Space institutions

European space agency (27)
Japan aerospace exploration agency (29)
National aeronautics and space administration (486)
Russian federal space agency (7)
Space agency (46)

Synopsis: Space: Space generale: Space institutions:

Nasa is flying Kicksat for free as part of its Educational Launch of Nanosatellites programme. Once in orbit, the Falcon 9 will release the Dragon towards the ISS and,

Manchester confesses. learned the saying from Nasa that you have to have at least as much weight in paperwork as your satellite weighs,

#Earlier this year, for example, China's space agency said it launched three satellites to clean up space debris orbiting the Earth:

#Not that China is the only nation working on space weaponry#America is too#though US law prohibits Nasa from collaborating

but is reluctant to increase Nasa's funds. Nasa's budget for 2014 is more than a billion less than 2012,

at its lowest levels since 2007.""When the Chinese are standing on the Moon, there will be many members of the US Congress that will proclaim their"shock#at that happening,

An ambitious plan is now underway to build an African Space agency called"Afrispace#.#And while Clooney's contribution to all this may only be a cameo role,

In the 1960s, Nasa built one of their Deep space Network stations in Hartebeesthoek, South africa, which supported several early robotic missions to the moon during the Apollo programme.

In 1970, on behalf of Nasa and with the help of Italian engineers, Kenya launched Uhuru#Swahili for"freedom##the world's first satellite dedicated to celestial X-ray astronomy, from a converted oil platform off its coast.

#as a precursor to a full-blown space agency by 2016, intended to lead the nation's civilian space exploration efforts.

In light of this, calls are growing from many on the continent#and even the African Union#for the formation of Afrispace, a pan-African space agency.

#and establish the Afrispace space agency. As it happens, several other African Union ministers already supported the idea of an African space agency,

says Abdul Hakim Elwaer, director of Human resources, Science and Technology for the African Union. An AU working group on space

Is an African space agency really achievable though? The African Union has struggled historically to achieve unity and consensus on the continent on a host of issues.

if one of the primary drivers of developing national space agencies in Africa is about sovereignty,

The expertise required to rival other large space agencies may also be a long way off#at least judging by the way some existing African space organizations present themselves to the world.

I found that nearly every national space agency or society website was loaded with incomplete or broken content#some were not even functioning.

and many remain positive that the dream of a pan-African space agency can be achieved.""We know building independent African facilities will not happen overnight,

Behind them are huge posters of the Curiosity rover on Mars. Nasa's Jet propulsion laboratory used a portfolio of design software made by Siemens to digitally design,

Led by Nasa, the European space agency and Canada, the project was started more than ten years ago. With the final price tag still to be determined,

only last year there was still talk in Congress of withdrawing Nasa's funding for the mission.

and integration process at Nasa centres in Washington and Houston.""We know we have only one chance to get it right,

when the final sections are shipped to Nasa at the end of this year.""We love building it, #she says."

In June 2013, The french Space agency announced it would switch the satellite off and let it burn up as it re-enters the atmosphere#the usual fate of our mechanical helpers in space.

Nasa's $600 million space observatory Kepler, launched in 2009, has also been crippled recently. Kepler has helped spot thousands of potential exoplanets#over 130

but this month Nasa conceded that Kepler will no longer be able to search for exoplanets.

says Matt Mountain, the director of the Space telescope Science Institute at Nasa. Hubble's planned successor, the James webb space telescope (JWST)# set to go into orbit around 2018#is expected to do much more.

In April this year, Nasa gave the go-ahead to another space-based mission that will work similar to Kepler,

#but Nasa is already thinking about a future JWST replacement, called the Advanced Technology Large Aperture Space telescope (ATLAST),

Nasa recently admitted that as part of a programme"to turn science fiction into fact#they are funding work to develop a 3d food printer.

the team installed it on a mobile laboratory used during NASA DISCOVER-AQ campaign, which analyzed pollution on the ground and from the air last September.

View from space DORIS used the new mapping technologies offered by the Copernicus system of Earth observation satellites operated by the European space agency.

The National Science Foundations NASA and the Department of energy funded the work. Source: NYUYOU are free to share this article under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivs 3. 0 Unported license

the team installed it on a mobile laboratory used during NASA DISCOVER-AQ campaign, which analyzed pollution on the ground and from the air last September.

NASA ESA and G. Bacon (STSCL) via U. Chicago) The researchers describe their work as an important milestone on the road to identifying potentially habitable Earthlike planets beyond our Solar system.

The launch of NASA s next major space telescope the 6. 5m James webb space telescope (JWST) later this decade should reveal more about such worlds Kreidberg says. ooking forward JWST will be transformativeshe says. he new capabilities

But more than that it may open the door to studies of Earthlike planets around nearby stars. he NASA the National Science Foundation the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

what happens in these stellar explosions. ast year we used the European space agency s Herschel Space observatory to study the intricate network of gas filaments to show how exploding stars are creating huge amounts of space dust. urther measurements

NASA'#Lunar Advanced Science and Exploration Research (LASER) program and the NASA Lunar Science Institute (NLSI) supported the research.

of the Governor of Chelyabinsk Oblast NASA and the Academy of Finland. Source: University of California Davisyou are free to share this article under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivs 3. 0 Unported license i

MKIDS were developed first a decade ago by Mazin his Ph d. adviser Jonas Zmuidzinas professor of physics at the California Institute of technology and Henry Leduc at NASA s Jet propulsion laboratory.

The galaxy was discovered using NASA's Hubble space telescope. Follow-up observations were done with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory

and ground-based optical telescopes including the Keck 10-meter telescope in Hawaii. wenty years ago we couldn't have done thisstrader says. e didn't have Hubble or Chandra.

This is one of those projects where you bring together the full force of NASA's great observatories plus ground-based resources. ource:

Some of the work was carried out at the Jet propulsion laboratory under a contract with NASA and the Kavli Nanoscience Institute at Caltech provided support and infrastructure.

NASA supported the work. Source: Brown University you are free to share this article under the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivs 3. 0 Unported license c

NASA, and Caltech

#Graphene#s jagged edge can easily slice cells Brown University right Original Study Posted by Kevin Stacey-Brown on July 10 2013brown (US) the jagged edges of tiny graphene sheets

and Exploration Science Directorate NASA/Johnson Space center notes that the spindles appear to be the same as those found in rocks from the Strelly Pool Formation in Western australia

The NASA Astrobiology Institute the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Directorate Johnson Space center and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science supported this research.

#NASA probe will reveal 3d architecture of forests from space NASA is developing a laser-based instrument for deployment on the International space station that will probe the depths of Earth's forests from space in a bid to reveal more about their role in the planet's carbon cycle.

"said Piers Sellers, deputy director of the Sciences and Exploration Directorate at NASA'S GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER.""In particular, the GEDI data will provide us with global-scale insights into how much carbon is being stored in the forest biomass.

The GEDI lidar will be built at NASA'S GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER, with the University of Maryland, College Park leading the project e

#Nissan and NASA team up for autonomous drive vehicle development It may seem akin to an alliance between a railway and a submarine manufacturer,

but Japanese automaker Nissan has signed a pact with US space agency NASA to develop self-driving cars.

Nissan) View All the agreement involves scientists and engineers at Nissan's US Silicon valley Research center and NASA's Ames Research center,

NASA has, in fact, been in the car business for over forty years, ever since the first Lunar rover went for a spin during the Apollo 15 mission in 1971.

Since then, the space agency has been developing more sophisticated versions for lunar and planetary excursions, including the nuclear-powered Curiosity Mars rover,

"The work of NASA and Nissan with one directed to space and the other directed to earth, is connected by similar challenges,

#ISAAC robot joins NASA to weave advanced composites The robot revolution continues at NASA this month as its Langley Research center in Hampton,

NASA/David C. Bo...The idea is that the ribbons are made up of partially cured resins mixed with carbon fibers.

According to NASA, more conventional composite manufacturing requires these ribbons to be laid down at one of three angles 0 degrees, 45, or 90.

NASA says that this versatility will not only help in creating better composites but it will also speed up the prototyping process As well as ISAAC begins work on the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate Advanced Composites Project and the Space technology Mission Directoratecomposites for Exploration Upper Stage,

Inc. TUI has won two rounds of funding for its Spiderfab 3-D robotic printer from the#NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts#(NIAC) program.

##explained NASA Apollo 11 lunar landing vehicle manager Hubert Davis, a member of#the Solar High Study Group#of nine former NASA and Apollo program scientists and retired

according to#August 2012 calculationsby NASA Apollo program engineer Philip Chapman, would be $0. 10 to $0. 11 per kilowatt-hour.

##But the maximum radio frequency intensity of the transmission##is only one-fourth that of sunlight,##according to former NASA wireless power transmission engineer Richard Dickinson.

##Given the way#NASA#is funded, Spiderfab is three years to five years out, ##Hoyt said.##

##But##on-orbit fabrication with Spiderfab,##a TUI presentation#promises,##will enable NASA to accomplish ten times more science per dollar.##

and with its NASA campus headquarters and#Space Act Agreement#funding, it could actually go places.

For this reason, the Japan aerospace exploration agency (JAXA) recently announced its 25-year plan to build the world first 1-gigawatt power plant in space.

Here are thoughts a few on the massive implications of this JAXA announcement. Beam Me Down Scotty

here is JAXA 25-year plan: BASIC RESEARCH PHASE (2014020) 2014 Demonstration on the ground 2017 1-kw satellite experiment DEVELOPMENT PHASE (2021030) 2021 100-kw satellite experiment 2024

Mastering Six Critical Disciplines The JAXA power station is estimated to weigh more than 10,000 metric tons and when fully deployed, stretch several miles across.

JAXA will have to demonstrate mastery of six critical disciplines: Wireless power transmission Space transportation Construction of large structures in orbit Satellite attitude and orbit control Space-based power generation Power management Of these six challenges,

So that precisely where JAXA has focused much of its research. Wireless power transmission has been the subject of conspiracy theories and legends ever since Nikola Tesla experiments at the end of the 19th century.

Optimal Satellite Design Two Approaches JAXA researchers are working on two different approaches. The first one involves a huge square panel (measuring over 1 mile per side) that is covered with photovoltaic receptors on the top and transmission antennas on the bottom.

JAXA has come up with another more sophisticated approach that solves the solar collection problem by employing two huge reflective mirrors.

a space-based power station has the potential to reinvigorate NASA and give a needed dose of excitement to the thousands of space companies that support it.

The system then combines the field data with a diversity of public data from the National oceanic and atmospheric administration the National aeronautics and space administration and the U s. Geological Survey and private data from companies like Earth Networks.

"NASA is researching different ways to produce oxygen for long-distance space journeys to let us live in space.

scientists with the Canadian space agency say. Astroskin, a prototype device to monitor astronaut health, is a garment that fits over a person's upper body

however, a lot of testing must be done to make sure it works as well as the Canadian space agency (CSA) hopes it will.

Scientists with the European space agency and other institutions, for example, are working on a tight-fitting"skinsuit"that could help astronauts combat the back problems that are a common consequence of long-term spaceflight l

researchers analysed air samples from a six-week hurricane-research mission by NASA in 2010.

Samples collected by the NASA mission before, during, and after two hurricanes also allowed researchers to study the effects of extreme weather on the atmospheric microbiome.

) Meanwhile, the Japanese space agency JAXA will get#22.9#billion to refurbish its facilities and to speed up development of ALOS-2,

Laboratory analysis has revealed that a specimen bought from a Moroccan meteorite dealer in 2011 is the first sample of Martian origin that is similar to the water-rich rocks examined by NASA s rovers.

The elemental composition of the meteorite strongly resembles that of rocks examined in 2005 by NASA s Spirit rover at Gusev Crater2.

The composition of NWA 7034 also matches that of rocks studied by Curiosity, NASA s newest rover,

and that s also the structure that NASA s twin Van allen Probes recorded when they began operation on 1 september 2012.

says Thomas Barclay, a research scientist at the NASA AMES RESEARCH CENTER in Moffett Field, Calif. Barclay is lead author of a study published online February 20 in Nature announcing the discovery of Kepler 37 b and two slightly larger worlds in the same planetary system.

The researchers used NASA s Kepler space telescope to identify the three planets orbiting Kepler 37, a star some 200 light-years away that is somewhat smaller than the sun. The spacecraft monitors more than 150,000 stars in the Milky way

NASA/WMAP SCIENCE TEAMIT was not until the launch of the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) spacecraft that astronomers could begin to see variations in the background, at levels of 1 part in 100,000.

NASA/WMAP SCIENCE TEAMPLANCK launched in 2009, provides a capstone to the study of the cosmic microwave background.

#Planck telescope peers into primordial Universe The Planck space telescope has delivered the most detailed picture yet of the cosmic microwave background, the residual glow of the Big bang. Unveiling the results from the##700-million (US$904-million) European space agency (ESA) probe,

If all goes well Seeker could help the European space agency's Exomars rover which is planned for launch in 2018 find its way across vast stretches of Martian soil.

If all goes well Seeker could help the European space agency's Exomars rover which is planned for launch in 2018 find its way across vast stretches of Martian soil.

Kiri Wagstaff and her colleagues at the Jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena California have developed software that can identify a plume of water

if the Canadian space agency selects their ISS-MRI for a life science berth on a rocket flight in 2016.

The hypersensitive methane detector on NASA's Mars rover curiosity is being repurposed to ferret out gas leaks On earth.

Initially the firm plans to use information collected by European space agency satellites which have a 1-metre resolution.

As part of the European space agency's EXPOSE mission the team sent some of the crater rocks to the International space station (ISS.

Kepler-10c was discovered in 2011 by NASA's Kepler space telescope. The planet orbits a star that is about 560 light years away from us.

NASA is already using an unpiloted version of Dragon to send cargo to the International space station and return valuable gear and scientific experiments.

Now Sandra Chapman of the University of Warwick UK and her colleagues have examined the solar wind's behaviour using NASA's twin STEREO spacecraft.

The M3m satellite was built by Com Dev of Cambridge Ontario under contract for the Canadian space agency (CSA)

Earlier this month NASA announced it was suspending cooperation with Russia although the International space station was excluded from the ban.

NASA only has a few smaller-scale joint activities with Russia such as an instrument aboard its Curiosity Mars rover

when researchers report new results from the European space agency's Planck satellite. On 17 march researchers led by John Kovac of Harvard university announced that gravitational waves from the early universe had been found by a telescope called BICEP2 at the South pole.

#NASA'flying saucer'for Mars to land in Hawaii In June while beachgoers in Hawaii sit blissfully unaware a flying saucer will descend over the island of Kauai.

This is not a trailer for an alien invasion movie NASA is gearing up to conduct the first test flight of a disc-shaped spacecraft designed to safely land heavy loads

and crashing is stopping says Allen Chen at NASA's Jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena California who oversaw the successful landing of the one-tonne Curiosity rover in 2012.

Until recently NASA had used parachutes and airbags for most robotic landings on Mars starting with the Viking mission in 1976.

For the car-sized Curiosity NASA invented an ambitious system called the sky crane which combined parachutes with landing gear powered by retrorockets that could lower the rover to the surface on tethers.

NASA has three more test flights in Hawaii planned for the LDSD and mission managers will review the results before deciding on next steps.

Saturn's moon Enceladus stole back the limelight last week when NASA reported firm evidence of an ocean linked to geysers at its south pole (see diagram below.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft flew through the geysers and detected water salts and carbon-based molecules.

Data from NASA's Galileo probe which orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003 show clay-like minerals on Europa's surface probably debris from meteor impacts

NASA's budget for next year includes $15 million to design possible missions there and the agency is inviting proposals for instruments a probe could carry.

That thing should be frozen solid and dead as a doorbell says NASA program scientist Curt Niebur who heads the committee that will evaluate science instruments for a Europa mission.

#NASA's Russia boycott may revitalise US space leadership So NASA has been dragged into the fallout over Russia's seizure of Crimea from Ukraine.

An internal memo made public this week revealed the space agency has suspended contact with Russia except for that concerning International space station (ISS) operations.

The memo stated that the suspension includes NASA travel to Russia and visits by Russian government representatives to NASA facilities bilateral meetings email and teleconferences or videoconferences.

This was confirmed in an official statement from NASA yesterday. Will this action influence Vladimir Putin

and his apparent dream of geographically reassembling parts of the Soviet union as a new Russian empire?

In addition NASA has been banned legislatively from having bilateral relations with China since 2011. While ostensibly that ban relates to concerns about technology transfer the underlying reason has as much or more to do with Chinese restrictions on religious freedom.

or its relative isolation from meeting with NASA officials nor is it likely to. In fact China has pushed ahead with its own robotic lunar programme

NASA's suspension of working with the Russians will likely be received in Russia much the same way other sanctions over its actions in Ukraine have been:

if only a suitable mission could be arranged NASA's Cassini orbiter first spotted spectacular plumes at Enceladus's south pole in 2005 shortly after arriving at Saturn.

But NASA has plans for human missions to an asteroid and eventually Mars and getting home quickly won't be an option.

Brian Walsh at NASA'S GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER in Greenbelt Maryland and his colleagues have clinched now it. In January 2013 GPS sensors on the ground mapped electrons in the upper atmosphere

and saw a tendril of increased electron density curling away from the north pole indicating that a plume of plasma was veering off towards the sun. At the same time three of NASA's THEMIS spacecraft

and Technology (NIST) in Boulder Colorado who developed the detector with NASA. Data must be encoded before it can be sent.

Next month the Japanese space agency JAXA will pilot its electrodynamic tether for the first time. It is one of many possible solutions that have been proposed to deal with space debris (see Catch'em drag'em blast'em.

and the pieces would collide with each other resulting in more and more debris. To build its debris-catching net JAXA brought in Nitto Seimo a company that specialises in fishing equipment Unlike a net you would use in the ocean this one is a 700-metre-long mesh of aluminium

JAXA thinks the net's main advantage is its simplicity#it's lightweight and doesn't require any propellant to move.

or micrometeoroids says a JAXA spokesperson. Not everyone is convinced of the idea. A net isn't necessarily the best option to collect debris says Hugh Lewis an aerospace engineer at the University of Southampton UK.

and prospect for resources that could one day sustain lunar outposts and missions further afield (see a map of planned landing sites).

For the next few decades the moon's only visitors were a dozen or so orbiters and deliberate crashes such as NASA's LCROSS mission in 2009

Hopefully the lander doesn't tilt said Bernard Foing director of the International Lunar Exploration Working group a forum sponsored by multiple space agencies before the landing.

and evolution of the moon is to know those of Earth says Tatsuaki Hashimoto of the Japan aerospace exploration agency the lead scientist for a proposed lunar rover called SELENE-2. The moon is thought to have coalesced from the debris of an impact between a Mars-sized world and Earth

and beyond we don't want to have to bring fuel with us says Anthony Colaprete of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field California.

and a slot to launch their Cubesat on a NASA rocket next year. The race is on.

000 target, the appeal prompted a private donor to offer to pay for the technology and a launch next year aboard a NASA rocket.

or perhaps water in Mars's and recently NASA's Curiosity rover added to the scepticism by finding no methane when it breathed in the Martian air.

NASA's MAVEN mission also due to launch next month will tackle that same puzzle but with a larger suite of instruments.

#NASA orbiter will use laser to bring broadband to moon The man in the moon is about to get his own version of a broadband connection as well as a visit from China.

NASA's LADEE moon orbiter due to launch on 7 september will use laser pulses to exchange high-capacity signals with Earth.

Both NASA and commercial entities are considering sending robots to nearby asteroids. In some cases robot geologists could take HD video that would allow their human puppeteers to best plan their next moves suggests Cornwell.

JAXA today cancelled the planned launch of Epsilon due to an abnormality detected 19 seconds before the planned lift off at 1. 45 pm local time.

Extreme UV is a range of light suitable for observing planetary atmospheres says Shujiro Sawai of the Japan aerospace exploration agency (JAXA.

A NASA probe called Maven due to launch in November will orbit Mars to study its atmosphere up close to try to solve the puzzle.

Still the flicker method could be put to use on NASA's next planet hunter the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) due to launch in 2017.

Now NASA has proved that even rocket motors can be made this way. Engineers led by Tyler Hickman in the Game Changing Technology Program at NASA's Glenn Research center in Cleveland Ohio worked together with rocket motor maker Aerojet Rocketdyne of Sacramento California.

They wondered if additive layer manufacturing the engineer's name for 3d printing could make a precision part called a rocket injector in less time than the year it takes using conventional methods.

NASA is not the only organisation trying to take 3d printing into space however: a public competition is under way to create a crowdsourced design for an open-source 3d-printable rocket engine that commercial spaceflight operators will be able to use

Using the first three years of observations from NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft astronomers were able to map this heliotail for the first time.

while the two lobes on the horizontal plane consist of slower-moving particles (watch a NASA video of the tail in action).

By contrast NASA's human spaceflight programme has struggled under changing budgets and political whims. Plans to return to the moon under George w bush's administration for instance morphed into crewed missions to an asteroid under Barack Obama's presidency.

Since the space shuttles retired in 2011 NASA has been contracting with private firms to deliver cargo and soon hopefully astronauts to the space station.

Orbital's agreement with NASA includes this trial launch and a full demonstration mission in

#Curiosity's discoveries hint at life's cradle on Mars NASA's Curiosity rover has found what it was looking for in its very first taste of Martian rock much to everyone's surprise.

And even if no hints of microbes can be found Mars's habitable regions could still serve as snapshots of a prebiotic world frozen in time says Michael Meyer lead scientist for NASA's Mars exploration programme.

NASA is now considering how best to equip the next rover a Curiosity clone that will launch in 2020 says Meyer.

and what NASA ultimately selects says Meyer. This article appeared in print under the headline Rover finds hint of life's cradle on Mar l

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