Apparently there was an issue with ground equipment.
Due to further operations needed on a ground means interfacing with the launcher, the launch is postponed. The new launch date will be announced following the completion of these operations.
Today’s flyby will be the first to significantly ‘tilt’ the spacecraft’s orbit and allow it to see the Sun’s polar regions, which cannot be seen from Earth.
Huh, it never occurred to me that we haven’t seen what the Sun looks like from above or below the plane of the solar system.
Why not invest in a bunch of the smaller companies like Rocket Factory Ausburg, PLD Space, MaiaSpace, HyImpulse, etc? They won’t all be successful, but if just a couple of them are, the competition would put Europe in a much stronger position than if they were to establish Euro-ULA.
I’m not sure we can afford an “either or” strategy.
We should be doing that, we should be doing euro-ULA, and we should be massively expanding (access to) launch infrastructure. There’s only so much you can do when your ranges are literally on the other side of the planet.
It is crucial to ensure that the following already agreed-upon elements remain unchanged through to implementation:
[…]
3. A Shift in Mindset – Need for Speed: To compete globally, Europe must embrace a cultural shift towards speed and innovation. Laws and regulations should be evaluated based on their ability to accelerate progress, with speed as the primary KPI. […]
This doesn’t seem like a great idea when dealing with rockets…It’s wasteful, immediately hazardous to any crews, and eventually (if not also immediately) harmful to the environment with any wreckage and other pollution that may be produced. And this is from someone that supports space initiatives and research.
It’s wasteful, immediately hazardous to any crews, and eventually (if not also immediately) harmful to the environment with any wreckage and other pollution that may be produced.
Interesting, I interpret “Europe must embrace a cultural shift towards speed and innovation” in almost exactly the opposite way.
Ariane 6 was essentially an outdated design before it even launched. All of the major American and Chinese launch companies are operating or developing reusable rockets. The launch startups which wrote the open letter are some of the only European organizations actively pursuing reusability, something Arianespace has ignored for far too long.
Argonaut will be a multi-role lunar lander capable of delivering up to 1,800 kilograms of cargo to the surface of the Moon.
According to a Phase A/B1 development document published in July 2024, ESA is targeting 2031 for the launch of the first Argonaut mission. The lander is set to launch aboard an ArianeGroup Ariane 64 rocket from the Guiana Space Centre.
I love that we launched a spacecraft with the sole purpose of measuring the positions of as many stars as possible, just because we could. Well done Gaia, and all the teams who worked on it.
A quick search says final, because it is supposed to enter Mercury’s orbit late this year and then split into two different spacecrafts: Europe’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and Japan’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter
Smaller than a strawberry seed, this tiny signal amplifier was produced by the European Space Agency to fill a missing link in current technology, helping to make future radar-observing and telecommunications space missions feasible.
“This integrated circuit is a low noise amplifier, measuring just 1.8 by 0.9 mm across,” explains ESA microwave engineer David Cuadrado-Calle. “Delivering state of the art performance, the low noise amplifier’s task is to boost very faint signals to usable levels.”
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