Science

HELSINKI — A Long March 4C rocket sent a new classified Yaogan satellite into orbit Thursday, marking China’s sixth orbital launch of 2022. The Long March 4C lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert at 3:09 a.m. Eastern (15:09 local time). The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) confirmed

SAN FRANCISCO – Kongsberg Satellite Services announced plans March 16 to establish a dedicated antenna network for lunar communications. “Building and operating networks is our core competency,” Arnulf Kjeldsen, KSAT executive vice president for strategy and technology, told SpaceNews. After spending decades operating communications networks for satellites in low, medium and geostationary Earth orbit, supporting

WASHINGTON — NorthStar Earth & Space, a company planning a satellite constellation to collect space situational awareness (SSA) data, is working with Spire to field an initial fleet of spacecraft. The companies announced March 16 that Spire will develop three 12-unit cubesats for launch in 2023 that will carry sensors for collecting SSA data for

A $550 million congressional add-on in 2022 is only a down payment to kickstart the deployment of a 28-satellite constellation in low Earth orbit WASHINGTON — A $550 million increase to the Pentagon’s 2022 budget was directed by Congress to procure sensor satellites and launch them to low Earth orbit to detect and track Russian

Circular Fermi surfaces create a ring-like shape in trilayer graphene. (Courtesy: IST Austria) Last year, experimentalists at Harvard University in the US made an unexpected discovery: three layers of graphene are better than two at conducting electricity without resistance. At the time, the reasons for this unusual superconducting behaviour were unclear. Now, however, theorists in

WASHINGTON — NASA is ready to roll out the first Space Launch System rocket this week for a countdown rehearsal ahead of a launch later this year. Agency officials said at a March 14 briefing that they had completed reviews for the scheduled March 17 rollout of the SLS from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB)

AUSTIN, Texas — Astra Space says it will attempt its next Rocket 3.3 launch as soon as March 14 as the first flight in a multi-launch contract with Spaceflight. Astra said March 14 it received a license from the Federal Aviation Administration for that launch from Pacific Spaceport Complex – Alaska on Kodiak Island. Liftoff

U.S. Space Command last month opened a small office at the Catalyst Campus, a business park in Colorado Springs where more than 30 startups and defense contractors have set up shop. Space Command, the U.S. military combatant command responsible for operations in outer space, tracks satellites and debris in orbit. Amid growing concerns about threats

The Wide Field of View satellite will be put back in storage until the Space Force decides how to move forward WASHINGTON — The launch of a U.S. Space Force mission known as USSF-12 has been put on indefinite pause, for reasons that are not being disclosed.  USSF-12 was planned as a two-satellite mission that

The two Space Tracking and Surveillance System satellites were taken out of service on March 8 WASHINGTON — The U.S. Missile Defense Agency decommissioned two missile-tracking satellites that have operated in low Earth orbit for more than 12 years, MDA said March 14.  The two Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS) satellites were taken out

SAN FRANCISCO – Agile Space Industries, a Durango, Colorado company focused on in-space chemical propulsion, is additively manufacturing thrusters for robotic lunar landers being built by Astrobotic Technology, ispace and Masten Space Systems. Specifically, Agile is manufacturing attitude control thrusters for Astrobotic’s Griffin lunar lander. For Masten’s Xelene and Tokyo-based ispace’s Series 2 lunar landers,

Experimental platform: The time crystal studied in this research used a chain of 57 qubits in one of IBM’s quantum systems, which are based on the IBM Quantum System One device shown here. (Courtesy: IBM Quantum) Researchers in Australia have created the largest time crystal to date, using 57 qubits on an openly accessible IBM

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.

Artist’s impression of a (now-disproven) candidate planet formerly thought to be orbiting the star Alpha Centauri B, which is part of the triple star system closest to Earth. (Credit: ESO/L. Calçada/Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org)) Planets orbiting the Sun-like stars of Alpha Centauri could be carbon-rich worlds with diamonds and graphite littered across their surfaces, say astronomers.

TAMPA, Fla. — AST SpaceMobile is expanding a launch deal with SpaceX for its cellphone-compatible broadband constellation, following a 2021 decision to move its upcoming BlueWalker-3 prototype mission from Russia’s now-embargoed Soyuz to a Falcon 9.  BlueWalker-3 was booked on a Soyuz as a secondary payload but moved its reservation to Falcon 9 last August

The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine has united the space community in our country and worldwide. International space companies are supporting their Ukrainian colleagues, and Ukrainian companies are deploying volunteering directions of work because they have to secure their employees and help the army.  Credit: Promin Aerospace From the first days of the war, world

Dark sky: a splendid view of the Milky Way. (Courtesy: Bruno Gilli/ESO/CC BY 4.0) What do Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge in Northern Ireland, Compton Bay on the Isle of Wight and Llynnau Cregennen in Snowdonia National Park in North Wales all have in common? They are just some of the top 10 places in the UK