ASTRONAUTICAL NEWS Friday 15 April 2022
Astronautical News
ASTRONAUTICAL NEWS Friday 15 April 2022
A daily roundup of space news
When will we explore Enceladus to find alien life?While NASA will launch Dragonfly later this decade to Titan, another potentially habitable
moon of Saturn, no space agency is currently funding a mission to Enceladus.
Hubble confirms largest comet nucleus ever seenThe Hubble Space Telescope has determined the size of the largest icy comet nucleus
ever seen by astronomers. The estimated diameter is approximately 80 miles across,
making it larger than the state of Rhode Island. The nucleus is about 50 times larger
than found at the heart of most known comets. Its mass is estimated to be a staggering
500 trillion tons, a hundred thousand times greater.
What is China doing at the lunar distant retrograde orbit?The orbiter from China’s Chang’e-5 lunar sample return mission continues operations well
after it returned samples to Earth. Kristin Burke explores why that spacecraft may now
be operating in a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon.
Redirecting ESA programmes in response to geopolitical crisis ESA’s Director General has initiated a comprehensive review of all activities currently
undertaken in cooperation with Russia and Ukraine. The objective is to determine the
possible consequences of this new geopolitical context for ESA programmes and activities
and to create a more resilient and robust space infrastructure for Europe.
NASA and UAE to share Mars mission datasetsNASA’s MAVEN mission and the United Arab Emirates’ Hope Probe mission are paving the
way toward greater scientific collaboration and data exchange between the two Mars
orbiters.
This week's Astronautical News PDF is ready for downloadEvery Friday, take a look back at the past seven days in space
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