Science

The U.S. military’s rescue units have supported NASA for six decades but now for the first time astronauts are flying in commercial capsules. WASHINGTON — Three hours before the SpaceX Crew Dragon launch May 30, teams of combat rescue specialists staged at military bases in Florida, South Carolina and Hawaii went on alert status in

The June 2020 issue of Physics World covers acoustically levitated displays, how far ultraviolet light could tackle viruses and working towards ultrafast imaging in medicine. Sound and vision: Creating displays with acoustically levitated objects Hovering 3D images are the stuff of science fiction. Just think of R2D2 projecting a message from Princess Leia in Star

WASHINGTON — The successful return of human orbital spaceflight to the United States generated bipartisan praise, but it’s unclear if that support will translate into funding required to enable other NASA human spaceflight ambitions. While President Donald Trump’s presence at the May 30 launch of SpaceX’s Demo-2 commercial crew mission received attention, he was accompanied

Space startups have been hit hard during the coronavirus pandemic as venture capital has retreated. Matthew Kuta, president and chief operating officer of Voyager Space Holdings, says the crisis has laid bare a fundamental mismatch between venture investors focused on making quick profits and what space companies need to be successful, which is a long-term

A particularly fascinating class of quantum states are topological states of matter. Credit: IQOQI Innsbruck/Harald Ritsch Topological materials – materials that have surface properties very different to those found in their bulk – are currently revolutionizing condensed-matter physics thanks to their unique characteristics. Researchers in Austria, France, the US and Germany have now put forward

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump used a speech after the successful SpaceX Crew Dragon launch May 30 to tout his administration’s accomplishments in space, some of which predate his time in office, rather than announce any new initiatives. Trump spoke inside the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at the Kennedy Space Center a little more than

WASHINGTON — The first crewed orbital launch from the United States in nearly nine years took place May 30, placing a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft with two NASA astronauts on board into orbit, bound for the International Space Station. A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center at

et al./Nature Sustainability) “> Full of holes: scanning electron microscope image of a graphene foam made using cellulose. The ring-like structures are about 500 micron in diameter. (Courtesy: Shun Zhang et al./Nature Sustainability) High-quality graphene foams have been made from the waste gases produced during the high temperature treatment of organic waste. Researchers in China

The Space Force should leverage the infrastructure and accessions pipeline from the other services. The United States Space Force was established to organize, train, and equip space forces for warfighting in the space domain. As the service begins to get off the ground, there are key questions that its leaders need to address as they

For the merger to go forward CPI must sell off its subsidiary ASC Signal Division. WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice announced on May 28 that it will not allow satellite communications antenna provider CPI to acquire General Dynamics SATCOM Technologies unless CPI sells off its subsidiary ASC Signal Division. The divestiture is necessary to

Science project: was this baked by a materials scientist or a biochemist? (Courtesy: M Johnston) One curious result of the COVID-19 lockdown is an explosion of interest in making sourdough bread. My wife and my eldest daughter are using their skills as a materials scientist and a biochemist respectively to see who can make the

What happens when you focus one of the world’s most powerful lasers on a spot so tiny it can be hidden by a human hair? Using the J-KAREN-P laser at the Kansai Photon Science Institute (KPSI) in Japan, a team led by researchers from the National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology (QST)

WASHINGTON — SpaceX has received a license from the Federal Aviation Administration allowing the company to carry out suborbital flight tests of its Starship next-generation launch vehicle. The FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation published the launch license May 28 for what it calls the Starship Prototype Launch Vehicle. The license allows SpaceX to conduct

WASHINGTON — Viasat says it is open to building a constellation of nearly 300 satellites in low Earth orbit if it can qualify for some of the $20.4 billion in broadband subsidies the U.S. Federal Communications Commission intends to dole out under the Rural Digital Opportunities Fund.  Viasat CEO Mark Dankberg said May 27 that

All-seeing: artist’s impression of the biomimetic eye (Courtesy: Yaying Xu/oFantastic Color Animation Technology Co.) An artificial device that closely mimics the structure and function of the human eye has been unveiled by Leilei Gu and colleagues at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The team based its design around a hemispherical arrangement of

HELSINKI — China is preparing to carry out 11 missions in two years to construct a space station and will soon select a new batch of astronauts for the project. The first module for the Chinese space station will launch next year, said Zhou Jianping, chief designer of China’s human spaceflight program, on the sidelines

Gen. Murray: “It’s about figuring out what capabilities they can provide, and what vulnerabilities do they have?” WASHINGTON — The upcoming evaluation of SpaceX’s Starlink broadband by the U.S. Army will look primarily at the reliability of the service and potential vulnerabilities of the satellites to hostile attacks, a senior Army official said May 27.

Speech bubbles: electron micrograph of SARS-CoV-2 virions, which are the cause of COVID-19. (Courtesy: NIAID-RML/CC BY 2.0) Droplet clouds emitted during 1 min of loud speech by an individual infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus could contain more than 1000 virus particles – according to new calculations done by scientists in the US. This work, alongside observations