Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a High-Altitude Pseudo-Satellite (HAPS) — an uncrewed airship, plane or balloon watching over Earth from the stratosphere. Operating like satellites but from closer to Earth, HAPS are the ‘missing link’ between drones flying close to Earth’s surface and satellites orbiting in space.
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Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a High-Altitude Pseudo-Satellite (HAPS) — an uncrewed airship, plane or balloon watching over Earth from the stratosphere. Operating like satellites but from closer to Earth, HAPS are the ‘missing link’ between drones flying close to Earth’s surface and satellites orbiting in space.
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The excitement and enthusiasm at ESA’s ɸ-week continues with participants exploring the wealth of new opportunities on the horizon. This doesn’t just involve new satellite technologies, but developments in communications, ways of merging information, artificial intelligence and new trends such as small satellites and citizen science.
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At ESA’s ɸ-week being held in Italy on 12–16 November, much of the focus has been on the future of Earth observation. As part of this discussion, Jaan Praks, from Aalto University Finland, explains the benefits of small satellites.
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The first element of Europe’s future evolution of the Vega launch vehicle for use beyond 2025 was successfully tested this week at Avio in Colleferro, Italy.
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The first element of Europe’s future evolution of the Vega launch vehicle for use beyond 2025 was successfully tested this week at Avio in Colleferro, Italy.
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The ‘fit check’ is that moment in a launch campaign when a satellite is first attached to the launcher adapter that will cradle it on its flight to orbit. This is supposed to be a mere formality, but uncertainty is there in its very name: what if these two items, manufactured in different parts of Europe, don’t fit together as planned?
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The ‘fit check’ is that moment in a launch campaign when a satellite is first attached to the launcher adapter that will cradle it on its flight to orbit. This is supposed to be a mere formality, but uncertainty is there in its very name: what if these two items, manufactured in different parts of Europe, don’t fit together as planned?
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The focus of the second day of ESA’s ɸ-week in Italy was on applying artificial intelligence to Earth observation, opportunities for launchers and Europe’s access to space, and a boot camp on space, food and energy.
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These finely-detailed ceramic parts have been 3D printed using simulated lunar regolith as part of an ESA-led investigation into how 3D printing could be used to support a lunar base.
“These parts have the finest print resolution ever achieved with objects made of regolith simulant, demonstrating a high level of print precision and widening the range of uses such items could be put to,” comments ESA materials engineer Advenit Makaya. “If one needs to print tools or machinery parts to replace broken parts on a lunar base, precision in the dimensions and shape of the printed items will be vital.
“They are the work of innovative Austrian company Lithoz, working on 3D printed ceramics.
“Normally their print process is based on materials such as aluminium oxide, zirconium oxide or silicon nitride. What we’ve demonstrated here is that it can also work with raw regolith, which is a collection of various different types of oxides, chiefly silicon oxide but also aluminium, calcium and iron oxides, among others.”
Ground and sieved down to particle size, the regolith grains are mixed with a light-reacting binding agent, laid down layer-by-layer then hardened by exposing them to light. The resulting printed part is then ‘sintered’ in an oven to bake it solid.
Johannes Homa, CEO of Lithoz added: “Thanks to our expertise in the additive manufacturing of ceramics, we were able to achieve these results very quickly. We believe there’s a huge potential in ceramic additive manufacturing for the Moon.”
As a next step, the parts will be tested to check their strength and mechanical properties, with the idea that similar parts could one day be employed to replace parts in a lunar base without requiring replacements from Earth.
This work was carried out as part of the URBAN project, supported through ESA’s Discovery and Preparation Programme.
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