NASA Webb Telescope mirrors installed with robotic arm precision
Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jan 29, 2016 -
Inside a massive clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland the James Webb Space Telescope team is steadily installing the largest space telescope mirror ever. Unlike other space telescope mirrors, this one must be pieced together from segments using a high-precision robotic arm.
The team uses a robotic arm called the Primary Mirror Alignment and Integration Fi ...
more
James describes way forward to Space-Launch System
Washington DC (AFNS) Jan 29, 2016 -
Everyone agrees the United States depends on space-based assets as part of the defense of the homeland and the ability to command and control forces worldwide, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James told the Senate Armed Services Committee this morning. What's at issue is launching these critical capabilities into orbit using Russian-made RD-180 rocket engines, she said.
The United Nations ...
more
Pentagon Can't Overcome Its Russian Engines Addiction: McCain
Washington DC (Sputnik) Jan 29, 2016 -
Despite John McCain's profound displeasure, US defense officials are not inclined to abandon the RD-180 Russian rocket engines until 2021 or 2022 earliest.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union the United States Air Force has become one of Russia's longstanding customers: for years the Pentagon was buying the RD-180 Russian rocket engines to put its satellites into space. However, after t ...
more
DigitalGlobe Receives Early Commitments for WorldView-4 Satellite Capacity
Westminster CO (SPX) Jan 29, 2016 -
DigitalGlobe has announced its third customer commitment for direct access capacity on the WorldView-4 satellite, which is expected to begin commercial operations in early 2017 following its launch in September. Since the end of the third quarter of 2015, DigitalGlobe has received contracts and letters of intent from international defense and intelligence customers totaling $335 million for capa ...
more
Moon was produced by a head-on collision between Earth and a forming planet
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 29, 2016 -
The moon was formed by a violent, head-on collision between the early Earth and a "planetary embryo" called Theia approximately 100 million years after the Earth formed, UCLA geochemists and colleagues report.
Scientists had already known about this high-speed crash, which occurred almost 4.5 billion years ago, but many thought the Earth collided with Theia (pronounced THAY-eh) at an angle ...
more
Antarctic fungi survive Martian conditions on the International Space Station
Madrid, Spain (SPX) Jan 29, 2016 -
European scientists have gathered tiny fungi that take shelter in Antarctic rocks and sent them to the International Space Station. After 18 months on board in conditions similar to those on Mars, more than 60% of their cells remained intact, with stable DNA. The results provide new information for the search for life on the red planet. Lichens from the Sierra de Gredos (Spain) and the Alps (Aus ...
more
Denmark orders hundreds of Piranha 5 armored vehicles
Madrid (UPI) Jan 28, 2016 -
General Dynamics European Land Systems is to deliver 309 Piranha 5 armored vehicles and vehicle sustainment services to Denmark.
The contract signed with the Danish Defense Acquisition and Logistic Organization covers six Piranha variants: infantry vehicles, command vehicles, ambulances, engineering Piranhas, and mortar and repair vehicles.
The contract's value is about $600 mill ...
more
