cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16921003

Interview with Toni Tolker-Nielsen, ESA director of space transportation

ESA and Vast signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) June 6 during the ILA Berlin air show, agreeing to study collaboration on the commercial space stations that Vast plans to develop, starting with the Haven-1 station Vast plans to launch in the second half of next year.

According to the statement, ESA and Vast will study potential use of Vast stations by ESA and its member states. They will also look for roles for European industry for providing components for Vast’s stations, as well as use of future European crew and cargo spacecraft.

Fingers crossed for our new European launcher 🤞

TLDR:

June 18 : wet dress rehearsal

Launch: first two weeks of July

Tentative date to be announced during ILA airshow between 5-9 of June

The French space agency CNES has announced a partnership with Spartan Space, the Institute of Space Medicine and Physiology (MEDES), and the sporting goods retailer Decathlon to develop a European intra-vehicular activity (IVA) spacesuit.

ESA’s Earth Cloud Aerosol and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) mission is getting ready for lift-off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Vandenberg, California, with a target launch date of no earlier than 28 May 2024. Save the date and watch the launch live on ESA WebTV or ESA YouTube.

Can I ask how everyone personally feels about using nuclear material for space exploration? For the rovers heating elements it will be just a couple of grams but for generating electricity via a RTG a spacecraft would require several kilograms of radioactive material.

Researchers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope may have detected atmospheric gases surrounding 55 Cancri e, a hot rocky exoplanet 41 light-years from Earth. This is the best evidence to date for the existence of a rocky planet atmosphere outside our Solar System.

Fingers crossed that it's not affecting the mission objectives