Science

SAN FRANCISCO – Dawn Aerospace announced Dec. 9 that it received approval from the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to begin flying the Dawn Mk-II Aurora, a 4.8-meter-long test vehicle the company developed as part of its campaign to develop a spaceplane to conduct multiple daily flights from conventional airports. “The challenge of getting

They sniff out drugs, cadavers, missing people, explosives, and even cancer. Dogs are more than man’s best friend, they are some of the best chemical detectors in existence. They are so good that by modifying a commercially available explosives detector to act like a dog’s nose, researchers were able to make the detector much more

“Austin is a trusted, trailblazing leader who brings deep experience serving as a top military commander and in critical Pentagon roles,” Biden said in a statement.  WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden on Wednesday will formally introduce his pick to be the next secretary of defense — retired U.S. Army four-star general Lloyd Austin.  Biden and

SAN FRANCISCO – Electro Optic Systems (EOS) of Australia formed SpaceLink, a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary to provide data-relay services for satellites in low Earth orbit and named former OneWeb Vice President David Bettinger as its chief executive officer. “We are developing and implementing a commercial, medium Earth orbit data-relay service to provide direct access

Tom Russell, interim CEO of Millennium Space Systems, said the technology is a possible solution to the growing problem of orbital debris congestion. WASHINGTON — Boeing subsidiary Millennium Space Systems announced Dec. 7 that an experiment launched to space last month will show a small satellite can safely deorbit in about 45 days.  Two Millennium

Two-level systems: two of NIST’s superconducting thermometers for measuring cryogenic temperatures are glued to the lower left and upper right of this amplifier. (Courtesy: J Wheeler/NIST) A simple miniature thermometer that can quickly and accurately measure the temperature of ultracold microwave-based devices has been built by Joel Ullom and colleagues at the National Institute of

SAN FRANCISCO – Google announced a three-year agreement Dec. 7 to host data on the Google Cloud Platform for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory (formerly known as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope) under construction in Chile. As the Rubin Observatory operations team and the scientific community prepare to work with the enormous dataset expected to

The fastest timescales. The highest pressures. Absolute zero. The nanoscale. These conditions are far from our everyday experience, but studying how things behave in different situations can reveal a more complete picture of their nature—and can lead to revolutionary breakthroughs. Click to enlarge. This false-color map of a random light field includes a large number

WASHINGTON — SpaceX launched the first of a new generation of Dragon cargo spacecraft Dec. 6, carrying experiments and supplies to the International Space Station. The SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex (LC) 39A at 11:17 a.m. Eastern after a one-day delay caused by weather. It deployed the Dragon cargo

Fuel gauges with higher accuracy could help ensure that satellites stay operational for longer and more is made of their time in orbit. Credit: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory When a spacecraft launches, it uses roughly 75-90% of its propellant getting into orbit. The remaining fraction determines how long it can remain up there, but gauging

Acting Secretary of Defense Miller in a statement said DoD is “fully cooperating with the Biden transition team.” WASHINGTON — The Biden-Harris transition team this week is scheduled to meet with officials from intelligence agencies overseen by the Defense Department, including the National Reconnaissance Office, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and Defense

WASHINGTON — A constellation of commercial satellites could serve as a communications relay system for future NASA missions, such as an orbiter later this decade to search for subsurface ice there. In recent presentations to advisory committees, NASA officials have discussed the possibility of working with industry to place several satellites into orbit around Mars

Good vibrations: artist’s concept of sound being transmitted in a fermionic superfluid. (Courtesy: Christine Daniloff/MIT) The acoustic properties of an ultracold fermion gas have been measured either side of the superfluid transition temperature in an experiment that has been described as “near perfect” and “beautiful”. The results could have significant implications for understanding everything from

SpaceX makes no secret of its driving goal to make humans a multiplanetary species. Given SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s fixation on Mars and fondness for Tesla ‘Easter eggs’ and other gags, it’s hardly surprising to see Mars mentioned in the terms of service (ToS) agreement for beta users of its Starlink satellite broadband service. However,

HELSINKI — China’s Chang’e-5 spacecraft are preparing for a first-ever robotic rendezvous and docking in lunar orbit, a major hurdle to delivering lunar samples to Earth. At 11:15 a.m. Eastern Saturday an ascent vehicle fresh off the moon and laden with samples will begin an approach phase with the orbiting Chang’e-5 service module, with both

Scratchy. My ultra-smooth gel pen made a distracting and mildly irritating sound that I can only describe as scratchy with each stroke. I became acutely aware of the process involved in forming each letter. I flipped a page in my memo pad to make room for more notes, but the loud, prolonged crinkling of the

All you need to know about the physics of smart speakers and why John Bell’s contributions to quantum physics are still making us think today Sounds good: the physics of smart speakers is the cover feature of the December 2020 edition of Physics World “Alexa, play some Christmas music.” “OK Google, turn on the fairy