Category Archives: Space Exploration

A bill that aims to reinvigorate Americas technological footprint has passed the Senate. The Innovation and Competition Act aims directly at keeping pace with Chinas global economic influence. Billions of dollars will pay for research, making the United States a more competitive global market. And a big chunk of that money could be available in Cincinnati.Greater Cincinnati is a great place to make an investment in research, Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman said. Portman sees the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act as a big step in the future of our country and keeping American innovation moving forward. This is a bill about responding to the threat we face from places like China where our research is both behind in some cases, but also being taken by China and other countries, Portman said. 5G technology, supporting space exploration, developing regional technology hubs like Cincinnati and more are on the table.Vice President Kamala Harris recently visited the University of Cincinnati Innovation Center which could see some of this funding.I brought the vice president to Cincinnati a couple of weeks ago to look at what Cincinnati's doing. It's up to us to make it a little bit easier for people in the community, Democratic Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown said. Brown says the money will be left up to leaders in the city to request and the Brent Spence Bridge may benefit. On the other side, Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul was one of the 32 no votes. He calls it wasteful spending. He was able to add a late amendment to make sure funding doesn't go to China. For many years we worried about Russia this, Russia that. It turns out after the Cold War ended, they were behind 20 years and weren't good at technology because communism and socialism doesn't work well. So, I guess I don't see it as sort of as imminent threat as others do, Paul said. Portman agrees money shouldnt be allowed to go to China. This bill should benefit the American people.In particular, he says, reducing our reliance on foreign products like the current semiconductor shortage. He sees becoming a major producer for those parts as a good fit for Ohio. If you try to go buy a car today, even a used car, youll find that the prices are pretty high and a lot of its because the semiconductors that we rely on for our vehicles, as well as a lot of the electronics and other things, are in short supply right now. So, it helps in this bill because it establishes some incentives to create fabrication here in this country so we're not relying on countries like Taiwan, or Korea or China for semiconductors, Portman said. This bill has only passed the Senate and does need to clear the house but is expected to have the votes to pass.President Biden says he looks forward to signing it into law as soon as possible.Kentucky Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell voted yes on the bill, as did Indiana Republican Sen. Todd Young, who was one of the authors of the bill. Indiana Republican Sen. Mike Braun voted no.

A bill that aims to reinvigorate Americas technological footprint has passed the Senate.

The Innovation and Competition Act aims directly at keeping pace with Chinas global economic influence.

Billions of dollars will pay for research, making the United States a more competitive global market. And a big chunk of that money could be available in Cincinnati.

Greater Cincinnati is a great place to make an investment in research, Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman said.

Portman sees the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act as a big step in the future of our country and keeping American innovation moving forward.

This is a bill about responding to the threat we face from places like China where our research is both behind in some cases, but also being taken by China and other countries, Portman said.

5G technology, supporting space exploration, developing regional technology hubs like Cincinnati and more are on the table.

Vice President Kamala Harris recently visited the University of Cincinnati Innovation Center which could see some of this funding.

I brought the vice president to Cincinnati a couple of weeks ago to look at what Cincinnati's doing. It's up to us to make it a little bit easier for people in the community, Democratic Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown said.

Brown says the money will be left up to leaders in the city to request and the Brent Spence Bridge may benefit.

On the other side, Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul was one of the 32 no votes. He calls it wasteful spending. He was able to add a late amendment to make sure funding doesn't go to China.

For many years we worried about Russia this, Russia that. It turns out after the Cold War ended, they were behind 20 years and weren't good at technology because communism and socialism doesn't work well. So, I guess I don't see it as sort of as imminent threat as others do, Paul said.

Portman agrees money shouldnt be allowed to go to China. This bill should benefit the American people.

In particular, he says, reducing our reliance on foreign products like the current semiconductor shortage. He sees becoming a major producer for those parts as a good fit for Ohio.

If you try to go buy a car today, even a used car, youll find that the prices are pretty high and a lot of its because the semiconductors that we rely on for our vehicles, as well as a lot of the electronics and other things, are in short supply right now. So, it helps in this bill because it establishes some incentives to create fabrication here in this country so we're not relying on countries like Taiwan, or Korea or China for semiconductors, Portman said.

This bill has only passed the Senate and does need to clear the house but is expected to have the votes to pass.

President Biden says he looks forward to signing it into law as soon as possible.

Kentucky Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell voted yes on the bill, as did Indiana Republican Sen. Todd Young, who was one of the authors of the bill. Indiana Republican Sen. Mike Braun voted no.

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Bill to boost US tech innovation could bring big bucks to Cincinnati - WLWT Cincinnati

An artist's rendering of D-Orbit's ION Satellite Carrier.

If you need to move a lot of things around here on earth, there are countless ways to make that happen. Trucks, railcars, airplanes, and container ships (just watch out for the banks of the Suez Canal!)theres a good option regardless what youre moving and where. On earth, we take logistics for granted, said Luca Rossettini, founder and CEO of D-Orbit.

The distinction thats important for Rossettinis company is that doing the same in space is far more difficult. Heres what we do: we created the first space logistics company, he explained. Without us, it will be difficult for the space economy to continue growing.

Headquartered on the shores of stunning Lake Como near Milan, Italy, D-Orbit is a private new space company thats raised a total of about $26 million in funding, the latest via a venture debt financing round with the European Investment Bank (EIB) that raised about $18 million last August. The company was founded in 2011 and has 115 employees.

Luca Rossettini, D-Orbit's founder and CEO.

Think about shipping and travel, and then imagine inventing how they happen on your own, said Rossettini. Thats what weve done for satellite delivery. With the old method, even if you managed to get a satellite into space, you could only go to a very specific location. And it would take at least six months. Weve solved that: we get you into space, where you want to go, in a short time.

D-Orbits invention is their cargo space truck, the ION Satellite Carrier. Its loaded with small satellites that the company puts into orbit for its customers. D-Orbit contracts out the launch of its loaded vehicle, most recently to SpaceX on the Falcon 9 rocket it launched this past January, which carried the companys PULSE mission on its way to launch 20 satellites. Once were in orbit, we switch on our engine and go deliver the satellites, Rossettini said. After we deliver our cargo, we still have a very good asset in space. We can deliver other kinds of services with that. We could, for example, warehouse satellites and deploy them later, while carrying data centers to provide space cloud edge computing to other satellite operators. In the future, we will also be able to reposition or remove existing satellites.

Having been around a decade now, D-Orbit has lived through some of the challenges of being one of the first private space companies, and part of its mission is to help others based on its experiences. The space economy is still very young, Rossettini said. Most of the companies were started in the last five years. They can get partial investment to develop, but its hard to do proof-of-concept. We allocate one or two slots for young companies so they can do proof-of-concept, generate jobs, and get additional investment.

In addition to its satellite delivery service, D-Orbit sees other big opportunities on the horizon. NASA is planning for a base on the moon and a mission to Mars, Rossettini explained. Theyll need infrastructure to support those missions. Another important market is to go to the next level and manufacture in space. It seems like science fiction today, but what were doing now seemed like sci-fi ten years ago.

Mission support is another area of opportunity. When we started, no one would invest, said Rossettini. So at the beginning, we decided that whatever we do today, well sell to support others tomorrow. We can manufacture satellites for our customers. And we can offer our Aurora software, our cloud-based mission control suite that can control a single satellite, or a constellation of satelliteshundreds or even thousands of satellites, plus it can control ground operations. We developed it for ourselves, but our customers began asking for it, so now we license it. D-Orbit also sees an eventual need for services to deal with space debris and pollution. You used to have to destroy space junk to remove it. Now were working to remove it with our systems.

ION SCV Dauntless David, which will take part in the upcoming WILD RIDE mission.

Part of the companys challenge will be keeping up with a volatile marketplace. The space market is changing, Rossettini said. Its not driven by very large satellites and government spending so much anymore90% of our revenue is private. Most of the market now is not for space exploration, but for services. 80% of the technology we all use now relies on space. We see our future as a society expanding into space more and more, so there will be an ever-greater need for space logistics and management.

D-Orbit certainly isnt slowing down. While the PULSE mission is still ongoing (currently performing in-orbit demonstration of customers payloads, after the successful execution of orbital maneuvers and subsequent release of customers satellites in the past months), just last week the company announced its next mission, WILD RIDE, which will launch later this month with six satellites and three payloads from eleven different nations. The mission will also feature a SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) experiment, and will bring the total number of payloads launched by the company to 54.

For Rossettini, its about more than just the space business, however. Were the first space company to achieve B Corporation certification, he said. I strongly believe companies should satisfy their shareholders, but serve the entire community too. Were way more resilient in the marketplace that way.

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Space Truckin: Thanks To D-Orbit, Its Not Just A Great Old Deep Purple Song Anymore - Forbes

An international research network, exploring solutions to asteroids and space debris, has announced a competition for students and researchers around the world.

The EU H2020 MCSA ETN Stardust-Reloaded (Stardust-R) led by Prof Massimiliano Vasile at the University of Strathclyde, has launched the Andrea Milani Challenge in collaboration with the European Space Agencys Advanced Concepts Team (ESA ACT).

Teams are invited to address two problems in the fields of asteroid deflection and space debris monitoring and detection. The problems are closely linked to urgent global challenges.

Professor Massimiliano Vasile, Director of the Aerospace Centre of Excellence in the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and coordinator of Stardust-R, had a prominent role in conceiving the challenge. He said: This challenge was conceived to stimulate research on space environment management and space sustainability, one of the cornerstones of the Stardust-R project.

This challenge makes a fascinating preview of what we will see from Earth after DART does its work.

Professor Christos Efthymiopoulos of Padua University, a member of the team which developed the challenges, said: " Contestants will have to use their skills in math, physics, engineering and computer science but also to look at the sky".

The topics are part of a wider effort by Stardust-R and others which is critical for the long-term safety of Earth from space threats and the long-term sustainability of human presence in space.

The first competition involves tracing the source of hazardous space debris drifting around Earth, while the second asks teams to decipher the precise circumstances of a distant collision between a spacecraft and an asteroid a scenario which is set to be enacted later this decade by NASAs DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) and ESAs Hera spacecraft.

The challenge is being held in memory of Professor Andrea Milani, a mathematician and astronomer who was a world authority in asteroid impact and deflection and who died in 2018.

The first stage of the challenges is open to all. All participating teams will be given a score, updated after each submission of a solution, and the teams with the best score will be invited to participate in Stardust-R's Global Virtual Workshop on Space Traffic Management and Resilient Space Environment in September 2021.

In the second stage, the top three of the teams involving only students in each competition will be invited to present their approach to a panel of experts at the workshop. One winner for each category will be announced at the workshop closing ceremony, based on their technical approach and innovation in solving the challenge.

Stardust-R is the only Scottish-led international network on space environment management and asteroid exploration.

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International competition on asteroid and space debris launched - University of Strathclyde

The bill, which bans the procedure based on race, sex or a Down syndrome diagnosis, may be vetoed when it reaches the governor's desk. Rising flu in Texas, dog attacks on mail deliverers and Louisiana ending jobless benefits are also in the news.

AP:N. Carolina Ban On Down Syndrome Abortions Goes To GovernorNorth Carolina senators approved a bill on Thursday to bar women from getting abortions on the basis of race, sex or a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome. With the Senates party-line vote, the prohibition Republicans are seeking now heads to Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who is likely to veto it, having rejected previous anti-abortion restrictions. (Anderson, 6/10)

Houston Chronicle:After Abbott Lifted Texas' Mask Mandate, COVID Has Waned - But The Flu Hasn'tHouston has seen a rapid increase in respiratory illnesses since Gov. Greg Abbott ended Texas mask mandate nearly three months ago, according to new research from Houston Methodist Hospital epidemiologists. In a study published last week, Methodist researchers documented a marked increase in cases of rhinovirus/enterovirus, an upper respiratory infection, in the weeks after mask mandates were lifted in Texas. The report found similar upticks of influenza cases over the same period. Influenza, the papers authors said, typically peaks during winter months before dropping to low levels in the summer. (Downen, 6/10)

Houston Chronicle:Houston Is No. 1 In The US For Dog Attacks On Postal Workers, New USPS Report ShowsThe City of Houston is known for so many things great food, birthing world-renowned artists, the world capital of space exploration and international energy, the most diverse city in the U.S. and the fourth largest city in the country. And, it's the city with the most dog attacks on postal workers.The United States Postal Service released its dog attack national rankings showing the Bayou City as No. 1, with 73 attacks reported in 2020.(Welch, 6/10)

Rome News-Tribune:Nonprofit: 1 In 6 Ga. Children Aren't Sure Where Their Next Meal Is Coming FromFood insecurity is a much greater problem than most Georgians would ever imagine. Carla Harward, an attorney who retired and moved to Trion several years ago, took it on herself to do something about the combination of food waste in schools and making sure that children across the state dont go hungry. An estimated one in six children across Georgia, more than 400,000, are considered food insecure, according to Harward. At the same time, schools across the state have been throwing away thousands of tons of food. (Walker, 6/10)

The Advocate:Louisiana Could Become Latest State To End $300 Federal Unemployment Benefit In 11th-Hour DealLouisiana is poised to soon stop accepting the federal $300-a-week boost to jobless benefits a month early under a deal passed by lawmakers in the waning hours of the legislative session Thursday, a move that would make the state the latest to end the benefits over concerns from business groups that they are causing a worker shortage. Lawmakers approved a bill to boost the states unemployment benefits by $28 a week starting next year. But it would only take effect if Gov. John Bel Edwards ended the states participation in the federal program by July 31, which appears likely. That program is giving thousands of laid-off workers $300 a week in addition to whatever they get from the state, which currently is a maximum of $247 a week. (Karlin, 6/10)

KHN:Colorado Bill Aims To Give Farmworkers Easier Access To Medical CareA woman with pregnancy complications needed permission from her boss to visit a doctor. Community health volunteers were turned away from delivering food and covid information to worker housing. A farmworker had a serious allergic reaction but was afraid to seek treatment. To Nicole Civita, policy director with Colorado advocacy group Project Protect Food Systems Workers, such stories encapsulate an entrenched power dynamic that covid-19 has brought into focus: Farmworkers are essential but treated as expendable, including when it comes to accessing health care. (Honig and Bichell, 6/11)

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North Carolina Advances Abortion Ban; Governor Likely To Veto - Kaiser Health News

Russian Space Secretary threatens to leave International Space Station The 2025 (ISS) program unless the United States lifts sanctions on Russias space sector.

Roscosmos Executive Secretary Dmitry Rogozin told the Russian parliamentary hearing on Monday (June 7), If sanctions remain and will not be lifted in the near future, the issue of Russias withdrawal from the ISS will be a matter of American partners. It will be a responsibility. , According to NBC News..

We will work together, or in that case, the sanctions will be lifted immediately. If not, we will not work together and will deploy our own station, Rogozin added.Russia is coming soon Launch a new docking module On the ISS this summer Independent complex hub..

Relation: International Space Station: Inside and Outside (Infographic)

Rogozin also claimed that Russia could not launch some satellites because U.S. sanctions banned his country from importing some of the microchips needed for Russias programs, Reuters reports. It was. (There is also a global shortage of microchips related to production outages in the coronavirus pandemic.)

We have enough rockets, but nothing to launch them, Rogozin said. According to Reuters.. I have a nearly assembled spacecraft, but Im missing one particular microchipset that I have no way to buy because of sanctions.

In 2014, Rogozin famously stated: NASA must use trampoline Take astronauts to the ISS instead of the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Comments were made after the United States and other Western nations imposed sanctions on Russian authorities, including Rogozin himself, in connection with Russias military operations in Crimea. (Soyuz was the only orbital astronaut taxi available after NASAs Space Shuttle fleet landed in 2011, but when SpaceX began flying crew to and from the ISS, the situation was It changed last year.)

Other recent sanctions have been triggered by what US officials have described as Russia-led cyberattacks and election interference, according to Reuters. In December, President Donald Trumps administration claimed that the Russian space entity TsNIIMash (Central Research Institute for Machinery Manufacturing) and the Rocket Space Center Progress had a connection with the armed forces, NBC reported. Such a designation means that US companies must obtain a license before selling to these organizations.

These entities were among the dozens monitored by the US Department of Commerce during Trumps tenure, both in Russia and China. New tensions have risen after new US President Joe Biden called Russias President Vladimir Putin a murderer earlier this year and then imposed further sanctions on Russia, according to Reuters. ..

Rogozin made an introduction call with new NASA administrator Bill Nelson on Friday (June 4th), NASA said the same day. In the statement, Assemble the conversation as a productive discussion of ongoing cooperation with NASA RoscosmosA statement citing Nelson also said NASA promises to continue its highly effective ISS partnership.

Still Statement of Roscosmos On Friday, he said the lack of official information on sanctions and the future of the ISS substantially hindered cooperation between Russia and the United States in the space territory dating back to the 1975s. Apollo-Soyuz Test Project Mission. The current ISS agreement is expected to end in 2024, but many partners are negotiating an extension until at least 2028.

Russia said more guarantees were needed to move forward after 2024. This concerns the sanctions introduced by the US government on Russian space industry companies and the lack of official information from US partners in Roscosmos. We plan to further manage and operate the ISS. Told.

Relation: Construction of the International Space Station (photo)

Both NASA and Roscosmos said they plan to continue discussions, including face-to-face discussions. Nelson is expected to come to Russia soon and will continue to negotiate with Europeans until end of June 2021, Roscosmos said.

One of the opportunities for discussion is the Global Space Exploration Conference in St. Petersburg from June 14th to June 18th. The conference is co-sponsored by Roscosmos and the International Astronomical Union.

Americans and Russians have been major partners in the ISS program since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s and the change of the space station agreement to bring Russias participation. Go in the midst of the collapse of the Soviet Union. One of the reasons NASA offered to ferry Americans to Soviet-Russia was also to prepare for the long-term mission of the ISS. Mir Space Station In the 1990s.

When Russia was invited to the ISS project, Europe, Japan and Canada were working on another NASA-led program called Space Station Freedom. Freedom never landed on the ground It is due to complex technology, funding and policy issues under development.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @ howellspace.follow us On Twitter @ Spacedotcom And on Facebook.

Russia threatens to leave the International Space Station program over US sanctions: Report

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Russia threatens to leave the International Space Station program over US sanctions: Report - Eminetra

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos announced he'll be on board a spaceflight next month in a capsule attached to a rocket made by his space exploration company Blue Origin. Bezos is seen here in 2019. Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos announced he'll be on board a spaceflight next month in a capsule attached to a rocket made by his space exploration company Blue Origin. Bezos is seen here in 2019.

Jeff Bezos has already selected a hobby for his post-CEO life: space travel.

Just two weeks after he steps down as CEO of Amazon, Bezos will climb aboard a rocket made by his space exploration company Blue Origin.

"If you see the earth from space, it changes you. It changes your relationship with this planet, with humanity. It's one earth," Bezos said in a video posted to Instagram on Monday morning.

"Ever since I was five years old, I've dreamed of traveling to space."

Blue Origin's rocket is called New Shepard, and it's reusable the idea being that reusing rockets will lower the cost of going to space and make it more accessible. The pressurized capsule has space for six passengers. There are no pilots.

This will be the first time a crew will be aboard the New Shepard, in a capsule attached to the rocket.

And it won't just be Bezos: He invited his brother Mark, too.

Want to join the Bezos brothers?

You can bid on a seat on the flight in an auction that benefits Blue Origin's foundation, which has the mission of inspiring future generations to pursue careers in STEM. The current high bid is $2.8 million.

The flight is scheduled for July 20 the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. Bezos gives up his CEO title on July 5, when he'll pass the reins to Andy Jassy, who currently leads Amazon's cloud computing division.

Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket is seen here launching with a capsule attached in 2019. Blue Origin hide caption

Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket is seen here launching with a capsule attached in 2019.

Bezos ended his Instagram post with Blue Origin's Latin motto, gradatim ferociter which the company translates as "step by step ferociously."

Technically, the Karman line is the altitude at which space begins about 62 miles above sea level.

But Bezos won't be above that line for long. The flight is expected to last about 11 minutes, and only a small portion of that time is above the Karman line, according to a graphic of the flight trajectory on Blue Origin's website.

The New Shepard's journey is called suborbital flight, meaning the rocket isn't powerful enough to enter Earth's orbit.

Bezos isn't alone in spending some of his enormous wealth on space exploration.

Elon Musk's SpaceX Crew Dragon now regularly carries astronauts to and from the International Space Station. And in May, a test flight by Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic reached an altitude of 55 miles, marking its third human spaceflight.

But neither Musk nor Branson has traveled to space yet in their companies' aircrafts.

In 2014, two pilots were aboard a Virgin Galactic test flight that crashed in California's Mojave Desert, killing one of them. An investigation found that pilot error and design problems were to blame in the crash.

A test dummy rides on board the New Shepard crew capsule in January. Blue Origin hide caption

A test dummy rides on board the New Shepard crew capsule in January.

Four employees of Virgin Galactic are expected to join the company's next test flight, and Branson is to go on the flight after that, the BBC reported. Branson said last month that he is actively preparing his body for spaceflight.

Virgin Galactic's design looks light-years different from Blue Origin's New Shepard. Virgin's craft resembles an airplane, while the New Shepard is an actual rocket.

But Bezos says Virgin Galactic's flights don't really reach space.

"One of the issues that Virgin Galactic will have to address, eventually, is that they are not flying above the Karman Line, not yet," Bezos told SpaceNews in 2019. "I think one of the things they will have to figure out how to get above the Karman Line."

NPR science correspondent Geoff Brumfiel contributed to this report.

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Jeff Bezos Is Going To Space (For A Few Minutes) - NPR

Human space travel is 60 years old this year, and in those six decades it has helped us discover much about the universe. But it has also delivered many practical benefits back home.

From monitoring climate change to connecting people through satellites, space exploration has created solutions to some very down-to-Earth problems. Space technology is vital to global security and even helps to stop illegal logging, illegal fishing and illegal wildlife trade.

Space is also a vital part of the global economy, accounting for $366 billion of economic activity every year, data from the World Economic Forums 2020 briefing paper, Six ways space technologies benefit life on Earth, shows.

Six ways space technologies benefit life on Earth.

Image: World Economic Forum

Here are 15 images that show the history of those six decades in space.

1. The first man in space

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to fly in space.

Image: Arto Jousi/Wikimedia Commons

On 12 April 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to fly in space. His single orbit of the Earth ushered in a new age of human space travel. Tragically he was killed in a plane crash just seven years after his pioneering space mission.

2. The first Black astronaut

US Air Force captain Robert H Lawrence Jnr was chosen as the nations first African American astronaut in 1967.

Image: NASA/Flickr

US Air Force captain Robert H Lawrence Jnr was chosen as the nations first African American astronaut in 1967 but he died in a fighter plane crash before he could make his first space flight.

3. The first US space walk

In 1965, Ed White became the first American to walk in space.

Image: NASA/Flickr

Thats one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind - Neil Armstrong

Image: NASA/Flickr

Neil Armstrong, who stepped off the Apollo lunar lander on 20 July 1969 with the famous words Thats one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind, took this shot of fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin walking on the lunar surface shortly afterwards.

The Apollo 11 astronauts were the first to see this spectacle.

Image: NASA/Flickr

The Apollo 11 astronauts were the first people to see the Earth rise over the Moons horizon a striking reminder that they were far from home.

A welcome parade for Apollo 11 after their first Moon landing.

Image: NASA/Flickr

New York laid on one of its trademark ticker-tape welcomes for the crew of Apollo 11 after the first Moon landing. Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins led the parade.

7. International collaboration in action

The US Space Shuttle Atlantis docking with Russias Mir space station.

Image: NASA/Flickr

The US Space Shuttle Atlantis docking with Russias Mir space station. By July 1995, when this picture was taken, the former space race rivals were collaborating in space exploration. The shuttle ferried two Russian cosmonauts to the space station.

The Space Shuttle Challenger explosion resulted in the tragic loss of seven crew members.

Image: NASA/Flickr

The dangers associated with space travel were tragically highlighted by the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger and its seven crew members on 28 January 1986. TV audiences watched in horror as the spacecraft exploded shortly after launch. Failed seals on a rocket booster were blamed for the accident.

9. The first Black woman in space

Mae Jemison - the first Black woman to fly in space on the Space Shuttle Endeavour.

Image: NASA Flickr

In September 1992, Mae Jemison became the first Black woman to fly in space on the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Dr Jemison, a physician with a degree in chemical engineering, worked as a general medical practitioner before joining NASA as a Mission Specialist.

10. Uncovering the secrets of the universe

The Hubble Space Telescope.

Image: NASA/Flickr

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched into orbit by space shuttle Discovery in April 1990. In this picture, taken in 1993, NASA astronauts work on upgrades to Hubble, which has a better view of the universe than Earth-based telescopes.

Two galaxies grazing each others orbits.

Image: NASA/Flickr

This remarkable image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows two galaxies grazing each others orbits. The gravitational forces of the galaxy on the left are distorting its neighbour, flinging stars and gas hundreds of thousands of light years across space.

12. The development that revolutionized space travel

The Space Shuttle Columbia broke when re-entering the earth's atmosphere, killing everyone on board.

Image: NASA/Flickr

The reusable US Space Shuttle not only simplified human space travel, its payload bay was used to deliver and recover satellites. But this was not without great risks. This image shows Space Shuttle Columbia lifting off on what would be its last mission in January 2003. The spacecraft broke up on re-entry to the Earths atmosphere, killing all on board.

The International Space Station.

Image: NASA/Flickr

Built in space from components flown into orbit, the International Space Station was completed between 1998 and 2011 with contributions from 15 nations. The 67 metre-long pressurised section has been continuously occupied since November 2000.

NASAs Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was the first powered, controlled flight in any world beyond Earth IN 2021.

Image: NASA

NASAs Ingenuity Mars Helicopter rode to the surface of Mars attached to the Perseverance rover and made its first flight in the thin Martian atmosphere in April 2021. It was the first powered, controlled flight in any world beyond Earth.

15. The future of human space flight?

The Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft .

Image: NASA/Flickr

After the Space Shuttle programme ended in July 2011, the US partnered with Boeing and Elon Musks SpaceX for the Commercial Crew Programme to develop reusable craft to fly astronauts to the International Space Station. This image shows the Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft making a soft landing in New Mexico in December 2019.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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The history of space exploration in 15 images - World Economic Forum

Venus is getting some long-overdue love.

On Wednesday (June 2), NASA announced that it will launch two missions to Earth's hellishly hot sister planet by 2030 an orbiter called VERITAS and an atmospheric probe known as DAVINCI+.

The duo will break a long Venus drought for the space agency, which hasn't launched a dedicated mission to the second rock from the sun since the Magellan radar-mapping orbiter in 1989.

Related: Photos of Venus, the mysterious planet next door

Other organizations are putting Venus in the crosshairs as well. For example, the space agencies of Europe, India and Russia are all developing Venus mission concepts for potential launch in the next decade or so. And the California-based company Rocket Lab aims to send a life-hunting mission to the planet in 2023.

Indeed, we may well be witnessing the start of a bona fide Venus exploration campaign.

"My sense is that people are going to be surprised by how interesting [Venus] is," said planetary scientist David Grinspoon, a member of the DAVINCI+ team and a longtime advocate for more in-depth study of Venus.

"And if that is the case, then the results of the early missions will also feed a desire for more missions, because it's a very complex and vibrant and interesting place," Grinspoon, who's based at the Planetary Science Institute, told Space.com.

Venus has been in the limelight before. The Soviet Union targeted the planet frequently from the 1960s through the mid-1980s with its Venera and Vega programs, notching a variety of exploration milestones along the way (despite a number of launch failures).

In October 1967, for instance, Venera 4 became the first probe ever to beam data home from the atmosphere of another world, finding that Venus' surface is incredibly hot and its air surprisingly thick. Three years later, Venera 7 performed the first successful soft landing on a planet other than Earth.

In 1982, the Venera 13 lander recorded the first-ever audio on the surface of another world (an accomplishment recently mirrored on Mars by NASA's Perseverance rover). And in the mid-1980s, the Vega 1 and Vega 2 missions successfully deployed balloon probes in the thick Venusian atmosphere, another off-Earth first.

The United States mounted some Venus missions during this stretch as well, though not nearly as many as its Cold War rival did. NASA's Mariner 2, Mariner 5 and Mariner 10 spacecraft performed flybys of the planet in 1962, 1967 and 1974, respectively. And in 1978, the space agency launched both the Pioneer Venus Orbiter and the Pioneer Venus Multiprobe. The multiprobe sent four instrument-laden entry craft into Venus' atmosphere in December of that year, and the orbiter studied Venus from above until 1992.

Then there was Magellan, which was the first interplanetary mission ever to launch from the space shuttle. The probe mapped Venus in detail using synthetic-aperture radar until October 1994, when its handlers sent Magellan down to its death in the Venusian atmosphere.

The list gets pretty thin after that. Europe's Venus Express orbiter studied the planet, with a focus on its atmosphere, from 2006 to 2014. And Japan's Akatsuki orbiter has been doing its own atmospheric investigations since arriving at Venus, after some tenacious troubleshooting, in December 2015.

Related: Here's every successful Venus mission humanity has ever launched

Venus faded as an exploration target for several reasons. The decline of the Soviet Union and its eventual collapse in the early 1990s had a chilling effect, for example; Vega 2 remains the last successful fully homegrown interplanetary mission launched by the Soviet Union or its successor state, Russia. (Russia's federal space agency, Roscosmos, and the European Space Agency are working together on the ExoMars project, which launched an orbiter to the Red Planet in 2016 and plans to send a life-hunting rover there in 2022.)

In addition, throughout the 1990s and beyond, NASA increasingly focused its robotic exploration efforts on Mars, whose surface bears unmistakable signs of past water activity and is much more welcoming to landers and rovers. Even the most successful Venus landers have survived for mere hours on the planet's surface, which is hot enough to melt lead.

"It's sort of understandable why Venus wasn't picked for a while [by NASA], because Venus is a hard place to explore," Grinspoon said. "You're never going to get the same data return, in terms of megabits of data, from a Venus mission as you would from a Mars mission."

But the pendulum could swing only so far from Venus before heading back the planet's way. For starters, as scientists have gathered more and more detailed knowledge about other solar system bodies such as Mars, Mercury and Pluto, the gaps in our understanding of Venus, which is similar to Earth in size and mass, became increasingly obvious.

Venus has "been so neglected that now the mysteries it's almost an embarrassment, or certainly an impediment, to our fully understanding our solar system," Grinspoon said.

In addition, scientists think that Venus was once very different a balmy, temperate world with oceans, rivers and streams. Recent research even suggests that the planet's surface was habitable for Earth-like life for several billion years, until a runaway greenhouse effect took hold around 700 million years ago.

And parts of Venus may still be habitable today. About 30 miles (50 kilometers) above the planet's scorching surface, temperatures and pressures are quite Earth-like, so it's possible that microbes even now reside in the Venusian skies, wafting about with the sulfuric-acid clouds.

Intriguingly, those skies feature mysterious dark patches where ultraviolet radiation is absorbed perhaps by a sulfur-based pigment that microbes produce to protect against sunburn, some scientists have speculated. And one team of researchers recently announced that they'd spotted the signature of phosphine, a possible biosignature gas, around that 30-mile altitude. The apparent phosphine find has not been confirmed by other teams, however, and remains the topic of considerable discussion and debate.

Related: 6 most likely places for alien life in the solar system

So Venus has become a more attractive astrobiological target in recent years, just as the search for alien life has increasingly moved from the scientific fringes into the mainstream.

That transition has been helped along by the ongoing exoplanet revolution, which has revealed that the universe is teeming with potentially habitable worlds. And exoplanet scientists are keen to learn more about Venus, adding to the planet's accruing allure.

"There's a lot of interest from the exoplanet community in exploring Venus, because it's obvious to anybody that sort of thinks about solar systems, planetary systems, systematically that understanding the Venus-Earth difference is really key to understanding how planets evolve in general, and how habitable conditions evolve," Grinspoon said.

There's also a more practical reason to learn exactly how Venus became a scorching hellscape. Humanity is pushing Earth in that dangerous direction via deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels, after all, and Venus can be a natural laboratory in addition to a cautionary tale.

"There's a lot that we still need to learn about climate and how it changes on Earth-like planets, and Venus being sort of an extreme case can really push our models to the limit," Grinspoon said. "There's a value to the comparative study of similar planets that makes you wiser about how your own operates and changes, and I think that Venus is just too valuable in that regard for us to ignore any longer."

VERITAS and DAVINCI+ were selected by NASA's Discovery program, which develops relatively low-cost exploration projects. The price tag of each mission is capped at around $500 million, and each is expected to launch between 2028 and 2030.

VERITAS (short for "Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography and Spectroscopy") will map Venus' surface in detail from orbit using radar and monitor infrared surface emissions, which will reveal how rock type varies from place to place. Such observations will shed light on Venus' geologic history and climate evolution and help researchers determine if the planet hosts active plate tectonics and volcanism today, NASA officials said.

DAVINCI+ ("Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble Gases, Chemistry and Imaging") will send a "descent sphere" through Venus' thick air. The probe will measure atmospheric composition as it falls, returning data that will teach scientists more about how the planet went hothouse. The DAVINCI+ team also plans to look for phosphine, Grinspoon said.

"It is astounding how little we know about Venus, but the combined results of these missions will tell us about the planet from the clouds in its sky through the volcanoes on its surface all the way down to its very core," NASA Discovery Program scientist Tom Wagner said in a statement on Wednesday. "It will be as if we have rediscovered the planet."

The two NASA missions will follow on the heels of a privately funded Venus effort, if all goes according to plan: Rocket Lab aims to launch a Venus mission in 2023 using its Electron rocket and Photon satellite bus. Details are still being worked out, but the goal is to use an atmospheric probe to hunt for signs of life in the balmy patch of Venus' skies.

"We're going to learn a lot on the way there, and we're going to have a crack at seeing if we can discover what's in that atmospheric zone," Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck said last summer when announcing the project. "And who knows? You may hit the jackpot."

That initial mission could even kick off an extended Rocket Lab Venus campaign, Beck has said.

Related: The 10 weirdest facts about Venus

Those private missions could in turn be part of a larger, global exploration effort, for there are other Venus plans afoot as well. For example, a Venus orbiter concept called EnVision is one of three medium-class missions that the European Space Agency is considering for launch in 2032. The winner is expected to be announced this month, perhaps as soon as this week.

The Indian Space Research Organisation is developing a potential Venus mission of its own, called Shukrayaan-1, which would launch in 2024 or 2026. That project would include an orbiter and an atmospheric balloon probe.

And Russia aims to go back to Venus at long last, with an ambitious mission called Venera-D that would feature an orbiter, a lander and atmospheric balloons. Venera-D will launch in 2029, if all goes according to plan.

Mike Wall is the author of "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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Why Venus is back in the exploration limelight - Space.com

The Gaganyaan Mission, India's foray into independent human space exploration, is moving ahead with plans to send an uncrewed mission into orbit. Scheduled for December, a final call on the launch will be taken post-assessment of the situation once lockdown is lifted in Bengaluru. The mission is part of the three-stage Gaganyaan project.

While the first unmanned flight is likely to be launched this year, the second demonstration launch could happen in 2022-23 before the astronauts finally take to the skies in a full-scale, crewed mission.

Despite the coronavirus pandemic impacting the pace of the mission, the Defence Research and Development (DRDO) organisation and the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) are now conducting impact studies on the crew module.

Being developed by the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, the Gaganyaan crew module will be the first indigenous spacecraft to take Indian astronauts into space and return them safely to Earth.

Gaganyaan is a three stage project that was proposed in 2018. (Photo: Getty)

The Rs 10,000-crore mission aims to send a three-member Indian crew to space for a period of five to seven days and safely return them to Earth. Announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his Republic Day speech from the Red Fort in 2018, the Gaganyaan mission was initially scheduled for 2022, when India completes 75 years of independence. However, several delays have led to the deferment of the final crew mission.

The initial timeline was set for 40 months since the date of rbefore which two uncrewed launches are to take place to demonstrate and test key technologies and capabilities.

"The human spaceflight programme will provide a unique micro-gravity platform in space for conducting experiments and test-bed for future technologies," the Union Cabinet had said in a statement while approving the project.

Even before the Gaganyaan mission was announced, Isro had been busy with developing technologies to support a human spaceflight. (Photo: Isro)

After land, sea and air, the next frontier of global dominance is space as countries rush to explore the vastness of the cosmos, discover new resources on the Moon, and look for signs of microbial life beyond our orbit. With the US and Russia dominating space exploration, China is slowly cruising ahead with plans to build its own space station, return samples from asteroids, and trundle on the surface of the Red Planet. An indigenous crew mission will put India at the centre of this race, shaping the already changing geopolitics.

India so far has reached the Moon and Mars with extremely cost-efficient missions apart from its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) catering to the global demand of putting satellites into Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

Even before the Gaganyaan mission was announced, Isro had been busy with developing technologies to support a human spaceflight mission and had tested several key technologies critical for such a mission. These include a re-entry and recovery technology for the module, a cryogenic engine to carry the payload, and critical life support systems. The airdrop test of the Space-capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE) was successfully conducted way back in 2004.

Isro will also launch a data relay satellite that will help maintain contact with the Gagangyaan mission ahead of the final manned flight.

India has managed to bring together countries for its ambitious plans to send humans to space. Russia and France are providing key training and equipment needed to carry out the mission. Four Indian Air Force pilots underwent training in Russia with the Russian space agency. While the names of the selected pilots are yet to be released, the Russian space agency ROSCOSMOS had in August said that the astronauts were doing well and determined to continue with their training. The training had been earlier impacted due to the Covid-19 induced global lockdown.

The initial timeline was set for 40 months since the date of announcement of the mammoth undertaking. (Photo: Getty)

Apart from imparting training at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, Zvezda, a Russian company is also manufacturing space suits for Indian astronauts. The astronauts had in September visited the facility, where their anthropometric parameters were measured to begin designing the customised spacesuits. The company will also be providing individual seats for the astronauts and custom-made couch liners.

Also Read: ISRO to launch data relay satellite to track Gaganyaan

India recently signed an agreement with the French space agency National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) to provide equipment it has developed for the International Space Station. The agency will supply fireproof carry bags made in France to shield equipment from shocks and radiation. "Under the terms of the agreement, CNES will train India's flight physicians and CAPCOM mission control teams in France at the CADMOS centre for the development of microgravity applications and space operations at CNES in Toulouse and at the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne, Germany," the CNES had said.

India is also in talks with Australia to set up a ground station at Cocos Island for smooth monitoring of the mission.

While the Gaganyaan plans are to be relooked once Karnataka reopens, the manned missions will push India further in exploration beyond Earth's orbit as countries vie to control the next space race, which has the potential to trigger major changes in the global order.

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Russia's space chief is threatening to leave the International Space Station (ISS) program in 2025 unless the United States lifts sanctions against the Russian space sector.

"If the sanctions remain and are not lifted in the near future, the issue of Russia's withdrawal from the ISS will be the responsibility of the American partners," Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin said during a Russian parliament hearing on Monday (June 7), according to NBC News.

"Either we work together, in which case the sanctions are lifted immediately, or we will not work together and we will deploy our own station," Rogozin added. Russia is about to launch a new docking module to the ISS this summer that could serve as the hub of an independent complex.

Related: The International Space Station: Inside and out (infographic)

Rogozin also claimed that Russia cannot launch some satellites because the U.S. sanctions forbid his country from importing some microchips required for the Russian program, Reuters reported. (There is also a global shortage of microchips associated with manufacturing shutdowns amid the coronavirus pandemic.)

"We have more than enough rockets but nothing to launch them with," Rogozin said, according to Reuters. "We have spacecraft that are nearly assembled, but they lack one specific microchip set that we have no way of purchasing because of the sanctions."

In 2014, Rogozin famously remarked that NASA should use trampolines instead of Russian Soyuz spacecraft to get astronauts to the ISS. The comments came after the United States and other Western countries imposed sanctions on Russian officials including Rogozin himself related to Russian military actions in Crimea. (After NASA's space shuttle fleet was grounded in 2011, the Soyuz was the only orbital astronaut taxi available. That situation changed last year, however, when SpaceX began flying crews to and from the ISS.)

Other recent sanctions came in the wake of what U.S. officials described as Russian-led cyberattacks and election interference a claim Russia has denied, Reuters noted. In December, the administration of President Donald Trump alleged that Russian space entities TsNIIMash (the Central Research Institute of Machine Building) and the Rocket and Space Center Progress have ties to the nation's military, NBC reported. Such a designation means that U.S. companies need to acquire licenses before selling to these organizations.

These entities were among dozens that came under scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Commerce during Trump's tenure, in both Russia and China. Fresh tensions came after new U.S. President Joe Biden called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin a "killer" earlier this year, according to Reuters, while imposing more sanctions on Russia.

Rogozin had an "introductory phone call" with new NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on Friday (June 4), NASA said that same day in a statement, framing the conversation as a "productive discussion about continued cooperation between NASA and Roscosmos." The statement, quoting Nelson, also said that NASA is "committed to continuing that very effective ISS partnership."

Yet a statement by Roscosmos on Friday said that the sanctions and a lack of official information about the future of the ISS are "substantially hindering the cooperation" between Russia and the U.S. in the space realm, which extends back to 1975's Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission. The current ISS agreement is set to end in 2024, although numerous partners are negotiating an extension until at least 2028.

Russia indicated that it needs more assurances to move forward after 2024. "This is about the sanctions introduced by the American administration against the enterprises of the Russian space industry, as well as the absence of any official information in Roscosmos from the U.S. partners on the plans to further control and operate the ISS," Roscosmos said in Friday's statement.

Related: Building the International Space Station (photos)

Both NASA and Roscosmos said they do plan to continue discussions, including face-to-face. Nelson is expected to come to Russia soon, and negotiations will be ongoing with the Europeans until "end of June 2021," Roscosmos said.

One opportunity for discussion is the Global Space Exploration Conference, which will be held in St. Petersburg from June 14 to June 18. That meeting is co-hosted by Roscosmos and the International Astronautical Federation.

The Americans and the Russians have been the major partners in the ISS program since the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, when the space station agreement was modified to bring in Russian participation in part due to international concerns about where Russian space engineers would go amid the collapse of the Soviet Union. Getting ready for ISS long-duration missions was also one of the reasons NASA offered to ferry Americans to the Soviet-Russian Mir space station in the 1990s.

At the time that Russia was invited to join the ISS project, Europe, Japan and Canada had been working on another NASA-led program called Space Station Freedom. Freedom never got off the ground due to complex technical, funding and policy problems during its development.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Russia threatens to leave International Space Station program over US sanctions: reports - Space.com