Science

WASHINGTON — Policy issues regarding active debris removal are not as difficult to overcome as many believe, industry officials say, but acknowledge that those challenges may hinder efforts to remove the most dangerous pieces of debris in orbit. While much of the focus on active debris removal (ADR) involves the technologies needed to capture objects

Gotcha: A cartoon illustrating how molecules of strontium fluoride are slowed and trapped within a Stark decelerator, then interrogated by a laser beam. (Courtesy: Jasmeet Jassal and Parul Aggarwal) The quest for physics outside the Standard Model often takes place at major accelerator facilities like CERN’s Large Hadron Collider or huge underground detectors for neutrinos,

TAMPA, Fla. — SpaceX successfully deployed another 53 Starlink satellites Nov. 13 in its first dedicated launch for the broadband constellation in two months. A Falcon 9 carrying its latest batch of Starlink satellites lifted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 7:19 a.m. Eastern, a day after being scrubbed because of poor weather. All

WASHINGTON — The future of NASA’s SOFIA airborne observatory remains in limbo after the astrophysics decadal survey gave the program, proposed for termination by NASA, a vote of no-confidence. The astrophysics decadal survey final report, released Nov. 4, included sharp criticism of the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a program that was identified as

Human right: this boy in Nepal has access to safely managed drinking water but many in his country and beyond do not. (Courtesy: Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade/CC BY 3.0 AU) One billion people could access safe drinking water using devices that use solar energy to condense water from the air. That is

Yesterday, on November 12, 2021, during the fourth edition of the Paris Peace Forum, actors from all over the world concerned with the rapidly deteriorating state of Earth’s orbital environment have launched the Net Zero Space initiative, calling for ensuring sustainable use of outer space by 2030 by taking urgent steps to reduce the number

WASHINGTON — A biomedical entrepreneur who flew on Blue Origin’s second crewed suborbital spaceflight died in a plane crash Nov. 11. Glen de Vries was one of two people on a Cessna 172 aircraft that crashed in New Jersey Nov. 11. New Jersey State Police confirmed Nov. 12 that both de Vries and Thomas Fischer,

Short and stout: a teapot shown pouring, dripping and dribbling. (Courtesy: B Scheichl, RI Bowles and G Pasias/Journal of Fluid Mechanics) Cast your mind back to 2009 and you might remember how physicists in France devised a way to end the trauma of tea dribbling down the underside of the spout of a teapot when

BlackSky won a new contract award from NASA, a five-year deal to provide imagery in support of Earth observation research WASHINGTON — U.S. government contracts are boosting the financial performance of Earth observation company BlackSky, executives said Nov. 12 during the company’s first earnings call since going public. BlackSky released its third-quarter financial results, showing

WASHINGTON — A Crew Dragon spacecraft docked with the International Space Station Nov. 11, less than 24 hours after its launch from Florida. The Crew Dragon spacecraft Endurance docked with the forward port of the Harmony module of the station at 6:32 p.m. Eastern. The spacecraft’s arrival to the station took place smoothly, with the

Learning can be mimicked in synthetic matter, a discovery that in turn could inspire new algorithms for artificial intelligence (AI). (Courtesy: Rutgers University-New Brunswick) Quantum materials known as Mott insulators can “learn” to respond to external stimuli in a way that mimics animal behaviour, say researchers at Rutgers University in the US. The discovery of

WASHINGTON — Astroscale signed an agreement with the government of New Zealand Nov. 10 to study advanced concepts for orbital debris removal. The Tokyo-based company signed a memorandum of understanding with New Zealand’s Ministry of Business Innovation & Employment (MBIE) in a virtual event. The agreement broadly covers cooperation on space safety and sustainability, with

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).

SAN FRANCISCO – Spire Global CEO Peter Platzer expects commercial and government demand for space data and analytics to surge in the coming years, offering enormous growth potential for the firm, which began trading shares publicly in August. Spire currently provides space data, analytics and space services to 225 annual recurring revenue, or subscription, customers

Green solutions: unprecedented investment is needed to meet climate promises (courtesy: Shutterstock/lassedesignen) The importance of scientific evidence to the negotiations at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow was given extra prominence yesterday (9 November) in what was billed as Science and Innovation Day. It saw several new initiatives unveiled at the two-week United Nations’ summit,

After it delivers a prototype satellite to the Missile Defense Agency, Northrop Grumman plans to conduct an on-orbit test WASHINGTON — A satellite designed by Northrop Grumman to track hypersonic and ballistic missiles has passed a key review, allowing the company to continue to develop the $153 million spacecraft scheduled for delivery in 2023.   The

WASHINGTON — NASA leadership has formally given up on the goal of returning humans to the moon by 2024, pushing back a landing by NASA astronauts on the lunar surface to at least 2025. In a Nov. 9 media teleconference, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the recently concluded legal challenge mounted by Blue Origin to

River and mountains: fast radio burst data from FAST reimagined as a river of events pouring into the radio telescope. The surrounding mountains are histograms of the burst count and energies of the events. (Courtesy: NAOC) The greatest number of fast radio bursts (FRBs) ever to be observed from a single source has been reported