La fusée géante de SpaceX transportera la station spatiale privée Starlab
news.movim.eu / Numerama · Wednesday, 31 January - 17:00
Un accord a été signé entre SpaceX et Starlab pour déployer, d'ici à quelques années, une station spatiale privée. Ce sera l'immense lanceur Starship qui sera mobilisé pour accomplir cette tâche.
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LIGO goes to space: ESA to proceed with LISA gravitational wave detector
news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Thursday, 25 January - 22:21 · 1 minute
Enlarge / The LISA project will consist of three spacecraft in a triangular configuration, exchanging lasers. (credit: EADS Astrium )
On Thursday, the European Space Agency's Science Programme Committee gave the go-ahead to the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, or LISA project . This would mean the construction of the mission's three spacecraft could begin as early as a year from now. While the interferometer would follow the same basic principles as the ground-based LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) experiment that first detected gravitational waves, the hardware would be placed 2.5 million kilometers apart, making it sensitive to an entirely new range of astronomical phenomena.
Existing gravitational wave detectors rely on bouncing lasers back and forth between distant mirrors before recombining them to produce an interference pattern. Anything that alters the position of the mirrors—from the rumble of a large truck to the passing of gravitational waves—will change the interference pattern. Having detectors at distant sites helps us eliminate cases of local noise, allowing us to detect astronomical events.
The detectors we've built on Earth have successfully picked up gravitational waves generated by the mergers of compact objects like neutron stars and black holes. But their relatively compact size means that they can only capture high-frequency gravitational waves, which are only produced in the last few seconds before a merger takes place.
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“We are worried,” says European rocket chief at prospect of launch competition
news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Tuesday, 9 January - 14:18
Enlarge / Artist's view of the configuration of Ariane 6 using four boosters on the ELA-4 launch pad together with its mobile gantry. (credit: ESA-D. Ducros)
There is “no guarantee” France’s ArianeGroup will continue to be Europe’s rocket launch company of choice according to the head of the European Space Agency, after ESA member states agreed to introduce more competition to the market.
Josef Aschbacher, the agency’s director-general, told the Financial Times that the decision at its space summit in Seville last November to open the European launcher market to competition was a “game-changer.”
The next generation of launch would be done “in a very different way,” he said, acknowledging that this would put pressure on ArianeGroup’s owners, Airbus and Safran. “If they have a very competitive launcher then they are in the race. But there is no guarantee.”
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New survey: Nearly 30% of ESA workers experience workplace harassment
news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Wednesday, 13 December - 20:51 · 1 minute
Enlarge / The ESA headquarters in Paris. (credit: ESA - P. Sebirot )
According to a new internal survey conducted by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) staff association, about 30 percent of ESA’s employees have either experienced or witnessed harassment in the workplace. The survey, published internally on December 6 and seen by Ars Technica, confirms the findings of our recent investigation into allegations of harassment and bullying at the agency.
The internal survey ran from July 19 to September 15 of this year and collected the responses of 2,751 workers, representing nearly half of all ESA employees across its six main centers in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, Spain, and Italy. The ESA staff association was set up by ESA to represent staff members, but the survey included both staff members and on-site contractors who are loaned to the agency through a network of cooperating manpower companies in Europe.
Among the respondents, nearly a third said they had witnessed harassment during their time at the agency, while 28 percent said they had directly experienced it. The report states that a “complementary analysis of 1,200 comments” provided by the respondents suggests that about 20 percent of the reported incidents took place within the past 24 months. The types of harassment disclosed in the survey included bullying and mobbing (60 percent of cases), moral harassment (30 percent of cases) and sexual harassment (10 percent cases).
Voilà les 10 missions spatiales majeures à suivre en 2024
news.movim.eu / Numerama · Sunday, 10 December - 12:17
Vol inaugural d'Ariane 6, mission habitée autour de la Lune, récupération d'échantillons extraterrestres... L'année 2024 est ponctuée de quelques grands rendez-vous spatiaux. Voici les 10 plus importants qui méritent, selon nous, toute votre attention.
La prothèse du premier astronaute handicapé risque d’empoisonner ses collègues
news.movim.eu / Numerama · Tuesday, 5 December - 16:37
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Pour la première fois, Ariane 6 a enfin une date de lancement
news.movim.eu / JournalDuGeek · Monday, 4 December - 13:00
Lors d'un récent briefing, les dirigeants des principaux acteurs de l'aérospatiale européenne ont timidement annoncé un premier calendrier pour les débuts du lanceur lourd européen. Mais ils restent prudents.
Pour la première fois, Ariane 6 a enfin une date de lancement
Ariane 6 a rendez-vous avec l’histoire l’été prochain avec son tout premier vol
news.movim.eu / Numerama · Friday, 1 December - 16:07
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Ariane 6 a rendez-vous avec l’histoire l’été prochain
news.movim.eu / Numerama · Friday, 1 December - 11:30
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