The European Space Agency (ESA) has expanded its capability to communicate with scientific, exploration and space safety missions across our Solar System with the inauguration of a new 35-m diameter deep space antenna — the fourth for Estrack, ESA’s deep space tracking network. Located in New Norcia, about 115 kmContinue Reading
This illustration shows Earth’s magnetosphere interacting with the solar wind. The magnetosphere shields the Earth from harmful solar and cosmic radiation. Credit: NASA Goddard/CIL/Josh Masters A new study led by Southwest Research Institute’s Dr. Michael Starkey has provided observational evidence from the SwRI-led Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) Mission of pickup ionsContinue Reading
It sounds like science fiction: a spacecraft, no heavier than a paperclip, propelled by a laser beam and hurtling through space at the speed of light toward a black hole, on a mission to probe the very fabric of space and time and test the laws of physics. But toContinue Reading
The successful deorbit, descent, and landing of spacecraft on the Moon requires precise control and monitoring of vehicle dynamics. Anomaly detection provides a unique utility for identifying important states that might represent vehicle behaviors of interest. By producing unique vehicle behavior points, critical spacecraft system states can be identified toContinue Reading
