WASHINGTON — NASA’s inspector general found that former NASA Administrator Charles Bolden continued to use the services of an employee to manage his activities for almost two years after leaving the agency. The NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report June 11 summarizing an investigation into allegations that Bolden’s former executive assistant, or
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The essence of the perfect slice of sourdough bread is in the air right now. It is even on your hands. The heart of the sourdough is the starter, a fermented culture of flour and water. The sour flavor of the dough comes from lactic acid bacteria (LAB) who live in relative harmony and competition
A route to topological superconductivity? Courtesy: Stephan Kim, Princeton University Researchers at Princeton University in the US have become the first to observe a robust supercurrent at the edge of a superconductor that is very different to the supercurrent in the material’s bulk. This “topological superconductivity” could come in useful for a host of new
WASHINGTON — A launch vehicle processing “hiccup” has pushed back next month’s launch of NASA’s Mars 2020 rover mission by three days. NASA Associate Administrator Steve Jurczyk revealed the delay in a presentation to a joint meeting of the National Academies’ Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board and Space Studies Board (SSB) June 9. “We had
SAN FRANCISCO – German launch services provider Exolaunch announced an agreement to launch two Loft Orbital microsatellites on SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare missions. Under the contract, Exolaunch will handle mission management, deployment and integration services for Loft Orbital, a San Francisco startup planning to establish a constellation of standard microsatellites to fly payloads, sensors and
A day of action: The logo of the #ShutDownAcademia and #ShutDownSTEM campaign. (Courtesy: #ShutDownAcademia) Today – Wednesday 10 June – will not be a normal day in the physics calendar. That’s because, at the time of writing, more than 3000 physicists around the world have agreed to take part in a “Strike for Black Lives”.
WASHINGTON — SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft is performing well enough on orbit to give NASA confidence that the mission can last until August, an agency official said June 9. Ken Bowersox, the acting associate administrator for human exploration and operations at NASA, told an online meeting of two National Academies committees that NASA had been
SAN FRANCISCO – Australian Earth observation startup LatConnect 60 announced plans June 9 to hire York Space Systems to manufacture small satellites and to operate its Earth observation constellation. LatConnect 60, a company founded in 2019, plans to launch its first satellite in 2021 and to establish an initial constellation of three satellites with multiple
Adam Fortais explains how the “At-Home Lab Kit” allows undergraduate students at McMaster University to do physics experiments while sheltering in place. This post is part of a series on how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the personal and professional lives of physicists around the world. If you’d like to share your own perspective, please contact
Gen. Raymond: “These men and women “made the bold decision to volunteer to join the U.S. Space Force and defend the ultimate high ground.” WASHINGTON — More than 8,500 active-duty airmen applied to join the U.S. Space Force during the month of May, the service announced on June 9. Applicants include a mix of officers
The Space Development Agency says optical inter-satellite links are “one of the most critical technologies to be demonstrated.” WASHINGTON — Optical communications terminals that use lasers to beam data across space will be tested in upcoming experiments by the Space Development Agency and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. These terminals are important pieces of
Combatting the COVID-19 pandemic has become an international challenge and charge. It has highlighted the positive consequences of science operating on a global scale. It has shown how answers can be found quickly when scientists share results at unprecedented speed and research becomes increasingly open-access. It has shown that we must rely on scientists from
Joint effort: the new imaging method, which is called biochemical quantitative phase imaging with mid-infrared photothermal effect. (Courtesy: s-graphics.co.jp, CC BY-NC-ND) Optical imaging is widely used to image biological cells thanks to its non-destructive, label-free nature. A team of researchers in Japan has now combined two common optical techniques – quantitative phase microscopy and molecular
SAN FRANCISCO – The Techstars Starburst Space Accelerator and Techstars Allied Space Accelerator announced the names June 8 of companies selected to participate in their 2020 classes. The Techstars Allied Space Accelerator, established late last year with the support of the U.S. Air Force, Netherlands Ministry of Defence, Norwegian Ministry of Defence and Norwegian Space
WASHINGTON — Virgin Orbit and the British government are continuing efforts to begin flights of the company’s air-launch system from an English airport by early 2022 despite challenges on both sides of the Atlantic. Virgin Orbit and the U.K. Space Agency, along with Spaceport Cornwall, held an online suppliers conference June 4 to provide an
ISOLDE’s CRIS: the Collinear Resonance Ionization Spectroscopy on ISOLDE at CERN. (Courtesy: Maximilien Brice/CERN) The first spectroscopic study of radium monofluoride suggests that the radioactive molecule could be used to perform high precision tests of the Standard Model of particle physics. The study was done by an international team of physicists working in the ISOLDE
A June 5 solicitation for a “tracking phenomenology experiment” is a step in the development of a sensor network in space to track hypersonic missiles. WASHINGTON — The Space Development Agency is soliciting bids to integrate a missile-warning sensor with a satellite bus and launch it to low Earth orbit by late 2021. The June
WASHINGTON — NASA announced June 5 that it awarded a contract to Northrop Grumman to begin work on a habitation module for the lunar Gateway, nearly a year after the agency announced its intent to sole-source that module to the company. NASA said it issued a contract to Northrop Grumman valued at $187 million for