WASHINGTON — NASA has selected SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy to launch its Europa Clipper mission to a potentially habitable moon of Jupiter, a choice that appeared inevitable once NASA was no longer required to use the Space Launch System. NASA announced July 23 that it awarded a launch services contract to SpaceX for the October 2024
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WASHINGTON — Members of a Senate space subcommittee argued that the Commerce Department was not doing enough to implement policies on space traffic management (STM) or staffing the office responsible for it. At the July 22 hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee, senators said they were worried that slow action by the Commerce
Viscoelastic bubbles have been shown to resemble blooming flowers when they pop. (Courtesy: Fuller Lab) The Tokyo Olympics officially began today with the opening ceremony lighting up the Tokyo sky. Tomorrow also marks that start of the swimming schedule and with it countless photo finishes and races determined by mere fractions of a second. Obtaining
TAMPA, Fla. — A federal appeals court denied a motion from satellite operator Viasat to stop SpaceX from enlarging its Starlink megaconstellation. Viasat had requested a stay on a SpaceX license modification that allows it to continue building out the low-Earth-orbit constellation, while legal action seeking to compel a thorough environmental review of the broadband
By: Hannah Pell Image credit: Wikimedia Commons. In early May 2021, a ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline caused massive disruption to the East Coast’s fuel supply. Pictures of cars lined up at gas stations and warnings not to “panic buy” gasoline evoked memories of the 1973 oil crisis. Colonial Pipeline Co. paid a $4.4
The contract is for a project known as enterprise ground services, or EGS. WASHINGTON — Braxton Technologies, a company recently acquired by Parsons Corp., received a $139.4 million contract to continue development and prototyping of the U.S. Space Force’s next-generation ground system for satellite operations. The contract announced July 21 is for a project known
Seismic results: an artist’s impression of InSight and its seismometer (the little instrument in front of it) detecting seismic waves from tectonic stresses. (Courtesy: NASA/JPL-Caltech) The interior of Mars has been mapped with seismic waves for the first time revealing tantalising details about how Mars may have formed across billions of years. The work was
TAMPA, Fla. — NorthStar Earth & Space, a startup developing a constellation for tracking other satellites, has secured Canadian government funding for a prototype Earth observation monitoring system to combat climate change. Montréal-based NorthStar said July 22 it is working with the Canadian Coast Guard on the project, using an airborne hyperspectral sensor system to
EL PASO, Texas — The Federal Aviation Administration has revised its criteria for awarding astronaut wings to those flying on commercial spacecraft, making the requirements stricter while including a significant loophole. The FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation issued an order July 20 describing its FAA Commercial Space Astronaut Wings Program and the criteria for
Self-healing circuit continues to carry current even when twisted. Photo by Alex Parrish for Virginia Tech A new type of self-healing liquid metal composite could be used to make soft, recyclable, electronic circuits. These composites do not break even when punctured and can be repeatedly stretched without losing their electrical conductivity. Most electronic circuits are
The bases will be renamed Schriever Space Force Base, Peterson Space Force Base and Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station WASHINGTON — Peterson Air Force Base, Schriever Air Force Base and Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station will officially become U.S. Space Force bases. These Colorado-based installations are home to the largest concentration of Space Force personnel.
VAN HORN, Texas — Jeff Bezos and the others who were on the first crewed flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital vehicle hailed the experience as better than expected, but Bezos is facing a backlash for spending part of his extreme wealth on space. In a ceremony a couple hours after their brief suborbital
A 3D image (taken with laser confocal microscopy) shows crater-like features generated by the captured droplets. Courtesy: Northwestern University A transparent, viscous coating that can be brushed or painted onto any type of surface could reduce disease transmission by capturing airborne droplets. The coating, which is based on a polymer commonly employed in cosmetics, could
VAN HORN, Texas — Blue Origin performed its first crewed New Shepard launch July 20, sending company founder Jeff Bezos and three other people on a suborbital flight. New Shepard lifted off from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in West Texas at 9:12 a.m. Eastern on the NS-16 mission. The crew capsule, called RSS First
By: Hannah Pell “If we conceive a being whose faculties are so sharpened that he can follow every molecule in its course, such a being, whose attributes are still as essentially finite as our own, would be able to do what is impossible to us,” wrote James Clerk Maxwell in his Theory of Heat (1871).
TAMPA, Fla. — Lynk aims to launch multiple operational satellites on a SpaceX ride-share mission in December, ahead of plans to provide connectivity services with the constellation directly to unmodified cellphones next year. The Virginia-based startup booked a place on a SpaceX transporter mission through ride-share service provider Spaceflight, Lynk CEO Charles Miller told SpaceNews.
Better by design: this new image (right) of the jet from the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Centaurus A galaxy, which was taken by the Event Horizon Telescope, has a 16-fold higher resolution the previous best image using the TANAMI VLBI array (Courtesy: Nature Astronomy). Astronomers have followed up their seminal 2019
The DSX mission was launched June 25, 2019. It ended on May 31, 2021 WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory announced July 19 it has completed a two-year experiment that will help better understand the effects of radiation on space hardware in medium Earth orbit. Known as the Demonstration and Science Experiments (DSX)