Satellite Industry Intelligence Since 1983
Reports from NASA indicate that the fractures, or "tiger stripes," where icy jets erupt on Saturn's moon Enceladus will be the target of a close flyby by the Cassini spacecraft on Monday, August 11. And they're talking close when it's only 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the surface!
Read MoreSeanodes, the creator and leading developer of Shared Internal Storage solutions will assist NASA's Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) in performing nightly scans of the skies to capture any new, undiscovered objects.
Read MoreHeading toward its first target-asteroid, (2867) Steins, ESA's Rosetta spacecraft is using its cameras to visually track the asteroid, and eventually determine its orbit with more accuracy. Rosetta started the optical navigation campaign this week on August 4, at a distance of about 24 million km from Steins; the campaign will continue until September 4, when the spacecraft will be approximately 950,000 km (570,000 miles) from the asteroid.
Read MorePhoenix Mars mission scientists addressed their research in progress concerning an ongoing investigation of perchlorate salts detected in soil analyzed by the wet chemistry laboratory aboard NASA's Phoenix Lander. "Finding perchlorates is neither good nor bad for life, but it does make us reassess how we think about life on Mars," said Michael Hecht of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, lead scientist for the Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer (MECA), the instrument that includes the wet chemistry laboratory.
Read MoreIn the midst of your "regular" daily satellite news, here's an update pertaining to the Phoenix, which is now planted steadfastly on Mars. What interestingly enough appears, at first glance, to be just one photo that the Phoenix spacecraft took of the arctic plane of Mars is not as it appears.
Read MoreNASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, also known as LRO, has completed the first round of environmental testing at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. These tests ensure the spacecraft is prepared for its mission to collect the highest resolution images and most comprehensive geological data set ever returned from the moon.
Read MoreExciting news comes from the result of lab tests aboard NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander with the identification of water found in a soil sample. The lander's robotic arm delivered the sample Wednesday to an instrument that identifies vapors produced by the heating of samples.
Read MoreMars Express closed in on the intriguing martian moon Phobos at 6:49 CEST on July 23rd, flying past at 3 km/s, a mere 93 km from the moon. The European Space Agency's (ESA) spacecraft's fly-bys of the moon have returned its most detailed full-disc images ever, also in 3-D, using the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board.
Read MoreNASA's Constellation Program has now selected 11 companies and one university to independently develop concepts that contribute to how astronauts will live and work on the moon. Each organization will conduct a 180-day study focused on a topic relevant to lunar surface systems.
Read MoreA team of European scientists working with COROT have discovered an exoplanet orbiting a star that's slightly more massive than the Sun.
Read More
Satnews is a leading provider of satellite news, events, publications, research and other satellite industry information in both commercial and military enterprises worldwide.