TAMPA, Fla. — Condosat operator Loft Orbital has ordered more than 15 satellite buses from Airbus in a deal announced Jan. 14 that calls for building the initial OneWeb-derived platforms in France before shifting serial production to Florida. Loft Orbital expects to receive the buses in 2023, leveraging the automated production line that Airbus is
Science
DARPA has watched NASA’s work in nuclear propulsion systems for space exploration and believes the technology can be applied to military satellites. WASHINGTON — An experiment planned by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will send to orbit a spacecraft powered by a nuclear propulsion system. Michael Leahy, director of DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office, said
Nano mask: even though the mask is extremely thin, the filtration efficiency is not inferior to that of respirators, say KTU researchers. (Courtesy: KTU) One thing that I have learned during the pandemic is that reading lips and other facial expressions plays an important role in how many of us communicate. I have reasonably good
WASHINGTON — Indian hyperspectral imaging startup Pixxel has announced a partnership with mining company Rio Tinto, giving that company early access to data from satellites scheduled to launch early this year. Pixxel announced Jan. 13 an “early adoption partnership” with Rio Tinto, under which Rio Tinto will have access to hyperspectral imagery at a resolution
ORLANDO, Fla. — Virgin Orbit placed seven cubesats for three customers into orbit Jan. 13 on the third consecutive successful operational flight of its LauncherOne air-launch system. Cosmic Girl, the Boeing 747 aircraft that serves as the launch platform for LauncherOne, took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California at 4:39 p.m.
ORLANDO, Fla. — NASA officials are holding out hope that the first Space Launch System launch can still take place as soon as March despite a delay in the rollout of the vehicle for a key test until mid-February. In an update on preparations for the Artemis 1 mission published Jan. 5, NASA said it
ORLANDO, Fla. — NASA is starting to implement recommendations of the astrophysics decadal survey by announcing plans for a new line of missions and laying the groundwork for future large space telescopes. During an online town hall meeting Jan. 11, originally intended to take place at the American Astronomical Society conference before that meeting was
Taken from the January 2022 issue of Physics World. Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue via the Physics World app. Thirty years after the World Wide Web first expanded from Europe to North America, Michael Riordan reveals how physicists and programmers played important roles in shaping the current wave of
TAMPA, Fla. — Intelsat has ordered two software-defined satellites from Thales Alenia Space as the operator edges closer to emerging from bankruptcy. The Intelsat 41 (IS-41) and Intelsat 44 (IS-44) satellites, scheduled to enter service in 2025, will be based on Thales Alenia Space’s Space Inspire platform. They will join two other satellites that Intelsat
WASHINGTON — Astroscale U.S., a provider of on-orbit services to extend the life of satellites, has signed an agreement to use Orbit Fab’s in-space refueling tankers, the companies announced Jan. 11. Orbit Fab, a startup offering “gas stations in space,” will refuel Astroscale’s geostationary satellite servicing spacecraft known as LEXI, short for Life Extension In-Orbit.
Real and imaginary: the time-dependent Schrödinger equation formulated using complex numbers. (Courtesy: iStock/piranka) Complex numbers are essential to achieve the most accurate quantum-mechanical description of nature, according to experiments done by two independent teams of physicists. Both studies were inspired by the Bell’s inequality test of quantum theory and suggest that complex numbers are more
ORLANDO, Fla. — The Space Force lacks spare parts for much of the equipment needed to support launches from the Eastern and Western Ranges, an issue that could loom larger as launch activities at both spaceports increase. A report released by the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General Jan. 7 found that the Eastern
TAMPA, Fla. — SpaceX has dropped a plan to use Falcon 9 to launch the 30,000 satellites in its proposed second-generation Starlink broadband constellation, and is instead focusing on a configuration leveraging its upcoming Starship vehicle. The decision follows development progress that SpaceX said exceeded the company’s expectations and means it could start “launching the
Leidenfrost expert: Felipe Pacheco-Vázquez in his lab at the Autonomous University of Puebla. (Courtesy: BUAP) A new type of Leidenfrost effect that causes droplets of different liquids to bounce off each other when placed on a hot surface has been discovered by researchers in Mexico and France. Led by Felipe Pacheco-Vázquez at the Autonomous University
WASHINGTON — The White House’s decision to extend operations of the International Space Station through the end of the decade is a “trigger” for other partners to make their own plans to continue participation in the station. NASA announced Dec. 31 that the Biden administration agreed to continue operations of the ISS to 2030. Federal
WASHINGTON — What mix of satellites will be needed to meet rising demand for connectivity and make systems resilient to cyber attacks will be the subject of a deep-dive study by the U.S. Space Force. The work will be done by the Space Warfighting Analysis Center, or SWAC, a new organization created to design the
Charges are accelerated away from each other by the fluctuating electric field from a terahertz laser. Courtesy: Brian Long) Researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara in the US have reconstructed a representation of the electron’s wave nature – its Bloch wavefunction – in a laboratory experiment for the first time. The work