Science

WASHINGTON — NASA expects to be ready to perform another countdown rehearsal of the Space Launch System in early June as it pushes back the first launch of the vehicle to at least August. At a May 5 briefing, NASA officials said they had made progress on two problems with the SLS and its mobile

With modern life’s reliance on space-based technologies, it can be easy to forget that Operation Desert Storm, the world’s first “space war,” occurred a mere 30 years ago. While that might seem a lifetime for some, soldiers and service members of my generation — many of us still serving — remember the uncertainty that preceded

TAMPA, Fla. — Intelsat announced financial, commercial and aviation leadership changes May 5 to guide the satellite operator’s post-bankruptcy future. The executive appointments come a month after former Raytheon executive David Wajsgras took over as CEO, replacing Stephen Spengler who had been at the helm for nearly seven years. Anthony (Toby) O’Brien, a former chief

Avio has successfully carried out the first test of the new M10 liquid oxygen-liquid/methane engine, the first of its kind to be successfully tested in Europe. The M10, which will be a new generation green engine, will provide 10 tons of thrust and it is manufactured with extensive use of additive layer manufacturing technologies (ALM).

This short video features Niels Bultink, co-founder and chief executive of Qblox, a start-up company based in Delft, Netherlands. Speaking at the 2022 March meeting of the American Physical Society in Chicago, Bultink outlines the benefits of Qblox’s control stacks – equipment that is used in quantum computing to generate control signals and interpret the

Taken from the May 2022 issue of Physics World where it appeared under the headline “A more accessible discipline”. Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue via the Physics World app. Claire Malone highlights the importance of creating a better working environment for those with physical disabilities

A living cardiac pump: Christos Michas examines the miniPUMP in the lab. The scaffold that gives structure to the heart cells, without exerting any active force on them, can be seen through the tissue. (Courtesy: Jackie Ricciardi for Boston University Photography) By combining a metamaterial cylinder with artificially grown heart tissue, researchers in the US

The system supporting cross-currents. Courtesy: MA Martin-Delgado Can energy move from a colder to a hotter region in a material without violating the second law of thermodynamics? Yes, according to physicists from Trinity College Dublin and the Universidad Complutense of Madrid, who discovered that a quantum effect sometimes forces current to flow around the edges

The annual meeting of the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO) will enable both onsite and online delegates to share knowledge and explore the latest technical innovations Technology on show: ESTRO 2022 will host Europe’s largest industry exhibition in radiation oncology. (Courtesy: Shutterstock/Mark_Kostich) Europe’s largest meeting for radiation oncology, ESTRO 2022, will take place in

Dressing up: the now-removed dress code for the opening ceremony for IPAC22 (Courtesy: IPAC22) Social media went into meltdown recently from an unexpected source: the 13th International Particle Accelerator Conference, due to be held in Bangkok on 12–17 June. Delegates planning to attend the opening ceremony – presided by Thai Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn –

WASHINGTON — Sierra Space says it is making good progress on its first Dream Chaser spaceplane as the company looks ahead to versions of the vehicle that can carry crews and perform national security missions. The company provided SpaceNews with images of the first Dream Chaser, named Tenacity, being assembled at its Colorado headquarters. The

[embedded content] According to Guinness World Records, the highest standing jump by a human is 1.70 m – which was done in 2021 by the American Christopher Spell. Apparently Spell is 1.75 m tall, so it looks like most humans cannot reach anywhere near their own heights when jumping. Nature’s jumping champions are fleas, which can

TAMPA, Fla. — Saudi Arabian fleet operator Arabsat has ordered its first fully software-defined geostationary satellite to provide flexible coverage across the Middle East, Africa and parts of Europe.  The company said April 29 it signed a contract for Arabsat 7A with Europe’s Thales Alenia Space, which will build the satellite based on its Space

DENVER – The U.S. Space Force plans to request funding in the 2024 budget for space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, Lt. Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, U.S. Space Force deputy chief of space operations, said April 27 at the 2022 GEOINT Symposium here. After decades of focusing on gathering geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) from space, the U.S. military

In this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast, Victoria Robinson and Stuart Black at the University of Reading explain how gamma-ray spectrometers have been used for the first time to locate ancient underground structures. The technique is normally used to identify radioactive contamination on nuclear sites and the duo describe how was adapted for

Gen. John Raymond said the the Space Force might consider working with more than two launch companies as more players enter the industry WASHINGTON – Two space launch companies – United Launch Alliance and SpaceX – currently are under contract to launch military and intelligence satellites for the U.S. Space Force. But when these contracts

Five billion years ago, two galaxies collided, mixing astronomical gas clouds that produced a radio-wavelength laser called a megamaser. That laser traveled for billions of parsecs, crossing intergalactic space as all of Earth’s history played out. And in April 2022, it was detected by the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa.  It was the farthest

Spun off from the low-temperature lab at Aalto University in Finland, Bluefors is a firm that specializes in cryogen-free, dilution refrigerator measurement systems. Based in Helsinki, the company presented its new KIDE cooling platform at the 2022 March meeting of the American Physical Society in Chicago. In this video filmed at the meeting, Bluefors’ chief