WASHINGTON – Hiring remains the most serious challenge space companies face. The industry has ambitions goals that it can accomplish, “but getting the manpower and getting people with the right niche talents into our companies to execute on these ideas is a huge challenge right now,” Cara Sindir, Airbus U.S. Space and Defense chief operations
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WASHINGTON — SpaceLogistics, a satellite-servicing firm owned by Northrop Grumman, last week successfully fired the electric propulsion system it is developing for the Mission Extension Pods it plans to launch in 2024. “It’s proceeding well. We achieved first light,” Rob Hauge, president of SpaceLogistics, told reporters March 24 at the Satellite 2022 conference. The Mission
Taken from the March 2022 issue of Physics World. Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue via the Physics World app. A comic book about teenage scientists joining a secret society with the goal of boosting women in science, and occasionally saving the world, The Curie Society sounds in equal measure
WASHINGTON — Spanish satellite operator Hispasat is open to more acquisitions that vertically integrate its business after buying managed services provider AXESS Networks, according to its CEO Miguel Panduro. Hispasat said March 21 it has agreed to acquire AXESS Networks in a deal valuing the company at $96 million. From its headquarters in Spain, AXESS
WASHINGTON — NASA announced March 23 that it will support development of a second lander to transport astronauts to and from the lunar surface to provide competition with SpaceX for the later “sustainable” phase of the Artemis program. The agency said it will soon kick off a competition for what it calls Sustaining Lunar Development,
Interactions between molecules and electrons in carbon nanotube walls can cause ‘quantum friction’. (Courtesy: Maggie Chiang/Simons Foundation) When water moves through nano-sized channels made of carbon, its flow rate is much higher than current theories of fluid dynamics predict. New work by researchers at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris, France and the Flatiron
The highly respected British charitable agency to combat poverty, Oxfam, predicts that climate change will produce “a growing trend of… destructive climate disasters.” And in our previous chapter of The Case of the Sexual Cosmos: Everything You Know About Nature is Wrong, I told you that our way out of climate change is climate stabilization
With a career history in the Event Planning and Entertainment industries, Wendy Dahl was the perfect choice as Chief Growth Officer for Covid Clinic. Her role encompasses expanding the organization’s reach to patients in the community at large. Dahl previously worked as an advertising analyst and media buyer for Western Dental where she worked with
WASHINGTON — Boeing executives are meeting with startups at the Satellite 2022 conference with an eye toward investment and collaboration. “We’re looking for those technologies that would make our platforms and programs better,” Teresa Segura, Boeing’s Applied Innovation leader, told SpaceNews. Since spinning off its venture capital arm, HorizonX Ventures, last year to establish AEI HorizonX,
Kennedy says nuclear thermal propulsion will help accelerate the development of the lunar economy WASHINGTON — Fred Kennedy, a former Pentagon official and veteran space executive, announced March 22 he is leading a new startup to commercialize nuclear thermal rocket propulsion. The startup, named Dark Fission Space Systems, “aims to accelerate the expansion of the
The Pentagon’s space agency is buying 126 small satellites for $1.8 billion to build a communications network in low Earth orbit known as the Transport Layer. The Space Development Agency is overseeing the Defense Department’s first major procurement of small satellites in low Earth orbit, a trend that has accelerated in the commercial industry as
Lockheed plans to offer the bus as a lower cost alternative to its traditional bespoke designs, said executive vice president Robert Lightfoot WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin plans to launch to orbit later this year a new satellite bus the company designed for both the commercial and government markets. The first launch of the LM400 will
Older than expected: artist’s impression of a magnetar in a cluster of ancient stars (in red) close to the spiral galaxy M81. The source of fast radio bursts (FRBs) first detected in 2020 is likely to be located within a dense cluster of ancient stars, according to astronomers led by Franz Kirsten at Chalmers University
WASHINGTON — European Space Agency officials said prospects are dimming for the recovery of a radar imaging satellite that malfunctioned nearly three months ago, but that efforts to save the spacecraft continue. The Sentinel-1B spacecraft malfunctioned in December, keeping the spacecraft from collecting C-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery. ESA said in January that they
Recent network attacks in Ukraine have been ‘an eye opener for everybody’ WASHINGTON — The U.S. government on March 17 advised satellite operators to put their guard up in the wake of a cyberattack that disrupted internet services in Europe provided by Viasat’s KA-SAT. “Given the current geopolitical situation, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
Taken from the April 2022 issue of Physics World, where it will appear under the headline “Crisis in Ukraine”. Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue via the Physics World app from 1 April. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a test for those who want science and politics kept apart, says
WASHINGTON — SpaceX set records for the reuse of its Falcon 9 booster and the mass that rocket placed into orbit March 19 with the latest launch of Starlink satellites. The Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 12:42 a.m. Eastern. The launch took