NASA engineers have successfully integrated the state-of-the-art Roman Coronagraph Instrument with the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s Instrument Carrier at the Goddard Space Flight Center, marking a key milestone in the telescope’s assembly and readiness for its scheduled 2027 launch.
After 24 years of studying Earth’s magnetosphere, the ESA’s Salsa satellite from the Cluster mission is on course to reenter the atmosphere in a controlled descent. The reentry, scheduled for 18:48 UTC, on September 8, 2024, is part of a broader effort by the ESA to mitigate space debris risks by ensuring the satellite disintegrates safely over the South Pacific.
A recent study shows that a plume of debris produced by NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission’s impact on Dimorphos in 2022, could reach Mars and Earth within 7 years, creating a new meteor shower.
ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) spacecraft successfully passed through Earth’s Van Allen radiation belts, completing a significant achievement in its mission to explore Jupiter. The mission, led by ESA, tested the RADiation-hard Electron Monitor (RADEM), designed to measure high-energy particles in severe settings.
NASA has postponed the return of astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams to the International Space Station (ISS) due to safety concerns over Boeing’s Starliner aircraft. The mission, originally planned for September 2024, has been postponed to February 2025.Â
The European Space Agency’s JUICE mission successfully completed the world’s first lunar-Earth flyby on August 20, 2024, a vital maneuver that used the gravitational forces of the Moon and Earth to send the spacecraft toward Venus. This accomplishment is critical for saving fuel and modifying the spacecraft’s trajectory as it travels to Jupiter.
The upper stage of a Chinese Long March 6A rocket fragmented into over 700 pieces in low Earth orbit following its launch on August 6, 2024, as confirmed by U.S. Space Command on August 8, posing a significant threat to orbital safety.
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) investigated the significant impacts and scientific insights from the May 2024 G5 – Extreme geomagnetic storm and how it impacted satellite operations and atmospheric activities.
Russian decommissioned satellite Resurs-P1 broke up in orbit on June 26, 2024, releasing roughly 100 pieces of trackable debris. The number rose to 180 by the end of June 27 and is expected to keep rising, according to Leo Labs. Following the breakup, NASA instructed the 9 astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) to take shelter in their respective spacecraft as a standard precautionary measure.
The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-U (GOES-U) was successfully launched on June 25, 2024, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. This marks the completion of the Extreme Ultraviolet and X-ray Irradiance Sensors (EXIS) program, led by the University of Colorado Boulder’s LASP, enhancing space weather monitoring.
