#Spacenews, #WASHINGTON — A #NASA spacecraft is finally on its way to a metallic main belt asteroid after a successful Falcon Heavy launch Oct. 13.

The #SpaceX Falcon Heavy #rocket lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 10:19 a.m. Eastern. Its payload, #NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, separated from the upper stage 62 minutes after liftoff. The launch was the eighth for the Falcon Heavy but the first by that rocket for #NASA.

In a statement, #NASA said controllers established two-way communications with the #spacecraft at 11:50 a.m. Eastern, confirming the spacecraft was in good condition as it goes through initial post-launch commissioning.

Psyche is a Discovery-class planetary science mission whose destination is an object in the main asteroid belt also called Psyche. That asteroid is made primarily of metal and could be the core of a larger object whose outer layers were stripped away.

#Spacenews, #Startup #GuardianSat gets research grant for #satellite self-defense technology.
The company developed a system to “detect orbital debris, track potential collision threats, and autonomously adjust the satellite’s course to prevent accidents.”
#WASHINGTON — The startup GuardianSat announced Oct. 12 it won a grant from the National Science Foundation’s America’s Seed Fund to advance the company’s technology designed to protect satellites from collisions with debris objects in space.

#GuardianSat, based in Delaware, won a Small #Business Technology Transfer Phase 1 research contract worth about $273,000. In addition the company will get technical support from the Aerospace Corp. America’s Seed Fund invests up to $200 million a year in promising startups.

The company developed a debris-avoidance system for satellites, based on technology patented by one of its founders, Robert Briskman, who is a co-founder of Sirius XM #satellite radio.

#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.