The American space agency has achieved a major milestone in its preparation of the new James Webb Space Telescope. James Webb telescope mirror alignments has been finished, and the results are exceeding expectations. Still some work to go before actual science operation can start. NASA’s Webb Reaches Alignment Milestone, Optics Working Successfully https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-webb-reaches-alignment-milestone-optics-working-successfully James Webb: →
Finland’s Transport and Communications Agency, Traficom, has issued a public announcement informing of an unusual spike in GPS interference near the country’s eastern border. According to reports, the interference isn’t limited to Finland but also affects Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and the broader Baltic region. This spoofing is relatively easy because the actual GPS signal is →
Deep space tracking is hard and mistakes happen. It seems that SpaceX rocket does not yet get to hit the moon soon as earlier expected. Ironically, it now appears that the off the course object comes from a Chinese mission to return a sample of lunar rock to help scientists understand why the Moon is →
James Webb Space Telescope is a space telescope designed primarily to conduct infrared astronomy. The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) led development of the telescope[8] in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The good space news has been that the the James Webb Space Telescope is →
Space had too harsh weather conditions for recent Starlink communications satellite update. 40 Starlink satellites doomed: SpaceX reported last night that 40 of the 49 Starlink satellites launched to low Earth orbit on February 3 are now doomed by a geomagnetic storm. SpaceX said: “The satellites deployed on Thursday were significantly impacted by a geomagnetic →
World’s first wooden satellite slated for launch in Finland. UPM Plywood, Arctic Astronautics and Huld announce today a joint mission to launch the first ever wooden satellite, WISA Woodsat, into Earth’s orbit by the end of 2021. The satellite electronics is mostly based on Kitsat that is a fully functional one unit CubeSat (roughly 10 →
It seems that Earth’s magnetic field is weakening and changing at the moment. The magnetic North is moving towards Siberia and South Atlantic Anomaly weakening the Earth’s magnetic field. There is some fear that the weakening is causing technical problems for satellites and could have other effects. Here are some links to news on this →
European’s own satellite navigation system has been down for days. It shouldn’t cause any serious issue but must be annoying for anybody that has something to do with this 10 billion Euro EU project. I saw first notes on this on following article (Note that the Galileo system is still very new and not as →
This week seems to have many news related to 50 years of Apollo 11 spaceflight. Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin, both American, landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC. Moon is not just history. Today, a new rush of enthusiasm for lunar exploration has swept up →
https://www.reaktor.com/blog/reaktor-space-lab-takes-off/ At 6.28 a.m. Helsinki time today, Reaktor Space Lab launched Finland’s first commercially-built nanosatellite into space. The team had some the people who had launched Finland’s first two satellites: Aalto 1 and Aalto 2. There is also another Finnish satellite being launched hopefully in few days: http://suomi100satelliitti.fi/laukaisu_aikaisintaan_2_joulukuuta →