Items Tagged with 'spacecraft'

The BepiColombo European spacecraft, by Airbus Defence and Space is undergoing final functional tests at the Thales Alenia Space plant in Turin, Italy and will be shipped to ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Center.

The first Boeing Inmarsat-5 satellite has launched and sent signals from orbit, the initial step to establishing Global Xpress, the world’s first globally available high-speed mobile broadband service for government and commercial users.

NASA’s Green Propellant Infusion Mission (GPIM) has been selected to test an advanced form of thermal insulation, called integrated multi-layer insulation (IMLI) that could become standard on future satellites and cryogenic subsystems. Validating this new insulation in space will help NASA build the technology required for long human spaceflight missions. Under a subcontract from Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Quest Thermal Group LLC will manufacture the new insulation that will fly aboard the 2015 GPIM mission.

NASA and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security are collaborating on a first-of-its-kind portable radar device to detect the heartbeats and breathing patterns of victims trapped in large piles of rubble resulting from a disaster.

It's not easy to simulate millions of miles electronically, but that's what engineers did recently as they tested the all-important communications system the MAVEN spacecraft will use to relay its study results from Mars orbit to Earth-bound researchers.