We often think about interstellar probes only in the context of what they find at the end of their journeys — astrobiologically interesting planets seem to be the whole story. But not so fast. As Ian Crawford (University of London) notes in a recent paper, there are quite a few fascinating — and indeed critical [...]
Photos of the Earth from a significant distance are always fascinating, dating back to the spectacular shot of the rising Earth over lunar mountains taken by Apollo 8 in December of 1968. The image below, showing Earth and its Moon, comes from the Messenger spacecraft, taken at a distance of some 183 million kilometers. I [...]
This is a picture of the 50-mile-wide moon Pandora, taken by the Cassini spacecraft on June 3, 2010.
Space spiral over Norway, December 09, 2009. Credit: Jan Petter Jørgensen via Vaeret Many of us reme
Somewhere around 2000 light years away in the direction of the constellation Lyra is a Sun-like star orbited by at least two Saturn-class planets. What’s interesting about this news, as just discussed in the Kepler press conference I’ve been listening to this afternoon, is that for the first time we’ve detected and confirmed more than [...]
Algeria’s first satellite mission completed Space blog Algeria’s first satellite mission completed Alsat-1, the first satellite launched in the international Disaster Monitoring Constellation led by SSTL , has finally completed its mission for the Algerian Space Agency ASAL having exceeded its original 5-year design lifetime by 50 to a remarkable 7 years and 9 . months Engineer working on Alsat-1 Launched in November 2002 into a 700km sun-synchronous orbit on board a Kosmos 3-M rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Northern Russia , Alsat-1 was Algeria's first national satellite as well as being the first Disaster Monitoring Constellation satellite , it was also the first SSTL spacecraft to carry SSTL's newly developed Slim 6 Line Scan Imager payload . Alsat-1 launch preparations
Rendering of a Boeing CST-100 capsule mated with an Orbital Sciences Cygnus spacecraft. Credit: Me T
In a sense the planets discovered around the Sun-like star HD 10180 are no surprise. We’ve long assumed that planetary systems with numerous planets were common. We lacked the evidence, it’s true, but that could be put down to the limitations of the commonly used radial velocity method, which favors massive worlds close to their [...]
These are recent pictures of the Earth from space. Enjoy. Earth can be seen at a distance of around 
You could pay millions to get on board someone else’s spacecraft as a tourist, spend six years
The ways astronomers find to wrest new findings from raw data never ceases to amaze me. This news release from the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie focuses on a new way to weigh the planets in our Solar System by using signals from pulsars. The method flows out of work on pulsar timing that has been used [...]
T-Minus Seven Days and Counting… A private enterprise called Copenhagen Suborbitals is taking 
Cassini spacecraft view of Saturn's 3200-mile-wide moon, Titan, with the smaller, 698-mile-wide
Boeing's new CST-100 spacecraft. Credit: Boeing Boeing has jumped into the lineup of new spacec
Super accurate atomic clocks for Galileo Space blog Super accurate atomic clocks for Galileo During the Farnborough Airshow , a contract was signed for the provision of the Passive Hydrogen MASER PHM atomic clocks that will provide an essential timekeeper reference for the navigation payloads that SSTL is building for the Galileo navigation system , a programme of and funded by the European . Union Contract signing The PHM atomic clocks will be provided by SELEX Galileo , a Finmeccanica Company , for installation on each of the 14 satellites in the Galileo system , under a contract of more than 30m . Euros PHM atomic clock The Passive Hydrogen MASER is the most stable clock ever produced for space applications with a frequency stability better than 10-14 day , and is currently
This morning, at 08:55 UT, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) detected a C3-class flare erupt inside a sunspot cluster. 100,000 kilometers away, deep within the solar atmosphere (the corona), an extended magnetic field filled with cool plasma forming a dark ribbon across the face of the sun (a feature known as a “filament”) erupted at [...]
I've been standing in line next to a green monster for more than an hour. This might sound like a bad situation, but the monster is actually a rather nice human in body paint and stunning, neon-green contact lenses.
A year in orbit for Deimos-1 and UK-DMC2 Space blog A year in orbit for Deimos-1 and UK-DMC2 This evening SSTL will celebrate the first anniversary of the Earth observation satellites Deimos-1 and UK-DMC2 that were launched in July last year onboard a Dnepr rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan . The two satellites were quickly commissioned and joined the Disaster Monitoring Constellation to deliver their first images in August just a week after . launch Deimos-1 was the first Earth Observation satellite built by SSTL for Spanish company Deimos Imaging , who have been capturing fantastic imagery of the world during the year . The following image and many more can be viewed in their online gallery The whole island of Cyprus , image taken 7th August 2009. Credit : Deimos Imaging
UK and Russia sign space collaboration deal Space blog UK and Russia sign space collaboration deal At the Farnborough International Airshow last week , the UK signed a historic agreement with Russia leading the way to greater collaboration in space between the two nations . SSTL welcomes this great news , which promises to make it easier for the two nations to benefit from their respective . strengths SSTL has had a long and successful collaboration with a variety of Russian organisations spanning 20 years , working with the UK and Moscow offices of Commercial Space Technologies CST Ltd . as representative and local partner . SSTL and CST have together been one of the major customers for Russian launch services However , don't think it's a one way street SSTL is also playing an integral
It's hard to believe that we've just crossed the six-month mark on WISE -- seems like just yesterday when we were all up at Vandenberg Air Force Base, near Santa Barbara, shivering in the cold at night while watching the countdown clock.
As you may have noticed, things have been rather quiet on Astroengine of late. This is partly due to my pan-European trek and my work on Discovery News, but mainly due to my horrid affliction of procrastination. Hence why I’m late in posting this pretty awesome picture of a lightning bolt blasting across the French [...]
SSTL antennas destined for ISS resupply vehicle Space blog SSTL antennas destined for ISS resupply vehicle Orbital Sciences Corporation Orbital has ordered nine GPS patch antennas from SSTL for the Cygnus™ advanced manoeuvring spacecraft for those who don’t recognise the name , this is one of the forthcoming unmanned resupply spacecraft for the International Space Station ISS Orbital is the prime contractor for this spacecraft which is one of the first truly commercial missions to be conducted for NASA . GPS Patch Antenna The Cygnus spacecraft is being developed by Orbital to demonstrate cargo delivery services under a NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services COTS agreement . In addition to the COTS development and demonstration program , Orbital will utilise the Cygnus to perform