WASHINGTON — House appropriators partially restored funding for a planetary defense mission as part of a spending bill while also raising concerns about NASA’s closure of an airborne observatory and plans to return samples from Mars. The House Appropriations Committee released June 27 the report accompanying its commerce, justice and science (CJS) spending bill for
Science
WASHINGTON — The two companies NASA selected earlier this month to develop spacesuits for the International Space Station and Artemis lunar missions were the only companies to bid on the project, according to agency procurement documents. NASA announced June 1 it awarded contracts to teams led by Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace to develop new
Listening in: Mark Sheinin (left) and Dorian Chan test their camera system using guitars. (Courtesy: Carnegie Mellon University) A conventional microphone contains a diaphragm that vibrates in the presence of sounds waves. These mechanical vibrations are then converted into an electrical signal. In a condenser mic, for example, the diaphragm acts as one plate of
WASHINGTON — NASA’s Psyche asteroid mission will not launch this year as previously planned after the agency concluded there was not enough time to complete testing of the spacecraft’s software before its launch window closes. In a briefing held June 24 on just a few hours’ notice, agency officials said the mission did not have
WASHINGTON — The British government announced a series of measures June 23, from regulations to funding active debris removal projects, intended to make the country a leader in space sustainability. George Freeman, minister for science, research and innovation, announced a package called the Plan for Space Sustainability intended to create a standard that will encourage
SAN FRANCISCO – Telespazio intends to play a key role in the future in-orbit servicing market, providing customers seeking satellite relocation, refueling, repair or removal with the necessary space and ground-based capabilities. “There is an industrial role that Telespazio can definitely play on the basis of 61 years of experience in providing operational service,” Marco
One priority for Frank Calvelli, assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration, is to impose discipline in procurement programs WASHINGTON — The Space Force’s new acquisition executive Frank Calvelli says there is no quick fix for problems that for years have plagued defense procurements, such as cost overruns and schedule delays.
Anomaly localization: Lung scans from patients with COVID-19 infection (rows 1–3) and healthy controls (rows 4–5). From left to right: original CT image; attention maps generated by four example latent distributions (warmer colours indicate regions of anomalies); aggregated attention map; segmentation mask; and ground truth infection mask. (Courtesy: Q Zhou et al Comput. Methods Programs
Space Delta 18 will run the National Space Intelligence Center at Wright Patterson Air Force Base WASHINGTON — The Space Force on June 24 established a new unit, Space Delta 18, responsible for providing “quality intelligence” to U.S. policy makers about the space domain, Lt. Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of Space Operations Command, said at
WASHINGTON — OneWeb, the broadband megaconstellation company whose launch plans were disrupted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, expects to resume launches late this year, an executive said June 23. Speaking at the Fourth Summit for Space Sustainability by the Secure World Foundation and the U.K. Space Agency, Maurizio Vanotti, vice president of space infrastructure development
Taken from the June 2022 issue of Physics World. Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue via the Physics World app.
Why a good-enough STM approach is better than perfect Whatever space traffic management framework emerges — assuming something more formal ever does — it will be far from perfect. No traffic management framework in any domain eliminates accidents. Unintentional collisions in space will happen. Space traffic management (STM) should be about mitigating risk, not eliminating
SAN FRANCISCO – Propulsion startup Plasmos is testing its first rocket engine thanks to a $250,000 in-kind investment from Velo3D, a metal additive manufacturing startup known for its work with SpaceX. Benny Buller, Velo3D founder and CEO, decided to make the investment after meeting Ali Baghchehsara, Plasmos founder and CEO. “I was for two years
Ever shrinking: a study of the interface between silicon and silicon dioxide could lead to smaller transistors. (Courtesy: iStock/Quardia) Two researchers in China have shown how unwanted quantum tunnelling in field-effect transistors (FETs) could be suppressed by controlling the lattice orientations of materials used in the devices. Using machine learning to analyse thousands of candidate
Poor soil fertility emanating from land degradation is one of the causes of low crop productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa. Therefore, the issues of food insecurity and poverty have become prevalent in these countries. It is however imperative to explore agricultural innovations such as mineral fertilizer to improve soil fertility of the arable lands in Africa
To keep peace on Earth, we must keep peace in space. The time has come for America to confront the reality that space has been weaponized by our adversaries. Space has long been a peaceful environment for research and commerce on Earth with conditions that deny tyrants the luxury of concealment, the advantage of surprise,
SAN FRANCISCO – The SmallSat Alliance is inviting U.S. university students to propose space-related solutions for formidable technical and policy challenges as part of the Collegiate Space Competition. The first of what is expected to become an annual competition focuses on two topics: Earth science and environmental monitoring as well as space congestion and orbital