Science

By Allison Kubo Hutchison Although today it may be easy to buy your maternal figure an orchid for Mother’s Day from the grocery store, in the 1800s, the acquisition of orchids was a dangerous, competitive and lucrative business. Orchids, which are generally tropical plants, grow across the globe and their family makes up 6-11% of

SAN FRANCISCO – Axelspace, the Japanese firm planning to offer daily global optical imagery, raised 2.58 billion Japanese yen ($23.8 million) in a Series C investment round announced May 14 in Tokyo, May 13 in the United States. The Space Frontier Fund managed by Sparx Innovation for Future Co. provided funding alongside other venture capital

TAMPA, Fla. — Japanese internet giant SoftBank has agreed an alliance with OneWeb to expand its low Earth orbit (LEO) broadband services in Japan and worldwide. The collaboration with SoftBank, which has invested in OneWeb, is an important step toward getting regulatory approvals and setting up ground stations in Japan for the startup’s growing constellation.

WASHINGTON — Ongoing work to address a problem seen on two previous Ariane 5 launches has kept that launch vehicle grounded for months and could delay the high-profile launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope later this year. The Ariane 5, one of the world’s most reliable launch vehicles, last launched in August 2020, placing

 By: Hannah Pell Think of your favorite pasta dish. The classic spaghetti with marinara, layered lasagna, pasta salad, macaroni & cheese — there are plenty to choose from, you might just have to use your noodle. Now, think of what you like most about it. Is it the texture? The flavor? Or are you mostly

SAN FRANCISCO – The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign awarded a contract to Blue Canyon Technologies to provide cubesats for a space mission sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The value of the award was not disclosed. Under the contract announced May 12, Blue Canyon Technologies, a Raytheon Technologies subsidiary, will provide a pair of six-unit

Join the audience for a live webinar at 10 a.m. BST/11 a.m. CEST on 2 June 2021 exploring RadCalc’s use in automated QA in clinical environments Want to take part in this webinar? This webinar will give an overview about RadCalc and its automated workflows. It will not only cover single RadCalc installations but also

Projects will be co-funded by the government and contractors under “other transactions authority” agreements managed by the Space Enterprise Consortium WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force on May 11 issued three requests for industry proposals on technologies that the military will need to reach space and to operate spacecraft in orbit. The Space and Missile

The Space Force also plans to rename the 30th Space Wing at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, Space Launch Delta 30 WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force has officially renamed the 45th Space Wing that oversees Florida’s launch ranges Space Launch Delta 45, the service announced May 11. Plans to rename the former Air Force

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. Jony Hudson is a research engineer working on the development of artificial intelligence at DeepMind in London. He has previously worked in academic research, on such projects as measuring the

DoD spokesman: Countries that conduct activities in space should share information about those activities, especially when they put people at risk. WASHINGTON — Less than two days after parts of an uncontrolled Chinese rocket fell into the Indian Ocean, the Pentagon said allowing a large booster to free fall toward Earth is “irresponsible behavior.” “We

SEOUL, South Korea — The chief of South Korea’s space agency has vowed to spin off near-term applications to the private sector and refocus the agency on long-term investments that “won’t pay off until 2050.” This was part of a broad reform plan unveiled by Lee Sang-ryool, president of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI),

HELSINKI — Debris from a large Chinese rocket stage fell into the Indian Ocean late May 8 Eastern as people around the world watched for signs of the fiery reentry event in the skies. Remnants from the roughly 30-meter-long, five-meter-wide empty core stage of the Long March 5B fell into the Indian Ocean  at 10:24

WASHINGTON — SpaceX launched a set of Starlink satellites May 9 on a Falcon 9 whose first stage was making its tenth flight, a long-awaited goal in the company’s reusability efforts. The Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 2:42 a.m. Eastern. The rocket’s upper stage

Heating up: dark matter could be boosting the temperatures of exoplanets such as GJ 504b, which is depicted in this artistic impression. (Courtesy: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/S Wiessinger) Dark matter has a warming effect on exoplanets that could be observed – according to astronomers Rebecca Leane at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Juri Smirnov