#spacenews, #PARIS — Launched atop a #SpaceX #Falcon 9 #rocket from Cape Canaveral on July 1, the European Space Agency’s 2-ton Euclid space observatory is intended to scrutinize the universe in search of answers to the question of how undetectable dark matter and dark energy have been shaping the universe for billions of years.

It took a month for #Euclid to arrive at the Earth-sun L-2 Lagrange point, a gravitationally stable spot 1.5 million kilometers from the Earth in the direction opposite the sun. Once there, the Thales Alenia Space-built spacecraft was expected to undergo a two-month commissioning phase before beginning science operations.

However, problems were detected during instrument-performance verification that, if unresolved, could prevent the telescope from providing the highest-resolution images of the deep universe in all conditions.

#Spacenews, #HELSINKI — #Azerbaijan signed up to China’s International Lunar Research Station project Tuesday, on the sidelines of a major international space conference.

Li Guoping, chief engineer of the #China National Space Administration (CNSA) and Samaddin Asadov, chairman of the Board of Azercosmos, Azerbaijan’s space agency, signed a joint statement on cooperation on the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) Oct. 3 during the 74th International Astronautical Congress (IAC), hosted by #Azerbaijan, in the capital Baku. #CNSA announced the agreement Oct. 8 via a statement on its webpages.

#BAKU, Azerbaijan — A working group of nations signed up to the Artemis Accords aim to increase transparency and safety of civil lunar exploration missions.

The second agency meeting of #Artemis Accords signatories concluded on the sidelines of the 74th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in #Baku, Oct. 3. The meetings continued efforts to establish principles for safe and sustainable space exploration held for the first time at the 73rd IAC in Paris last year.

Representatives from three co-chairing nations presented findings from work groups conducted over the last year immediately after the meetings.

#Boeing’s Quantum Leap: #Satellites in Record Time, #Boosting National Security and Commercial Connectivity.
In 1963, #Boeing heritage company #Hughes Space and Communications launched into orbit a 78-pound #satellite called #Syncom that could receive signals from Earth and send those signals back down to different spots around the globe. That first communications satellite was built in the same El Segundo, California, facility where the Nash Rambler was built in the 1950s and where Boeing today produces satellites for commercial customers like SES and Viasat, as well as the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). Syncom production was a ground-breaking effort that incorporated cutting edge technology of the day. Building the spacecraft took several years.

Since then, Boeing—which acquired #Hughes in 2000—has been delivering satellites on faster and faster timelines; production is now tallied in months, not years. But earlier this year, when Millennium Space Systems, a Boeing Company, delivered a satellite for U.S. Space Systems Command’s Space Safari Program Office in an astounding eight months, the industry took note.

#WASHINGTON — #NASA has agreed to extend operations of its New Horizons spacecraft through late this decade to support “multidisciplinary” science that could include another Kuiper Belt object flyby.

#NASA announced Sept. 29 that it would extend New Horizons, currently approved for operations through the end of fiscal year 2024, until the spacecraft exits the Kuiper Belt, which is expected around the end of the decade. The focus of the mission, starting in fiscal year 2025, will be collecting heliophysics data as the spacecraft heads out of the solar system.