June 24 – June 30, 2019 | Colorado Space News

Dragonfly To Explore Titan’s Ocean World

Dragonfly mission concept of entry, descent, landing, surface operations, and flight at Titan. Image credit: Johns Hopkins APL

June 28, 2019 – NASA has announced the next destination in the New Frontiers program will be the richly organic ocean world of Titan. The Dragonfly mission will fly to multiple locations on Saturn’s moon to investigate its organic chemistry and habitability, monitor atmospheric and surface conditions, image landforms to investigate geological processes, and perform seismic studies. Read More

SNC Satellite Boosts U.S. Exploration & Research

June 27, 2019 – The Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) Demonstration and Science Experiments (DSX) free-flying satellite, built on a spacecraft platform designed and developed by Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), is on-orbit and successfully performing experiments. DSX is the latest innovative satellite program from SNC, the global aerospace and national security contractor owned by Chairwoman and President Eren Ozmen and CEO Fatih Ozmen. Read More

Scientists To Chase South American Total Eclipse With Research Aircraft

Total solar eclipse over India in 1980. Image Credit: UCAR/HAO

June 27, 2019 – A scientific instrument specifically designed to study the Great American Eclipse of 2017 will soon be making its second journey through the shadow of the moon. On July 2, scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) will be sending a high-altitude research jet through the path of totality of a solar eclipse, taking place in the Southern Hemisphere, to capture data that could unveil mysteries about the Sun’s magnetic field. Read More

United Launch Alliance Announces K-12 Student Rocket Launch Payloads

June 27, 2019 – United Launch Alliance (ULA) has selected K-12 student “payloads” to launch atop its intern-built sport rocket at this summer’s Student Rocket Launch. The event, sponsored by ULA and Ball Aerospace, offers a unique, hands-on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) experience centered on inspiring the next generation of rocket scientists. ULA and Ball selected the July 20 launch date in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Read More

Oakman Aerospace, Inc. Named Top Woman-Owned Company For Third Consecutive Year

June 26, 2019 – ColoradoBiz Magazine has named Oakman Aerospace, Inc. (OAI) a Top Woman-Owned Company for the third consecutive year. Each year, ColoradoBiz Magazine conducts extensive research, collects industry data, and facilitates reader voting to produce various business rankings. With this acknowledgement, OAI adds the distinction of being titled one of Colorado’s top woman-owned companies to its long-standing reputation as a successful aerospace corporation. Read More

NASA Selects SwRI’s PUNCH Mission To Image Beyond The Sun’s Outer Corona

NASA has selected Southwest Research Institute to lead a microsatellite mission to image the Sun’s outer corona. PUNCH proposes a constellation of four suitcase-sized satellites that will orbit the Earth, studying how the Sun’s corona connects with the interplanetary medium, to better understand how coronal structures infuse the solar wind with mass and energy. Image Credit: Southwest Research Institute

June 26, 2019 – NASA has selected Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) to lead the Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission, a landmark Small Explorers Program mission that will image beyond the Sun’s outer corona. PUNCH is being led by Dr. Craig DeForest at the Southwest Research institute in Boulder, Colorado. Read More

SwRI Scientist Develops Novel Algorithm To Aid Search For Exoplanets

This artists’s cartoon view gives an impression of how common planets are around the stars in the Milky Way. The planets, their orbits and their host stars are all vastly magnified compared to their real separations. A six-year search that surveyed millions of stars using the microlensing technique concluded that planets around stars are the rule rather than the exception. The average number of planets per star is greater than one. Image Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

June 26, 2019 – Inspired by movie streaming services such as Netflix or Hulu, a Southwest Research Institute scientist developed a technique to look for stars likely to host giant, Jupiter-sized planets outside of our solar system. She developed an algorithm to identify stars likely to host giant exoplanets, based on the composition of stars known to have planets. Read More

CU Satellite Mission Selected To Explore Binary Asteroid

NASA rendering of a Janus satellite rendezvousing with a binary asteroid. Image Credit: NASA

June 25, 2019 – A team led by the University of Colorado Boulder landed a coveted finalist spot in a new NASA program that will launch small satellites into space to explore the origins and evolution of the solar system. The CU Boulder group has proposed a mission that will send two of these miniature craft to rendezvous with, and study, a target binary asteroid – a pair of asteroids that revolve around each other in close proximity. Read More

Meteors Help Martian Clouds Form