News
NASA spacecraft will pass through Australian skies this weekend
Australian stargazers will have the opportunity to see the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft as it journeys to the asteroid, Bennu.
Tag: spacecraft
Science & Environment
GALLERY: Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex
Six antennas huddle on the grassy 147ha site at Paddys River in the Tidbinbilla Valley, just under an hour’s drive from Canberra. One is a landscape-dwarfing dish as wide as a 22-story building is tall. Dotted around are three working 34m dishes and one under construction. The CDSCC is owned by NASA, but it is run through the innovation centre at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, as well as by the CSIRO. It is one of three deep-space tracking stations in NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) – the others are in Goldstone, California, and Madrid, Spain. The tracking stations are strategically placed around the globe, so that, as the Earth rotates, they can stay in touch with interplanetary spacecraft 24 hours a day. The DSN provides the vital link to the spacecraft of many nations travelling between the planets and beyond.
Science & Environment
Pluto revealed: What to expect of the New Horizons fly-by
The mission and why our first real look at Pluto might help explain the mysterious icy ‘doughnut’ around our Solar System.
News
All systems go for historic comet landing
A robotic probe bearing a laboratory has been launched by the European Space Agency, with the hopes of landing on a comet.
