By Allison Kubo Hutchison NASA announced on June 2 that it would send two missions to the hot house planet. Once again NASA made robots will vist the Venusian skies for the first time since the Magellen orbiter mission which ended in 1994. These missions come after renewed interest in Venus due to the hotly
Science
Tick tock tariff: A wiggling ” reveals the entropic cost of measuring time. natalia> Tick tock tariff: A wiggling “nano-clock” reveals the entropic cost of measuring time. (Courtesy: Natalia Ares) Imagine the sound of a ticking clock. How much time passes between each tick? For a good clock, the answer should be one second, to
Updated 6 p.m. Eastern with NASA and Coalition for Deep Space Exploration statements. WASHINGTON — The Senate confirmed the nominations June 17 of a former astronaut to be the deputy administrator of NASA and of an ocean scientist to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. On voice votes, senators confirmed Pam Melroy as deputy
WASHINGTON — A NASA-funded smallsat mission to Mars that lost its ride last year may get new life through a partnership with Rocket Lab. Rocket Lab announced June 15 it won a contract from the Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL) of the University of California Berkeley to begin design work on a new version of the
Space–time ripples: a 3D simulation of the gravitational waves created as two black holes merge. (Courtesy: Chris Henze/NASA) Physicists should be wary of data from gravitational-wave observatories that appear to contradict Einstein’s general theory of relativity. That is the message from researchers in the UK, who have analysed how errors accumulate when combining the results
HELSINKI — China launched a group of classified Yaogan-30 satellites and one commercial satellite on a Long March 2C rocket early Friday. The Long March 2C rocket lifted off from Xichang Satellite Launch Center, southwest China, at 2:30 a.m. Eastern. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC) confirmed the success of the launch within
WASHINGTON — Spacecraft controllers are continuing to work on a faulty computer memory system on NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope that has stopped telescope operations for nearly a week. A payload computer on Hubble stopped working June 13, the agency said in a June 16 statement. Engineers speculated that the computer, used to manage operations of
Atoms and light: the main image is an illustration of atoms entering the cage, which contains light. The insets are electron microscope images of the cage’s structure. (Courtesy: Flavie Davidson-Marquis, Julian Gargiulo, Esteban Gómez-López, Bumjoon Jang, Tim Kroh, Chris Müller, Mario Ziegler, Stefan A. Maier, Harald Kübler, Markus A. Schmidt & Oliver Benson) A new
As demonstrated by the uncontrolled reentry of a Chinese rocket last month, irresponsible space activities can put billions of dollars and human life at risk. Recognizing the reality of increasing space activities and the need for the national security community to focus its resources on security threats, the Trump administration issued Space Policy Directive 3
TAMPA, Fla. — SES has expanded its partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS), enabling satellite customers to connect directly to its cloud-based applications. According to SES, it is the first satellite operator to pass technical and business reviews for directly connecting with AWS cloud services, without going through a virtual private network (VPN). The company
Stitched up: as baseball showing the stitched seams that affect its aerodynamics. (Courtesy: Schyler/CC BY-SA 3.0) This edition of the Red Folder focuses on spinning objects flying through the air – and first up is the baseball. Just like in particle physics, spin plays a crucial role in how a baseball is pitched. If the
WASHINGTON — A House aviation subcommittee hearing on commercial space transportation June 16 plowed familiar ground, revisiting a wide range of issues that have yet to be resolved. One of the few new topics addressed at the hearing by the House Transportation Committee’s aviation subcommittee dealt with the Federal Aviation Administration’s response to SpaceX’s violation
SDA is interested in “novel remote sensing phenomenologies” for tracking missiles and other targets WASHINGTON — Radar satellite imagery startup Capella Space on June 14 received a $3 million research contract in support of the Space Development Agency’s National Defense Space Architecture. Capella Space was selected through a “broad agency announcement” issued by the space
In just a few short years, quantum science and technology has gone from the lab to the boardroom with companies ranging from tech giants to tiny start-ups seeking to commercialize quantum devices and algorithms. In this special Quantum Week edition of the Physics World Weekly podcast, we look at the challenges facing young companies and
WASHINGTON — Boeing has completed all the activities recommended by an independent review of the company’s first uncrewed CST-100 Starliner mission, allowing a second uncrewed mission to proceed for launch in late July. NASA and Boeing announced June 16 that they had closed all the actions from an independent review in early 2020 to address
Smith: “While it is encouraging to see an increase in research and development across the portfolio, much of the request is for systems that have been called ‘big juicy targets'” WASHINGTON — U.S. Space Force technology investments was one of the topics discussed June 16 at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee, which
WASHINGTON — Phase Four announced June 16 two new electric propulsion systems that offer performance and other improvements, along with a subscription service that offers those thrusters to customers at a discount. The company, which raised a $26 million Series B round June 11, said it now offers a Block 2 version of its Maxwell