Science

WASHINGTON — A SpaceX Starship prototype successfully carried out a brief suborbital flight May 5 after four previous vehicles were destroyed during or shortly after landing. The Starship SN15 vehicle lifted off from SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas, test site at 6:24 p.m. Eastern. The vehicle flew to an altitude of approximately 10 kilometers before descending

Col. Rob Bongiovi said a design validation of the booster that will launch GPS 3 SV05 will be completed this month WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force this month will complete a design review of a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster that flew a military GPS satellite to orbit last summer. The booster is expected to

By: Hannah Pell  In 2005, future projections for emissions published by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) in their Annual Energy Outlook were bleak; business-as-usual for the power sector meant that carbon dioxide (CO2) emission levels could reach up to 3,000 million metric tons by 2020 (equivalent to CO2 emissions from roughly 544 million homes’ electricity

Taken from the May 2021 issue of Physics World where it first appeared under the headline “Judge, jury and AI-xecutioner”. Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue via the Physics World app. Achintya Rao reviews A Citizen’s Guide to AI by John Zerilli and co-authors

HELSINKI — A large rocket stage which launched China’s first space station last week is likely to reenter the atmosphere around May 8 according to early space tracking predictions.  U.S. Department of Defense Spokesperson Mike Howard in a statement May 4 said that “U.S. Space Command is aware of and tracking the location of the

WASHINGTON — Firefly Aerospace, nearing the first launch of its Alpha rocket, announced May 4 it raised $75 million in a Series A round that values the company at more than $1 billion. The company said the Series A round was led by DADA Holdings, with participating from Astera Institute, Canon Ball LLC, Reuben Brothers

Taken from the May 2021 issue of Physics World. Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue via the Physics World app. Leonard Wossnig, chief executive of quantum drug-discovery company Rahko, describes the powerful capabilities of artificial intelligence and quantum computing when combined

TAMPA, Fla. — Companies that build or operate Earth observation satellites foresee busier days ahead as governments, and businesses, step up climate change initiatives. Geospatial monitoring is key for tracking, understanding and ultimately cutting greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to what is increasingly seen as an environmental emergency. U.S. President Joe Biden set a target

Satellites are leading the charge in the battle against climate change, providing critical insights about Earth that can only be gained from space. But are they also contributing to the problem? Putting aside environmental impacts of the rockets that launch them to orbit, satellites inject a complex mix of chemicals into the atmosphere when their

Light propagation inside a photonic crystal with shaped and unshaped incident light waves. Courtesy: R Uppu An international team of researchers has succeeded in steering light waves deep into “forbidden” regions of photonic crystals by manipulating the shape of the waves.  The technique, which was developed by scientists at the University of Twente in the

WASHINGTON — A SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico May 2, returning four astronauts from a five-and-a-half-month stay on the International Space Station. The Crew Dragon spacecraft Resilience undocked from the station at 8:35 p.m. Eastern May 1. After departing the vicinity of the station and performing a 16-minute deborbit

King: Without an adequate N3C system ‘none of the rest of it works’ WASHINGTON — The U.S. nuclear command, control and communications system that serves as the link between U.S. nuclear forces and presidential authority could be vulnerable to cyber attacks and needs upgrades, Sen. Angus King told reporters May 1. King (I-Maine) is the

Physics in action: two people skipping stones on a picturesque lake in New Zealand. (Courtesy: Stewart Nimmo/CC BY-SA 4.0) The physics that allows spinning stones to skip across the surface of water has been thoroughly analysed by Jie Tang at Southwest Jiaotong University in China and colleagues. The team used theoretical models and simple experiments

Updated 1:55 p.m. Eastern with Nelson statement. WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris will put her “personal stamp” on the National Space Council as it takes on both existing and new priorities under the Biden administration. Senior administration officials, speaking on background in a call with reporters May 1, confirmed that the administration will retain

WASHINGTON — Raytheon received a $228 million contract to continue development of a ground system for Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites, the Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center announced April 30. The contract is for work on the operational control system for the newest version of GPS 3 satellites made by Lockheed Martin. The

[embedded content] Do not linger after using a public toilet is the advice from researchers at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), who have done a comprehensive study of how aerosols with the potential to carry disease are created and dispersed by flushing toilets and urinals. Siddhartha Verma and colleagues studied three scenarios – toilet flushing, covered

WASHINGTON — With four flights now complete, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter will transition from being strictly a technology demonstration to a test of its ability to work in cooperation with the Perseverance rover. Ingenuity performed its fourth flight April 30, staying aloft for 117 seconds. The helicopter flew to an altitude of 5 meters, then

WASHINGTON — Stratolaunch flew its giant aircraft for the first time in more than two years April 29, marking the start of a new test flight campaign to prepare the plane to serve as a platform for hypersonic vehicles. The aircraft, nicknamed Roc, took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California at