Stellar Innovations: Flex Satellite Milestones, 3D Printing Breakthroughs

Designed to map global vegetation fluorescence, Floris will quantify photosynthetic activity and detect plant stress from orbit. Photosynthesis sustains life by converting carbon dioxide into oxygen, but it also produces a faint fluorescence signal invisible to the human eye. This signal changes with plant health and environmental conditions, providing a valuable measure of ecosystem vitality. Flex will detect and analyze this signal from space, delivering unprecedented insights into

plant health monitoring. Thales Alenia Space, the mission's prime contractor oversaw the platform's assembly, integration and testing at its Belfast, Northern Ireland clean room before the current integration phase in Caen. With the spacecraft now fully assembled, the team will proceed with final test campaigns ahead of the planned 2026 launch. You're listening to Astronomy Daily.

zero gravity indicator. Yes, one of the small dolls, which also includes a tribute to Earthrise and a plush representation of the Greek goddess Artemis, herself a namesake for NASA's new lunar program, will fulfill the purpose and tradition of flying a tethered toy as a visual signal that the crew are indeed weightless in an environment of outer space

itself. The Zero G indicator ZGI or ZGI for our Northern Hemisphere neighbors will indicate floating aboard the mission's Orion spacecraft before the astronauts can unbuckle from their seats and do the same float around. That is the Artemis II crew, indicates Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and Mission Specialist Christina Koch, all with NASA and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, also mission specialist.

The 11 day flight will loop far beyond the moon and return to Earth, uh testing critical systems for later lunar orbit and landing missions, matt Barry, the chief executive of Freelancer uh, NASA's Partner in the Moon mascot NASA Artemis 2 ZGI uh, design challenge, said in a statement released on Friday. These finalists have proven they indeed have the right stuff. The crowdsourcing company organized the judging panel it chose for the 25 finalists from the 2,605 entries that were

submitted between March and June. The selected dolls include 12 designed by individual students and classroom teams, and 13 by adults. The finalists hailed from nine US states and nine foreign countries, including Canada, Japan, Peru, Singapore and the United Kingdom. The creativity they've shown is incredible. They should be proud that they have their efforts recognized on such a stage and be part of humanity's ongoing quest to understand

the cosmos, said Barry. NASA is expected to name the winning ZGI later this year. That one submission will be made into a doll and flown on the Artemis 2 mission, currently on track to launch as early as February but no later than April 2026. Entrance created designs that represented humanity expl and the spirit of the Artemis campaign that could be made from a list of materials from NASA's Thermal Blanket Lab, which will assemble the ZGI from the winner's instruction and renderings.

The 25 finalists won 12 $25 or an Artemis Prize pack, depending on their age. In total, $23,275 in prizes were awarded the tradition of flying 00G indicators began when former Soviet Union with the world's first human space flight in 1961. Since then, many of Yuri Gagarin's fellow cosmonauts have flown toys and stuffed dolls as Talisman and zgi, often at the suggestion of their children. The ZGI custom migrated to the United States with the first flights of NASA's Commercial Crew Program.

NASA's uncrewed Artemis 1 mission, which flew around the moon in 2022, carried a custom made Snoopy doll complete with a miniature version of the same pressure suit that the Artemis 2 astronauts will wear on Orion. The full list of 25 finalists on the in the Moon mascot Anasa Artemis 2 ZGI Design Challenge It's a bit of

a mouthful. They can be found@collectspace.com for your reading pleas Foreign thank you for joining us for this Monday edition of Astronomy Daily, where we offer just a few stories from the now famous Astronomy Daily newsletter, which you can receive in your email every day just like Hallie and I do. And to do that, just visit our uh, URL astronomydaily IO and place your email address in the slot

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performance. Known as oxide dispersion strengthened alloys, these powders were challenging to manufacture at a reasonable cost when the project started started. However, the advanced dispersion coating technique developed at Glenn employs resonant acoustic mixing. Rapid vibration is applied to a container filled with the metal powder and nano oxide particles. The vibration evenly coats each metal particle with the oxide,

making them inseparable. Even if a manufactured part is ground down to powder and reused, the next component will have the qualities of ODs. The benefits over common alloys are significant. GRX10 could last up to a year at 2000 degrees Fahrenheit under stress loads that would crack any other affordable alloy within hours. Additionally, 3D printing parts using GRX810 enables more complex shapes compared to metal parts manufactured with traditional methods.

Elementum3D, an Erie, Colorado based company, produces GRX 810 for customers in quantities ranging from small batches to over a ton. The company has a co exclusive license for the NASA patented alloy and manufacturing process and continues to work with the agency under a Space act agreement to improve the material. A material under stress or a heavy load at high temperature can start to deform and stretch almost like taffy, said Jeremy Eitan, chief Technical Officer with Elementum

3D. Initial tests done on the large scale production of our GRX810 alloy showed a lifespan that's twice as long as the small batch material initially produced, and those were already fantastic. Commercial space and other industries, including aviation, are testing GRX810 for additional applications. For example, one Elementum 3D customer, VectoFlow, is testing a GRX810 flow sensor. Flow sensors monitor the speed of gases flowing through a turbine, helping engineers optimize engine performance.

However, these sensors can burn out in minutes due to extreme temperatures. Using GRX810 flow sensors could improve airplane fuel efficiency, reduce emissions and hardware replacements. Working hand in hand with industry, NASA is driving technology developments that are mutually beneficial to the agency and America's space economy. You're listening to Astronomy Daily, the podcast with Steve Dunkley.

The Twin Escapade AH stands for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers probes have been awaiting their turn aboard New Glenn, which is originally slated to carry the satellites on its maiden launch in January. However, NASA opted not to risk a costly mission delay due to the debut liftoff

of the new rocket. Now that the mission has been assigned a net date, Blue Origin posted on social media to expect some exciting things buzzing around New Glenn's pad at Space Launch Complex 36, located at Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida. The Glenn lifted off for the first time in the beginning of 2025. Blue Origin successfully launched a test version of its Blue Ring Satell to Earth uh orbit, but failed in the attempt to land New Glenn's

first stage at sea. In addition to launching its NASA payload into an interplanetary trajectory, Blue Origin will once again try to land and Recover New Glenn's 188.5 foot tall first stage booster on a drone ship in the Atlantic. Escapade will be New Glenn's first interplanetary mission, an ambitious undertaking for the relatively new launch

vehicle. The twin orbiters will study the magnetosphere around the red planet as well as analyze the processes that control the interaction of energetic solar wind particles and the martian atmosphere. The twin NASA satellites were built by California based rocket Lab. Once in space, their operation will be handed over, uh, to the University of California's Space Science Laboratory tasked with managing the $80 million mission for the agency.

New Glenn will also carry a secondary payload as part of the NG2 launch, a technology demonstration from satellite communications company ViaSat, which will be flown as well in support of NASA's Communications Services Project, which partners with the commercial sector, uh, to advance developments concerning in space networking for near Earth uh, satellites.