Science

TAMPA, Fla. — Condosat operator Loft Orbital has ordered another batch of small satellite buses from LeoStella after securing undisclosed customers looking to fly payloads in 2023. The companies declined to discuss how many buses were ordered, but Loft Orbital CEO Pierre-Damien Vaujour told SpaceNews that customers have already fully booked one of them and

Pluto is less than 20% of the diameter of Earth and is on average six billion kilometres away, yet astronomers have been able to study its tenuous atmosphere since the 1980s. In this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast the astronomers (and siblings) Leslie Young and Eliot Young talk about Pluto’s atmosphere and how

WASHINGTON — The upcoming uncrewed test flight of the Orion spacecraft will include a payload to see how a voice recognition technology widely available to consumers today could be used to assist astronauts on future missions. Lockheed Martin announced Jan. 5 that it has been working with Amazon and Cisco on a project called Callisto

Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David Thompson said the Space Force wants to buy debris-removal services from the private sector WASHINGTON — Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David Thompson in a video released Jan. 5 called on the private sector to help clean up space junk.  “We need your help,” said Thompson in

Patient imaging: The EyeArt AI system provides safe and accurate detection of diabetic retinopathy. (Courtesy: Eyenuk) An artificial intelligence (AI) system that can identify diabetic retinopathy (DR) without physician assistance, including the most serious form that puts patients at risk of blindness, has outperformed expectations in a clinical trial. The commercial system successfully detected the

WASHINGTON — Controllers completed the deployment of the sunshield of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Jan. 4, allowing the mission to move ahead to setting up the telescope itself. Spacecraft controllers finished the tensioning of the final two layers of the five-layer sunshield just before noon Eastern Jan. 4 after tensioning the first three layers

TAMPA, Fla. — Starlink’s lead executive in India said he resigned Friday for personal reasons, a month after the country’s government ordered SpaceX to stop preselling the satellite broadband service until it gives regulatory approval. “I have stepped down as Country Director and Chairman of the Board of Starlink India for personal reasons,” Sanjay Bhargava

Two halves: artist’s impression of a photon that has been “split” into halves. (Courtesy: LaDarius Dennison/Dartmouth College) Majorana bosons – hypothetical quasiparticles that are in many ways analogous to Majorana fermions – could exist in quantum systems with dissipation. That is according to calculations done in the US by Vincent Flynn and Lorenza Viola at

As the next wave of non-geostationary satellite constellations seeks U.S. Federal Communications Commission permission to operate in V-band, antenna makers are racing to make business cases viable in this Extremely High Frequency (EHF) area of radio spectrum. A variety of companies, some already operating spacecraft in other frequencies, filed for nearly 38,000 V-band satellites by

SEOUL, South Korea — The failed October debut of South Korea’s KSLV-2 rocket is being blamed on improperly anchored helium tanks inside the three-stage rocket’s upper stage.  The kerosene and liquid oxygen-fueled KSLV-2, South Korea’s first entirely domestic rocket, performed well during the early phases of the Oct. 21 test flight but released its dummy

WASHINGTON — Virgin Orbit will get less than half the money it originally expected from its merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) as that deal wins shareholder approval. Virgin Orbit announced Dec. 28 that shareholders of NextGen Acquisition Corp. II, a SPAC that announced in August it would merge with Virgin Orbit, had

WASHINGTON — NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has started the process of deploying the sunshield required to keep the spacecraft cold enough to operate, a process that is one of the riskiest aspects of the mission. NASA announced Dec. 28 the spacecraft controllers had started the multiday process of deploying the sunshield by lowering two

The rocket cargo project will explore the military utility, performance and cost of transporting cargo and people on commercial rockets WASHINGTON — Blue Origin has signed a cooperative agreement with the U.S. military to explore the possibility of someday using its rockets to transport cargo and people around the world. A cooperative research and development

WASHINGTON — NASA is taking a one-day break in the deployment of the James Webb Space Telescope after successfully extending booms for the spacecraft’s sunshield. NASA said Jan. 1 it would wait a day before beginning the process of tensioning the five-layer sunshield, getting it into its final form and ensuring the layers are separated

Taken from the January 2022 issue of Physics World, where it appeared under the headline “New year, new physicist”. Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue via the Physics World app. Laura Hiscott speaks to physicists about their new year’s resolutions (Courtesy: iStock/Cn0ra) The start of a new year is often

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration formally supports extending operations of the International Space Station through the end of the decade, an announcement that is neither surprising nor addresses how to get all the station’s partners, notably Russia, to agree on the station’s future. In a statement published on NASA’s ISS blog Dec. 31, NASA said

TAMPA, Fla. — Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT) has won NASA funding for thermal control solutions that enable vehicles and other equipment to survive harsh lunar environments without an active power source. The Lancaster, Pennsylvania-based thermal solutions provider said it will use the $5 million NASA Sequential Phase II SBIR Program Award to develop a “toolbox”

Short and stout: a teapot shown pouring, dripping and dribbling. (Courtesy: B Scheichl, RI Bowles and G Pasias/Journal of Fluid Mechanics) Despite the continuing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, physicists still found time to carry out research that touched on the quirkier side of science. Here is our pick of the 10 best, not in