Latest Concurrent Design Facility Stories

Watch the video "Proba-3 Mission Spacecraft Will Fly In Formation" April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The European Space Agency's (ESA) Proba-3 mission, a world first in precise formation flying, is being led by Spanish industry. The aim of the project is to demonstrate that two satellites can be synchronized to move as one object with sub-millimeter precision, enabling the creation of enormous space telescopes with the lens and detector hundreds of feet apart....

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online The European Space Agency's (ESA) Space Situational Awareness program was spotlighted this week during the ninth European Space Weather Week. The Space Situational Awareness (SSA) program's recent developments in space weather activities were showcased during the conference. As part of SSA, ESA's space weather specialists are focused on developing warning services to help protect satellites and ground infrastructure. These...

ESA, the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, the DLR German Aerospace Center and the German Aerospace Industries Association will be exhibiting in the ‘Space for Earth’ space pavilion at the ILA Berlin Air and Space Show on 11–16 September. ILA is one of the world’s largest aerospace trade shows, organized every two years by the BDLI aerospace industries association. This year, it will take place in its new premises at the Berlin Expo-Center Airport close to the...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The European Space Agency's latest weather satellite has capture its first image of the Earth, the agency said. The MSG-3 satellite captured the first image using the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) instrument. The satellite launched on July 5, and ESA said it is performing well and on its way to taking over operational service after six months of commissioning. ESA said it was responsible for the initial...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The European Space Agency (ESA) is investigating the possibility of a new launch system to make Europe fully self-sufficient over the long haul. ESA said it is investigating the idea behind the New European Launch Services (NELS) to offer up launch services to both governmental and private European customers. The space agency said it prefers to ensure the continuation of industrial activities in production and to start developments...

Next year’s Hollywood film Gravity features George Clooney stranded in orbit by cascading space junk. The threat is genuine, with debris levels rising steadily. ESA’s new Clean Space initiative is developing methods of preserving near-Earth space – and the terrestrial environment, too. Responding to public environmental concerns, Clean Space aims to reduce the environmental effect of Europe’s space activities, cutting waste and pollution on Earth and in orbit. Industry is...

Three new satellite concepts are vying to be chosen as ESA’s seventh Earth Explorer mission. In preparation for selection next year, a series of reports has been published presenting the scientific and technical ambition of each mission. Since the Biomass, CoReH2O and PREMIER mission concepts were selected for feasibility study in 2009, each candidate has been undergoing a set of rigorous activities to demonstrate their value to science and that they are technically viable. The...

Lee Rannals for RedOrbit.com The European Space Agency (ESA) is reaching out to amateur astronomers, asking for their help in discovering potentially dangerous space rocks. ESA's Space Situational Awareness (SSA) program helps keep up with space hazards, with everything from space weather to debris objects in Earth orbit. The program also keeps up with "Near Earth objects," or NEOs, which are asteroids that pass close enough to our planet to cause concern. NEOs are hard to survey...

Russian and European space officials on Friday agreed on a joint Mars mission to hunt for signs of life on the Red Planet, after NASA pulled the plug on its program, the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) said on April 6, reports RiaNovosti. Despite describing the ExoMars project as the “Holy Grail” of exploration, NASA bailed out in February due to budgetary problems. That project meltdown left the ESA with few other options to launch a joint mission to Mars. The two-spacecraft...

The first satellites entirely designed and built by Hungary, Poland, and Romania are now orbiting Earth after today’s successful maiden flight of ESA's small Vega launcher. The latest addition to Europe’s versatile family of space launchers, Vega carried nine satellites, seven of them built by European universities. This group of ESA-sponsored educational CubeSats included Goliat from Romania, PW-Sat from Poland and Masat-1 from Hungary. The unique opportunity to launch the first...