HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner was within hours of launch on its second uncrewed test flight in early August when stuck valves in the spacecraft’s propulsion system forced a launch scrub that has turned into a delay that will extend well into next year. “It was a tough pill to swallow,” John Vollmer, vice
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The race for a place in space is one of the many things people love about the spirit of the United States — a country that dreams big, sets goals to make those dreams a reality, and then moves full speed ahead to achieve those goals. America blasts off toward those dreams with stars in
Suspicious soot: Sid Mitra examines a sample from Tall el-Hammam. (Courtesy: East Carolina University) According to book of Genesis in the Bible, the city of Sodom was destroyed by God because of the wickedness of its people. While there are several historical sites that could have been Sodom – and some scientists have suggested that
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Virgin Galactic will postpone a SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceflight that had been scheduled for this month, electing to instead immediately begin an extended maintenance period for the spaceplane and its carrier aircraft that will further delay the start of commercial flights. The company said Oct. 14 that it decided to move directly intended
WASHINGTON — An agreement just announced between the U.S. Space Force and a venture capital firm is a pilot project intended to help government buyers understand how investors assess space industry startups. The Space Force would like better insight into how venture investors gauge the potential of technologies developed by commercial businesses, said Gabe Mounce,
In this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast, Sophie Zienkiewicz and Henry Preston of the Nuclear Institute’s Young Generation Network argue the case for including nuclear energy in the UK’s net-zero-carbon strategy. Physics World’s Laura Hiscott and Tami Freeman are also on hand to talk about careers for physicists in the green economy and
SAN FRANCISCO – SpaceLink has awarded OHB System AG a contract with an anticipated value of more than $300 million to manufacture four satellites for its commercial space data relay constellation. After reviewing proposals from multiple satellite manufacturers, SpaceLink selected OHB based on a number of factors including the German company’s experience building Galileo navigation
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The launch of a NASA cubesat mission that will test the orbit to be used by the lunar Gateway has slipped to next March, the result of broader launch delays Rocket Lab has suffered because of the pandemic. NASA’s Ames Research Center tweeted Oct. 13 that it was now targeting March 2022
Extreme exoplanet: artist’s impression of WASP-76b. (Courtesy: ESO/L Calçada) Signatures of ionized calcium in the upper atmosphere of an ultra-hot, Jupiter-like exoplanet have been found by international team of astronomers led by Emily Deibert at the University of Toronto. The researchers say that the ions could have only formed if the upper atmosphere of the
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — NASA and its Australian counterpart have agreed to cooperate on a future robotic lander mission where Australia will provide a small rover as part of a test of resource utilization technologies. NASA and the Australian Space Agency announced Oct. 12 that Australia will provide a rover that will be included on a
Maxar said it “wants to ensure that the government is following its own rules in connection with the procurement” of the Transport Layer Tranche 1 WASHINGTON — Maxar Technologies filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office Oct. 8 challenging a Space Development Agency solicitation seeking industry bids for 126 satellites. SDA on Aug. 30
The James Webb Space Telescope is expected to be launched in December (courtesy: NASA). A member of NASA’s Astrophysics Advisory Committee has resigned over the agency’s handling of an investigation into whether the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) should be renamed. The probe was instigated in the wake of concerns that Webb – a former
WASHINGTON — Days after acknowledging it would no longer operate its own satellite network, Dutch internet-of-things startup Hiber says it is partnering with Inmarsat to provide those services. Hiber announced Oct. 12 that it will use Inmarsat to provide the satellite connectivity for the IoT services it offers, primarily to industrial customers. Hiber will combine
The plan is to deploy the 18 satellites in a single plane 600 miles above Earth WASHINGTON — The Space Development Agency on Oct. 8 issued a draft request for bids for 18 satellites that will carry experimental payloads. These 18 spacecraft will be integrated with SDA’s planned mesh network of 126 optically interconnected data
Stellar nursery: the Taurus Molecular Cloud is in the newly discovered superbubble. (Courtesy: ESO) The highest-resolution 3D map of nearby molecular gas clouds in Milky Way has revealed a structure that is creating new regions of star formation. Called the Perseus-Taurus Shell, or Per-Tau Shell for short, the region is a “superbubble” in the interstellar
WASHINGTON — Rocket Lab will launch a NASA technology demonstration satellite under an unconventional arrangement as the agency works on a more standardized approach for launching smallsats. Rocket Lab announced Oct. 6 that NASA selected the company to launch the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) spacecraft on an Electron rocket. The 12-unit cubesat will
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Companies that have demonstrated the technical viability of broadband satellite megaconstellations now face a bigger challenge: closing the business case. In sessions at the Satellite Innovation conference here, industry executives and observers expressed continued skepticism that constellations of hundreds or thousands of low Earth orbit satellites will be able to generate
Cosmic detector: the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory may have detected gamma rays from “mellow” supermassive black holes. (Courtesy: NASA E/PO, Sonoma State University/Aurore Simonnet) “Mellow” supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the centres of some galaxies could be the source of mysterious low-energy gamma rays and high-energy neutrinos that have been seen by some observatories, according