NewsSpace

NASA Awards Launch Services Contract for Sentinel-6B Mission

December 21, 2022
NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for the Sentinel-6B mission. Sentinel-6B will continue the long-term global sea level data record begun in 1992 by Topex/Poseidon followed by Jason 1, 2, 3, and Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich. The mission is a partnership between NASA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, ESA…
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NASA Gets Unusually Close Glimpse of Black Hole Snacking on Star

December 21, 2022
Multiple NASA telescopes recently observed a massive black hole tearing apart an unlucky star that wandered too close. Located about 250 million light-years from Earth in the center of another galaxy, it was the fifth-closest example of a black hole destroying a star ever…
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NASA’s Perseverance Rover to Begin Building Martian Sample Depot

December 16, 2022
In the coming days, NASA’s Perseverance rover is expected to begin building the first sample depot on another world. This will mark a crucial milestone in the NASA-ESA (European Space Agency) Mars Sample Return campaign, which aims to bring Mars samples to Earth for closer study. The depot-building process starts when the rover drops one of its titanium sample tubes carrying a chalk-size core of…
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NASA Launches International Mission to Survey Earth’s Water

December 16, 2022
A satellite built for NASA and the French space agency Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES) to observe nearly all the water on our planet’s surface lifted off on its way to low-Earth orbit at 3:46 a.m. PST on Friday. The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT)…
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NASA Sensors to Help Detect Methane Emitted by Landfills

December 15, 2022
Observations from the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) and other NASA science instruments will be part of a global survey of point-source emissions of methane from solid waste sites such as landfills. The multiyear effort is being developed and conducted by the nonprofit Carbon Mapper organization. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, the source of roughly a quarter to a third…
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NASA’s Juno Exploring Jovian Moons During Extended Mission

December 15, 2022
NASA’s Juno mission is scheduled to obtain images of the Jovian moon Io on Dec. 15 as part of its continuing exploration of Jupiter’s inner moons. Now in the second year of its extended mission to investigate the interior of Jupiter, the solar-powered spacecraft…
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Latest International Water Satellite Packs an Engineering Punch

December 13, 2022
Set for a Thursday, Dec. 15 launch, the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite promises to provide an extraordinary accounting of water over much of Earth’s surface. Its measurements of fresh water and the ocean will help researchers address some of the most…
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NASA’s Lunar Flashlight Has Launched – Follow the Mission in Real Time

December 11, 2022
NASA’s Lunar Flashlight has communicated with mission controllers and confirmed it is healthy after launching Sunday, Dec. 11, at 2:38 a.m. EST (Saturday, Dec. 10, at 11:38 p.m. PST) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. About 53 minutes after launch, the small satellite, or SmallSat, was released from its dispenser to begin a four-month journey to the Moon to seek out surface…
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