its Multi-Launch Service, a rideshare offering that will be carried aboard its next-generation Ariane 6 launch vehicle. The winner of the Destination: A Better Life on Earth competition will win integration and launch services aboard a future Arianespace rideshare mission offering one of the two new services. In order to be eligible for the free ride to space, participating teams are required to ...

by Jason Rainbow TAMPA, Fla. — Canadian satellite operator Telesat plans to raise $500 million with a bond to help fund its $5 billion Lightspeed broadband constellation. The senior secured notes due 2026 will be issued around April 27 as part of a debt package that will fund 60% of the project’s cost, with the remaining 40% financed through equity.  Dan Goldberg, Telesat’s CEO, told a session of the Satellite 2021 LEO Digital Forum April 6 that he expects to complete Lightspeed’s financing “ in the next couple of months .” The company is also close to finalizing plans to start launching the constellation of nearly 300 satellites from next year. It has early launch arrangements with Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and 3D printing specialist Relativity Space . Neither company has conducted an orbital launch. Europe’s Thales Alenia Space is building the low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites in a $3 billion contract, including network management software and gateway integration. As part...

by Jeff Foust WASHINGTON — Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) will spin off its space division into a separate company, a move reflecting the “historic growth” it foresees for that business in the next several years. In a message to employees April 14, SNC Chairwoman and President Eren Ozmen said the company’s Space Systems division will become a standalone company, called Sierra Space, although remain a subsidiary of SNC. Creating Sierra Space, she said, will enable the company to better capture expected growth in the space industry. SNC’s space business currently generates $400 million in annual revenue, and she projected that increasing to $4 billion in 5 to 10 years. Privately-held SNC has traditionally disclosed few details about its revenue. “To achieve this growth and even greater impact more quickly, today we are announcing our space business area will transition to become an independent, commercial space company – Sierra Space,” she wrote. “Our teams and technologies are un...

by Jeff Foust WASHINGTON — HawkEye 360 has raised $55 million in additional funding that the company says will allow it to complete its constellation of satellites that track ships and vehicles by their radio-frequency emissions. HawkEye 360 said that NightDragon, a venture capital firm that specializes in security and related industries, led its Series C round, announced April 12. Several existing investors also participated, including Advance, Razor’s Edge Ventures, Shield Capital, Dorilton Ventures, Adage Capital and Esri International. The company will use the funding for three additional clusters of three satellites each. The company, which has launched two such clusters to date, expects to have nine in orbit by the end of 2022. In addition, the funding will support work on ground infrastructure and data processing capabilities. NightDragon, which has previously invested in several cybersecurity companies, sees HawkEye 360 as providing a complementary service. “Satellite tec...

This supernova shock wave plows through interstellar space at over 500,000 kilometers per hour. Near the middle and moving up in this sharply detailed color composite, thin, bright, braided filaments are actually long ripples in a cosmic sheet of glowing gas seen almost edge-on. Cataloged as NGC 2736, its elongated appearance suggests its popular name, the Pencil Nebula. The Pencil Nebula is about 5 light-years long and 800 light-years away, but represents only a small part of the Vela supernova remnant. The Vela remnant itself is around 100 light-years in diameter, the expanding debris cloud of a star that was seen to explode about 11,000 years ago. Initially, the shock wave was moving at millions of kilometers per hour but has slowed considerably, sweeping up surrounding interstellar material. In the featured narrow-band, wide field image, red and blue colors track, primarily, the characteristic glows of ionized hydrogen and oxygen atoms, respectively. via NASA https://ift.tt/3mOIgr...

by Sandra Erwin WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin announced a new line of satellites designed for space-based surveillance. The mid-size satellite bus is aimed at the military market and would be interoperable with military weapons systems such as fighter jets and air defense systems. The company is pitching the new mid-size satellite as an alternative to tactical surveillance platforms like airplanes and drones. Lockheed Martin’s “tactical intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance” satellites would give the military a capability to track moving targets from space without having to put people at risk, the company said April 13 in a news release.   A spokesman said Lockheed Martin believes the military can benefit from the lower cost of building and launching satellites, which makes space-based surveillance more affordable. For example, the Army could use satellites to locate targets and images of those targets could be downlinked to commanders on the ground. The Air Force could...