Science

The deal won by Slingshot is a U.S. Space Force Strategic Financing (STRATFI) contract WASHINGTON — Slingshot Aerospace announced March 31 it won a $25.2 million Space Force contract to develop a virtual replica of the space environment, a technology known as a digital twin.  The 39-month contract includes $16.8 million from the Space Force’s

WASHINGTON — SpaceX launched the fourth in its series of dedicated rideshare missions April 1, placing one relatively large satellite and dozens of smallsats into low Earth orbit. The Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 12:24 p.m. Eastern. SpaceX beat predictions of poor weather, with

Google’s Pedram Rousham explores the quest for elusive “time crystals”, Lia Li outlines her ambitions as tech start-up founder and Robert P Crease looks at how demons can help teach scienc Time crystals: in search of a new phase of matter If there’s one thing you can be sure of here at Physics World, it’s

WASHINGTON — NASA officials say they are still hopeful to complete a seat barter agreement with Russia in time to allow an exchange of seats on missions this fall despite the tensions between Russia and the West. At briefings March 31 about the upcoming Crew-4 Crew Dragon mission to the International Space Station, scheduled for

TAMPA, Fla. — The Philippines is set to become the first country in Southeast Asia to access SpaceX’s Starlink broadband services, its government announced March 31. Philippine Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez has committed to assist SpaceX’s expansion into the archipelago as it seeks to register services there, the country’s Department of Trade and Treasury said

Animal magic: Asteroids and meteoroids may only be classified in terms of a fixed range of animal sizes, but giraffes are excluded. (Courtesy: iStock/naeblys) A new system for classifying the sizes of small planetary objects using animals has been launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) in a bid to clear up misconceptions introduced after

WASHINGTON — Blue Origin launched its New Shepard suborbital vehicle on its first flight of the year March 31, carrying six people on a brief trip to space and back. The vehicle lifted off from the company’s Launch Site One in West Texas at 9:59 a.m. Eastern. The capsule landed under parachutes about 10 minutes

WASHINGTON — A Soyuz spacecraft carrying an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts landed in Kazakhstan March 30, an ordinary end of a mission in extraordinary times. The Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft landed in the designated landing zone in Kazakhstan at 7:28 a.m. Eastern, four hours after undocking from the International Space Station. The landing appeared

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. The Moon could be mined for resources such as helium-3. (Courtesy: ESA/Foster + Partners) Shortly before the turn of the millennium, a NASA spacecraft called Lunar Prospector plunged into a

LOS ANGELES – Radian Aerospace, a startup developing a reusable spaceplane, announced March 30 that Jeff Matthews, a founding member of Deloitte Consulting’s space sector practice, would become the company’s director of strategy. Matthew met Radian’s founders in 2016 when he produced the initial market study for the Renton, Washington, company. “Having known the Radian

WASHINGTON — NASA says it’s ready to go ahead with a practice countdown of the Space Launch System that will serve as a final key test before the rocket’s first launch, but one that will also take place largely out of public view. In a March 29 call with reporters, NASA officials said preparations remain

The road ahead: Quantum sensors have many possible applications, but the path to commercializing them may not be straightforward. (Courtesy: Shutterstock/Blue Planet Studio) If you want to look savvy and intelligent during a discussion about commercializing quantum technologies, here’s a tip: mention quantum sensors. This advice isn’t as pithy as “plastics” or “wear sunscreen”. Even

SEOUL, South Korea — Singapore has become the 18th country to join the U.S.-led Artemis Accords for space exploration, hoping to use the agreement to enhance its nascent domestic space industry. Trade and Industry Minister Gan Kim Yong signed the agreement March 28 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, on the sidelines of Prime

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall: ‘This budget is driven by the threat’ WASHINGTON — President Biden’s $773 billion budget request for the Defense Department for fiscal year 2023 includes $24.5 billion for the U.S. Space Force — $7 billion more than what the White House requested in 2022. The White House on March 28 unveiled

Physics of life: biological physics concerns the use of physics to study biological systems such as folding proteins, the dynamics of viruses or the organised movement of animals (Courtesy: istock/digitalgenetics) Biological physics is a thriving area of physics that should be held in the same regard as traditional fields such as condensed-matter and nuclear physics.

Boeing’s Technology in Space program gives a boost to start-ups working on biomedical innovations by funding their experiments on the International Space Station. In July 2016, Nicole Wagner was sitting at her desk at the MassChallenge co-working space in South Boston. Wagner, president and CEO of Farmington, Conn.-based LambdaVision Inc., was carpooling three times a

WASHINGTON — NASA plans to delay the next phase of its Mars Sample Return campaign and split a lander mission into two separate spacecraft to reduce the overall risk of the program. At a March 21 meeting of the National Academies’ Space Studies Board, Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator for science, revealed that NASA and

Frequency comb: Georg Woltersdorf (left) and his colleague Chris Körner in the lab where they created a spin frequency comb. (Courtesy: Uni Halle/Markus Scholz) A simple method for multiplying the frequencies of spin waves in magnetic materials from the megahertz range all the way into the gigahertz has been serendipitously discovered by researchers in Germany.