Category Astronomy/Space

Healable spacecraft structures could soon be possible thanks to cutting-edge composite technology. Swiss companies CompPair and CSEM with Belgian company Com&Sens have partnered with the European Space Agency (ESA) to modify their self-healing carbon fiber product for use in space transportation.

Project Cassandra (a loose abbreviation of Composite Autonomous SenSing AnD RepAir) includes sensors and a heating element into a composite carbon-fiber material, allowing spacecraft to autonomously repair initial stages of damage.

Cassandra is part of ESA’s Future Innovation Research in Space Transportation (FIRST!) Initiative which is finding and testing innovative technology that will benefit European space transportation.

Composite materials in space
Composite materials like carbo...

Tiny life forms tucked into debris from an asteroid hit could catapult to other planets—including Earth—and survive, a new Johns Hopkins University study finds. The work demonstrates that a certain hardy bacterium easily withstands extreme pressure comparable to an ejection from Mars after an asteroid hit, as well as the inhospitable conditions it would face during the ensuing interplanetary journey.

The study, published today in PNAS Nexus, suggests that microorganisms can survive remarkably more extreme conditions than expected, and raises questions about origins of life. The work also has significant implications for planetary protection and space missions.

“Life might actually survive being ejected from one planet and mo...

An international team that included Southwest Research Institute has shown how complex organic molecules (COMs), considered essential chemical precursors to life, may have become part of Jupiter’s four largest moons as they formed. The results appear in companion papers published in The Planetary Science Journal and Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Together, the studies shed new light on how the ingredients for life could have reached the Jovian system.

COMs are carbon based molecules that also contain elements such as oxygen and nitrogen, which are necessary for living systems...

Simulated lunar dirt can be turned into extremely durable structures, potentially paving the way to more sustainable and cost-effective space missions, a new study suggests. Using a special laser 3D printing method, researchers melted fake lunar soil—a synthetic version of the fine dusty material on the moon surface, called regolith simulant—into layers and fused it with a base surface to manufacture small, heat-resistant objects.

If utilized on the lunar surface, the material may help build sturdy, nontoxic habitats and tools for future astronauts, capabilities that would be vital to the NASA Artemis missions that aim to establish a long-term human presen...