Science

WASHINGTON — The commercial space industry hopes to continue recent progress in regulatory reform even if there is a new president or a change in party control in Congress after the election. The last six months have seen two major milestones in government regulation of commercial space activities: the publication of revised commercial remote sensing

This article is the seventh in a series of essays written by Black physicists and co-published with Physics Today as part of #BlackInPhysics week, an event dedicated to celebrating Black physicists and their contributions to the scientific community, and to revealing a more complete picture of what a physicist looks like.

U.S. investment in commercial geoint has been relatively flat over the last five years WASHINGTON — A new study by the MITRE Corp. says the U.S. commercial geospatial intelligence industry is being outpaced by foreign competitors and the U.S. government could do more to help. U.S. investment in commercial geoint has been relatively flat over

NSSA says space programs are governed by a mix of outdated and emerging classification guidance that produces inconsistent policies. WASHINGTON — The National Security Space Association, a group that represents U.S. defense and intelligence contractors, says outdated security clearance policies thwart the United States’ ability to outpace adversaries that seek to undermine U.S. space operations.

Quantum erasure: calculations suggest that heat dissipation could be a problem in large-scale quantum computers of the future. (Courtesy: iStock/agsandrew) The question of how much heat is given off when erasing a single bit of information has excited scientists for decades, given its fundamental implications for thermodynamics and computation. Physicists in Ireland and the UK

SAN FRANCISCO — General Atomics announced Oct. 28 the acquisition of Guidestar Optical Systems, a space and defense company based in Longmont, Colorado, which it plans to integrate into the General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) group. “We are excited to bring the Guidestar team on board to further enhance our diverse portfolio of laser technologies,”

Air Force Col. Michael “Hopper” Hopkins, commander of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission, will be commissioned into the U.S. Space Force. WASHINGTON — NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins, a U.S. Air Force colonel and the commander of the upcoming SpaceX Crew Dragon mission, is transferring to the U.S. Space Force and is expected to be commissioned aboard

SAN FRANCISCO — The Federal Communications Commission approved the creation Oct. 27 of a 5G Fund for Rural America to distribute as much as $9 billion over the next decade to extend 5G wireless broadband connectivity to rural communities. The FCC plans to distribute the funds through a series of reverse auctions. During the first

By Allison Kubo Hutchsion  Although humans first witnessed nuclear reactors in 1942 with the development of the Chicago-Pile by Enrico Fermi, natural fission reactors existed billions of years ago. Fission is the process of breaking apart atoms of heavy elements such as uranium. Energy is released during fission in the form of heat and can

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai talks orbital debris rules, megaconstellations, C-band auction, Ligado and more with SpaceNews. WASHINGTON — The U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s recent run of space-related regulatory actions has earned the agency both praise and scorn from the space industry. Streamlined licensing procedures adopted earlier this year promise to make it cheaper for smallsat

AN FRANCISCO – The Aerospace Corp. is working to license commercially a laser communications subsystem that downlinked data at a rate of 200 megabits per second from three-unit cubesats. The Aerospace Corp. demonstrated the latest version of its laser communications subsystem on the Rogue Alpha and Beta cubesats built for the U.S. Space Force Space

SAN FRANCISCO – An international consortium plans to launch a hyperspectral camera built by South Africa’s Dragonfly Aerospace on a NanoAvionics rideshare mission scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in 2021. The mission, called HyperActive, is designed to demonstrate the performance of Dragonfly’s miniature hyperspectral imager plus a high-gain X-band antenna and

This article is the first in a series of essays written by Black physicists and co-published with Physics Today as part of #BlackInPhysics week, an event dedicated to celebrating Black physicists and their contributions to the scientific community, and to revealing a more complete picture of what a physicist looks like.

WASHINGTON — Intelsat rejected a $1.8 billion claim filed by SES regarding the breakup of the C-Band Alliance, arguing instead that SES’s action cost Intelsat more than $1.6 billion in potential C-band clearing payments. SES filed the claim in July in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, where Intelsat filed for Chapter

Tranche 1 is envisioned to have about 100 to 150 space vehicles, developed and manufactured by multiple vendors. WASHINGTON — The Space Development Agency in recent months acquired 28 satellites that it plans to launch in 2022. It is now preparing for its next big procurement of up to 150 satellites to be launched in