Space Highlights - May 24, 2017

May 24, 2017

NASA has entered into an agreement with India's ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) to jointly place an Earth resources, radar mapping satellite into orbit in 2021 using India's GSLV rocket.
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/GSLV_Rocket_to_Launch_Nasa_ISROs_NISAR_Satellite_999.html


Rocket Lab's Electron small satellite rocket is expected to make its first orbital attempt later this week.  The new booster is aimed at the microsatellite market.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/05/20/small-satellite-launcher-set-for-first-orbital-test-flight/


The first microsatellite to be developed and built in Slovakia is expected to be launched on a Falcon 9 rocket in early June.
https://spectator.sme.sk/c/20540006/the-launch-of-the-first-slovak-satellite-set.html


Ireland's first satellite, developed by University College Dublin and Queen's University Belfast, is expected to be released as a piggy-back payload to the International Space Station.
http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/first-irish-satellite-to-be-launched-in-space-790875.html


NASA has released new images of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus, capturing the moon's polar regions in greater detail.
https://thespacereporter.com/2017/05/cassini-captures-new-images-enceladus/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4531040/NASA-reveals-stunning-new-Cassini-image-Enceladus.html


A new study canvasing data from the Cassini spacecraft has concluded that the geology of Saturn's largest moon Titan, with its river beds and lakes formed by liquid methane, resembles its counterparts on Mars more closely than its counterparts on Earth.
https://phys.org/news/2017-05-history-titan-landscape-resembles-mars.html
http://www.astrobio.net/comparativeplanetology/rivers-three-worlds-tell-different-tales/
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2131672-titans-riverbeds-show-a-terrain-built-more-like-mars-than-earth/


Researchers have now precisely mapped the orbits of all seven TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets - the outermost of which takes less than 19 Earth days to complete one orbit.
http://www.space.com/36962-earth-size-exoplanet-trappist-1h-not-habitable.html


Despite a wide range of exoplanets identified within the past decade, no consistent classificiation system currently exists for identifying the various bodies.
http://www.space.com/36935-planet-classification.html


Having failed to detect evidence for Axions, CERN's CAST detector has placed further limits on the sort of particles that might make up dark matter.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170523104335.htm