May 21, 2020

Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex to Reopen May 28, Face Coverings Required (Source: Space Coast Daily)
Leadership at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex announced today that the visitor complex will reopen to guests effective Thursday, May, 28, 2020 with reduced admission, attendance limits and some attractions unavailable. During the initial reopening phase, Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex will begin new measures and procedures in accordance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) recommendations.

This includes opening with limited attendance and encouraging advance daily admission purchases; requiring face coverings and temperature screenings for employees and guests; accommodating social distancing in queues, restaurants, and other facilities throughout the visitor complex; and implementing increased frequency of sanitization and disinfection. (5/20)

Lockheed Martin Joins Inmarsat and Others to Pursue UK Space Opportunities (Source: Inmarsat)
U.K. companies Inmarsat and Serco have joined forces with the British divisions of Lockheed Martin and CGI Inc. to create a “national team in space.” The team, called Athena, will collaborate to jointly pursue space-related business opportunities in the U.K. The companies’ expertise spans space, telecommunications, defense and information technology. (5/20)

UK's Skyrora Tests Skylark-L Suborbital Rocket (Source: Skyrora)
British launch startup Skyrora completed a full-duration static fire of its Skylark-L suborbital rocket, the company said May 20. Skylark-L is designed to carry 60 kilograms up to 100 kilometers and back. Skyrora says the rocket will be ready to launch from a British spaceport by spring 2021, followed by its larger orbital-class Skyrora XL rocket by 2023. Skylark-L uses hydrogen peroxide and kerosene as propellant. Skyrora plans to eventually introduce its own fuel, called Ecosene, which the company describes as a kerosene equivalent made from un-recyclable plastic waste. (5/20)

DLR Begins Construction of Space Debris Observatory (Source: DLR)
The German space agency DLR is starting construction of an observatory to monitor space debris. The Multi-Spectral Large Aperture Receiver Telescope will use a 1.75-meter diameter mirror housed in a 15-meter-high tower with a rotating dome. The telescope’s primary focus will be space debris in low Earth orbit between 400 and 2,000 kilometers above the Earth. DLR and Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, BMWi, are investing 2.5 million euros into the telescope, which DLR says will be the largest of its kind in Europe. DLR said the telescope itself is already built by ASA Astrosysteme GmbH. DLR expects to inaugurate the site in the spring of 2021 once the telescope’s building is completed. (5/20)

Ruag CEO Steps Down (Source: Ruag)
The longtime chief executive of Ruag Space, Peter Guggenbach, is leaving to “take on a new challenge outside the company,” Ruag announced May 19. Guggenbach was CEO of Ruag Space, a supplier of rocket and satellite parts, for 11 years, according to LinkedIn. While at Ruag, he helped the Swiss company expand into the U.S. market, which now counts for a third of Ruag Space’s revenue. Luis De León Chardel, the deputy head of Ruag Space, is taking over management on an interim basis. (5/20)

In an Orange Swirl, Astronomers Say Humanity Has its First Look at the Birth of a Planet (Source: NBC News)
An image of a mesmerizing cosmic spiral, twisting and swirling around a galactic maw, may be the first direct evidence of the birth of a planet ever captured by humanity. The European Southern Observatory released a picture Wednesday of what astronomers believe shows the process of cosmic matter at a gravitational tipping point, collapsing into a new world around a nearby star. Astronomers said the dramatic scene offers a rare glimpse into the formation of a baby planet, which could help scientists better understand how planets come to exist around stars. (5/20)

Massive Rotating Disk in Early Universe Discovered by Largest Radio Telescope in the World (Source: SciTech Daily)
In our 13.8 billion-year-old universe, most galaxies like our Milky Way form gradually, reaching their large mass relatively late. But a new discovery made with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) of a massive rotating disk galaxy, seen when the universe was only ten percent of its current age, challenges the traditional models of galaxy formation. Galaxy DLA0817g, nicknamed the Wolfe Disk after the late astronomer Arthur M. Wolfe, is the most distant rotating disk galaxy ever observed. The unparalleled power of ALMA made it possible to see this galaxy spinning at 170 miles per second, similar to our Milky Way. (5/20)

Learning to Live and Work Off-Planet (Source: Supercluster)
NASA and its industry partners are aiming to send humans to Mars as early as the 2030s. After the iconic Apollo missions to the Moon, landing humans on our neighboring world is the next giant leap, and we’ve been preparing for that moment right here, in Earth orbit. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the ISS. For two decades, there’s been a giant space laboratory speeding around Earth. Bigger than a Boeing 747 airplane, the International Space Station (ISS) is the largest human satellite ever built. Click here. (5/20)

NASA Scientists Detect Evidence of Parallel Universe Where Time Runs Backward (Source: New York Post)
A group of NASA scientists working on an experiment in Antarctica have detected evidence of a parallel universe — where the rules of physics are the opposite of our own. The concept of a parallel universe has been around since the early 1960s, mostly in the minds of fans of sci-fi TV shows and comics, but now a cosmic ray detection experiment has found particles that could be from a parallel realm that also was born in the Big Bang. The experts used a giant balloon to carry NASA’s Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna, or ANITA, high above Antarctica, where the frigid, dry air provided the perfect environment with little to no radio noise to distort its findings.

A constant “wind” of high-energy particles constantly arrives on Earth from outer space. Low-energy, subatomic neutrinos with a mass close to zero can pass completely through Earth, but higher-energy objects are stopped by the solid matter of our planet, according to the report. That means the high-energy particles can only be detected coming “down” from space, but the team’s ANITA detected heavier particles, so-called tau neutrinos, which come “up” out of the Earth. The finding implies that these particles are actually traveling backward in time, suggesting evidence of a parallel universe, according to the Daily Star. (5/19)