Latest news on "Space"

One of the main problems that the participants of the first lunar missions will face is the search and extraction of fresh water. NASA studies of recent years, in particular the Lunar Prospector, LCROSS and SOFIA missions, have confirmed the presence of a large amount of ice at the satellite's poles. However, before getting water from it, it must be extracted from the lunar soil – regolith.

The flight will be the fourth

The next - already the fourth-mission to deliver astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) on board the Crew Dragon spacecraft is planned no earlier than April 15, 2022. This was announced on Tuesday by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration on its website.

The cause of the accident of the American-Ukrainian Alpha rocket was the premature stop of one of the four engines of the first stage, which was accompanied by the closing of valves in the fuel lines, the American portal reports Space.com, referring to the statement of representatives of the company Firefly.

Communicating with followers on Twitter, Musk said that the transition to laser communication will not only speed up data transmission, but also allow the company to abandon ground-based base stations.

The state Corporation plans to establish cooperation with existing regional centers and states that are interested in building up human potential in the space industry.

This hyperspectral satellite will be used for environmental monitoring projects

China successfully launched the Gaofen-5-02 optical remote sensing satellite into orbit on Tuesday. This was announced by the Chinese Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.

The second copy of the RD-171MV engine, designed for the Soyuz-5 rocket, has successfully passed fire tests, Roscosmos reported.

Specialists of the Molniya Research and Production Association are preparing to return the Buran spacecraft to Russia. Representatives of the company that developed the ship visited the Baikonur cosmodrome to inspect the infrastructure and the orbiter itself, according to the official website of the NGO Molniya.

Roscosmos and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency have signed an agreement to supply the UVSPEX ultraviolet spectrograph for the future Russian telescope, which will search for biomarkers in the atmospheres of already known exoplanets. This was announced by Mikhail Sachkov, Deputy Director of the Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, RIA Novosti.

Virgin Galactic has announced the composition of the first commercial crew of the Unity suborbital spacecraft. The flight of the device is scheduled for the end of September-beginning of October, the Izvestia TV channel reports. The mission included Air Force servicemen Walter Villadei and Angelo Landolfi. The researcher Pantaleone Carlucci will fly on board the ship. The crew will include a representative of the company Beth Moses. Earlier, Virgin Galactic announced the sale of tickets. The price of one seat on the ship starts from $450 thousand.

Since this academic year, Moscow Aviation University (MAI) has started training students in the areas of aircraft and helicopter construction, as well as missile design, according to the programs of the network model of training, said Dmitry Kozorez, Vice - rector for Academic Affairs of MAI.

According to the head of Roscosmos, a branch of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center at the cosmodrome will appear for the first flight of the Orel spacecraft with a crew-by 2025

New houses in the Tsiolkovsky district, which is located next to the Vostochny cosmodrome, will soon be transferred to the cosmodrome. This was announced on Monday by the general director of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin.

The State Commission recommended that the Arktika-M system with the spacecraft of the same name be put into operation

Flight tests of the hydrometeorological satellite "Arctic-M" have been completed, it is recommended to put the device into operation. This is stated in the message of Roscosmos, distributed on Monday.

Andrey Korolev thanked Musk for the invitation, hospitality and personal meeting

The grandson of the creator of the Soviet rocket and space technology, Sergei Korolev, Andrey Korolev, visited the American SpaceX plant at the invitation of the head of the company, Elon Musk. Korolev reported this on Facebook.

The company-developer of rocket and space technology Firefly Aerospace Inc., owned by Ukrainian businessman Maxim Polyakov, reported on September 3 that the flight of the Alpha rocket was interrupted according to security protocols.

SpaceX plans to launch another 60 Starlink satellites into orbit at the end of September, according to the data of the specialized website Space Launch Now. The launch of the Falcon 9 heavy launch vehicle is scheduled for the first time from the US Space Force Vandenberg Air Base in California, the Izvestia TV channel reports. This will be the 31st launch of Internet satellites into orbit since May 2019.

The helicopter-drone Ingenuity ("Ingenuity"), which arrived on Mars together with the Perseverance rover ("Perseverance"), made the 13th successful autonomous flight on the Red Planet, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory reported.

The general director of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, said on the YouTube channel "Solovyov Live" that the new airport, which is being built at the Vostochny cosmodrome, will have unique runway capabilities.

The United States has a sufficient supply of Russian RD-180 rocket engines, but they plan to continue purchasing the RD-181 model, the head of Roskosomos, Dmitry Rogozin, said.

Launches from Baikonur and Plesetsk are also planned

Roscosmos plans to conduct two more launches of launch vehicles from the French Kourou cosmodrome by the end of the year. This was announced on Saturday on the air of the YouTube channel "Solovyov Live" by the head of the state corporation Dmitry Rogozin.