Science

WASHINGTON — Jim Bridenstine used part of his final full day as NASA administrator to call on the incoming administration to continue the Artemis program and return humans to the moon. A Jan. 19 briefing on the Green Run static-fire test of the Space Launch System three days earlier became an opportunity for Bridenstine, who

Austin: “If confirmed, I will ensure the space domain is carefully considered across the range of upcoming strategic reviews.” WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden’s pick for defense secretary Lloyd Austin told lawmakers Jan. 19 that China is the United States’ “most concerning competitor” and in written testimony identified space as a growing national security concern.

Atomic aperture of WS2. Courtesy: R Boya Gases flow through a porous membrane at ultrahigh speeds even when the pores’ diameter approaches the atomic scale. This finding by researchers at the University of Manchester in the UK and the University of Pennsylvania in the US shows that the century-old Knudsen description of gas flow remains

WASHINGTON — Boeing has completed a requalification of software on its commercial crew spacecraft as it prepares to launch the vehicle on a second test flight as soon as late March. Boeing announced Jan. 18 it completed a “formal requalification” of the software on its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft. That work included reviews of the software

The Space and Missile Systems Center delayed the award to further evaluate a court judgment against NSTXL. WASHINGTON —  National Security Technology Accelerator (NSTXL) on Jan. 15 received a contract to manage the U.S. Space Force’s Space Enterprise Consortium for the next 10 years.  The Space and Missile Systems Center intended to award the contract

Bio-inspired design for photosensitive perovskite-based capacitors could enable light sensors that respond only to movement. Published in: Matthew Ishimaru; Scilight 2020, 501106 (2020) DOI: 10.1063/10.0002944. Copyright © 2020 Author(s) A new type of sensor that closely mimics how the human eye responds to changing visual stimuli could become the foundation for next-generation computer processors used

WASHINGTON — After nearly two years of struggles, NASA has abandoned efforts to deploy a heat flow probe on its InSight lander into the surface of Mars. In a Jan. 14 statement, NASA said that a final effort to hammer the “mole” into the surface of Mars Jan. 9 failed to make any progress. The

COVINGTON, La. — Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket reached orbit on its second flight Jan. 17, demonstrating the performance of the air-launch system after years of development. The company’s Boeing 747 aircraft, called Cosmic Girl, took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California at 1:38 p.m. Eastern with the LauncherOne rocket attached. The

A map illustrating the inherent colours of 466 types of carbon nanotubes. (Courtesy: Kauppinen Group/Aalto University) Why do some thin films of single-wall carbon nanotubes take on colourful hues even though as-synthesized films are usually black? A team of researchers in Finland, the US and China has now come up with a possible answer in

Space Policy Directive-7 highlights the United States’ ever growing dependence on space-based positioning, navigation and timing. WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Jan. 15 issued a policy memo focused on the United States’ dependence on the Global Positioning System and the need to prepare for a day when GPS might not be available.  A constellation

BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. — NASA performed a hotfire test of the core stage of the Space Launch System Jan. 16, but the stage’s four main engines shut down a little more than a minute into a test designed to last eight minutes. The core stage ignited its four RS-25 engines at 5:27 p.m. Eastern

On target: artist’s impression of how an ultrasound drill and injection tube for nanodroplets could be used to break up blood clots in the body. (Courtesy: North Carolina State University) A precision “ultrasound drill” combined with specially engineered nanodroplets could soon be used inside the body to break up stubborn, impenetrable blood clots – according

SAN FRANCISCO – The U.S. Federal Communication Commission’s C-band auction of 280 megahertz of C-band has raised nearly $81 billion and it’s not quite over. Still to come is the assignment phase, where companies awarded spectrum blocks bid for frequency-specific licenses. Prior to the auction, companies struggled to put a price tag on the bandwidth.

The uncomfortable truth now facing the space community, in the days after the horrific events at the Capitol Jan. 6, is that some of the most prominent Republican supporters of space in Congress are on the wrong side of history. The U.S. Capitol is seen in this Maxar Technologies satellite image the day after a

Hot stuff: scientists have shown that a chemical in chilli peppers can boost the performance of solar cell. (Courtesy: © Tomas Castelazo, www.tomascastelazo.com / Wikimedia Commons) Researchers at the Skoltech Institute of Science and Technology in Russia have used chemical sensors and imaging software to determine – in a contactless way – when a chicken

WASHINGTON — NASA officials expressed confidence that a key test of the Space Launch System scheduled for Jan. 16 will go well, keeping open the chances that the vehicle will make its long-delayed debut before the end of the year. NASA has scheduled a full-duration static-fire test of the SLS core stage at the Stennis

Topological operation: lattice surgery has been used to entangle qubits. (Courtesy: Shutterstock/Dmitriy-Rybin) “Lattice surgery” has been used to quantum-mechanically entangle fault-tolerant topological qubits – an achievement that could lead to the production of more reliable quantum logic gates. Created by researchers in Austria, Switzerland and Germany, the entanglement technique could prove useful in the development

“The DoD space industrial base remains a niche market with very specialized and capital-intensive requirements.” WASHINGTON — U.S. military satellites and missiles continue to rely on customized hardware and niche components that are no longer manufactured domestically, the Pentagon said in a report to Congress released Jan. 14. These programs need to invest in new