Lifeboat Foundation

While many cultures celebrated their respective holiday traditions on Earth, the crew of the International Space Station (ISS) carried on with their busy schedules high above. December 2021 saw three major visiting vehicle movements, one spacewalk, and many of the research and maintenance tasks that allow the ISS to function as one of the world’s most important scientific laboratories.

The Expedition 66 crew currently aboard the station is commanded by Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, who is joined by cosmonaut Pyotr Dubrov along with NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei, Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn, and Kayla Barron, and the European Space Agency’s Matthias Maurer. Dubrov and Vande Hei have been aboard the station since April, while Shkaplerov arrived in October and the remaining crew members in November.

A high-tech lab in Nanjing in the eastern Jiangsu province of China has claimed that it has made a breakthrough in next-generation communications technology, South China Morning Post reported. The lab was working on a special government project on 6G technology in association with Fudan University and the nation’s telecom giant, China Mobile.

The world is yet to see the potential of 5G and how it could change our world. Although the low latency and high transmission speeds are notable features of the technology, there does not appear to be a common world application that could put this technology to use en-masse. The high deployment costs of the technology have also put a dampener on its rollout, with operators opting for a slow pace until usage really picks up, SCMP reported.

This hasn’t, however, perturbed the engineers’ desire to build the next big thing. Last year, we reported how LG Electronics was working on ushering in the 6G of wireless communication and how China had already deployed a 6G capable satellite back in 2020. The problem, however, is that there is no standard that has been accepted to define what 6G constitutes.

Watch James Webb Space Telescope experts give real-time updates on the final step in the observatory’s deployment: the unfolding of the second of Webb’s two primary mirror wings. Engineers in mission control will send commands to deploy the wing and latch it into place, a process that takes several hours. The deployment will complete the mirror’s golden honeycomb-like structure, and will mark the end of an unprecedented 14-day unfolding process.

Webb launched on Dec. 25, 2021 aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. An international collaboration with NASA partners including the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, it’s the most powerful and complex space telescope ever built. The mission is managed from the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland.

Continue reading “James Webb Space Telescope: Primary Mirror Deployment — Mission Control Live” »

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In the two weeks since its launch on December 25 at 7:20 am ET, Webb has successfully completed many milestones:

✨ Webb released and deployed its solar array, which means the telescope went off battery power and began to use its own generated power.
✨ Webb has had two planned mid-course correction burns. Webb was launched on a direct path to an orbit around the second Lagrange Point (L2), but its trajectory required correction maneuvers to get there.
✨ The 5-layer sunshield has been fully deployed and tensioned. Did we mention it is the size of a tennis court? 🤯
✨ Webb’s secondary mirror, which plays an important role in reflecting light collected by the primary mirror into the telescope’s instruments, has been deployed.

And Hubble is still going strong.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has reached a major milestone: one billion seconds in the final frontier.

Space based weaponry.

In a bit to deepen defence cooperation, the United States and Japan have agreed to collaborate on several new ventures. This includes developing hypersonic and space-based weaponry and a new deal on sharing the cost of US troops in Japan.

Continue reading “US, Japan collaborate on new ventures, including developing hypersonic & space-based weaponry | WION” »

Remember how China’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft released a remote camera to take a picture of itself during its flight to Mars, back in late 2020? Now in Mars orbit, Tianwen-1 has done it again, releasing another mini remote camera. Except this time, the planet Mars is part of the view.

The images are stunning.

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) published three pictures, including a shot of the spacecraft in orbit with Mars in the background, a picture of Mars’ northern ice caps, and the first full photo of the orbiter.

South Africa’s space participation dates back to the 1960s when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) first established its Deep Space Network Station, popularly known as DSS-51, in Hartebeesthoek. The station was established to assist NASA’s interplanetary missions. The facility was then operated by the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)… […].

The incredible image was taken by hand using a digital camera onboard the International Space Station.

NASA’s Earth Observatory has released a photo of a crescent moon above an orbital sunset taken by an astronaut on the International Space Station.