Tag: European Space Agency

Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket successfully completes hot-fire test

The European Space Agency’s Ariane 6 rocket successfully completed a dress rehearsal on Thursday, test-firing its engine in preparation for a maiden voyage scheduled for 2024. The final results of the ignition test, which involved firing up the Vulcain 2.1 engine and running it for more than seven minutes, will not be released until November 30, pending a full analysis. But manufacturer ArianeGroup already called the rehearsal “successfully completed”. The hot-fire test at Europe’s Spaceport […]

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ESA fully cuts Mars mission ties with Russia, angering Moscow

  PARIS, France (AFP) — The European Space Agency has officially terminated cooperation with Russia on a mission to put a rover on Mars, with Russia’s space chief furiously responding by banning cosmonauts on the ISS from using a Europe-made robotic arm. The ESA had previously suspended ties on the joint ExoMars mission, which had planned to use Russian rockets to put Europe’s Rosalind Franklin rover on the red planet to drill for signs of […]

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Russian-European Mars rover ‘very unlikely’ to launch this year

PARIS, France (AFP) – A Russian-European mission to land a rover on Mars is “very unlikely” to launch this year due to sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the European Space Agency said. The launch of the Rosalind Franklin rover, whose mission is to drill into Martian soil to seek out signs of life, was originally planned for 2020 but postponed due to Covid-19 and technical delays. In January the ESA declared the ExoMars mission […]

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Mapping our galaxy: The Milky Way revealed

by Marlowe HOOD PARIS, France (AFP) — The European Space Agency will unveil on Wednesday a three-dimensional map of a billion stars in our galaxy that is 1,000 times more complete than anything existing today. A space-based probe called Gaia, launched in December 2013, has been circling the Sun 1.5 million kilometers (nearly a million miles) beyond Earth’s orbit and has been discreetly snapping pictures of the Milky Way. The satellite’s billion-pixel camera, the largest […]

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Missing comet lander Philae spotted at last: ESA

by Pascale MOLLARD Mariëtte Le Roux PARIS, France (AFP) — Europe’s Rosetta spacecraft has finally spotted its tiny lander Philae, thought to be lost forever, stuck in a ditch on the surface of a comet hurtling through space, ground controllers said Monday. “THE SEARCH IS OVER! I’ve found @Philae2014!!” the European Space Agency (ESA) tweeted on behalf of Rosetta, orbiting comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at some 682 million kilometers (424 million miles) from Earth. The agency released […]

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Europe launches environmental satellite

The European Space Agency launched a satellite on Monday (Aprli 25) to track the progress of global warming, as part of its Copernicus project. The Sentinel-1B joins its identical twin, Sentinel-1A, in orbit to deliver information for various services, from monitoring ice in polar seas to tracking land subsidence, the ESA said. It will also respond to disasters such as floods. Both satellites carry an advanced radar that images Earth’s surface through cloud and rain […]

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Comet lander shuts down after sending data

BY IRENE KLOTZ (Reuters) – A pioneering robotic spacecraft shut down on Saturday after radioing results of its first and probably last batch of scientific experiments from the surface of a comet, scientists said. Batteries aboard the European Space Agency’s Philae comet lander drained, shutting down the washing machine-sized probe after an adventurous and largely unscripted 57-hour mission. Carried aboard the orbiting Rosetta mothership, Philae floated to the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on Thursday, but […]

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ESA’s Philae probe releases first image from landing

(Reuters) — The Philae probe on Wednesday (November 12) released a close-up image of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as the European Space Agency (ESA) said on-board instruments are working despite the anchors not working as planned. The picture, taken with the lander’s ROLIS camera, was taken 3km away from the target during the craft’s descent. Philae’s landing marks a first in space exploration and the climax of a decade-long mission to examine up close the remnants of the birth […]

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