SAN FRANCISCO – In-space transportation startup Momentus announced service agreements Oct. 2 with Australia’s Skykraft and French spacecraft engineering company Mecano ID. Santa, Clara, California-based Momentus revealed plans to deploy a pathfinder for Skykraft’s microsatellite constellation on a Vigoride flight in June 2021. Momentus plans to send the Skykraft microsatellite into orbit via EOS, a
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The 2020 Nobel Prize for Physics will be announced on Tuesday 6 October. In the run-up to the announcement, Physics World editors have picked some of the people who they think have been overlooked for a prize in the past. Overlooked: Chien-Shiung Wu in 1963 at Columbia University. (Courtesy: Smithsonian Institution) The 1957 Nobel Prize for Physics
The judge said the Air Force’s actions were not arbitrary, capricious, or in violation of the law, and that SpaceX was not entitled to any relief in this action.” WASHINGTON — A California judge Oct. 2 officially ended SpaceX’s 18-month-long lawsuit against the U.S. Air Force. Following a Sept. 24 ruling denying SpaceX’s claim, the
WASHINGTON — A federal bankruptcy court approved Oct. 2 the sale of broadband megaconstellation company OneWeb to the British government and Indian telecommunications company Bharti Global. At a confirmation hearing in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, judge Robert D. Drain approved the reorganization plan for OneWeb, which filed
New Advantage: D-Wave’s latest quantum computer. (Courtesy: D-Wave Systems) The Canadian quantum computer maker D-Wave Systems has unveiled its latest platform, which contains a whopping 5000 qubits. Called Advantage, the system can be accessed via the company’s Leap 2 cloud service, which was launched earlier this year. The system is designed for use by businesses
WASHINGTON — A Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft is on its way to the International Space Station after a successful launch on the company’s Antares rocket Oct. 2. The Antares 230+ rocket lifted off from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Virginia, at 9:16 p.m. Eastern. The NG-14 Cygnus spacecraft separated from the rocket’s
HELSINKI — China’s human spaceflight agency has selected a group of 18 new astronauts to participate in the country’s upcoming space station project. The China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) announced the results Thursday (Chinese), a few days after the final decisions. The 18 new Chinese astronauts consist of seven pilots, seven spaceflight engineers and four
Boron neutron capture therapy, which targets cancer at the cellular level, is under development by several companies worldwide. (Courtesy: Hanna Koivonoro, Neutron Therapeutics) Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT), a technique that deposits highly targeted radiation into tumour cells, was first investigated as a cancer treatment back in the 1950s. But the field remains small, with
Gen. David Thompson said the new Space Systems Command will be established sometime in 2021 WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force intends to combine multiple space procurement organizations into a single Space Systems Command, and it is finding the task more complex and time consuming than originally envisioned, a senior official said Oct. 1. The
VALLETTA, Malta — German startup Rocket Factory Augsburg has selected the Norwegian launch facility Andøya Spaceport for a 2022 maiden flight of the company’s RFA One small-satellite launch vehicle. Rocket Factory Augsburg, founded in 2018 as the launch arm of German space technology company OHB SE, is in the process of developing its three-stage RFA
What makes skin so tough? Originally published: May 4 2015 – 11:45am, Inside Science News Service By: Lisa Marie Potter, Contributor (Inside Science) — Skin has to be flexible enough to jump, crawl, and kick with us. It also has to be resilient enough to withstand our falls, scrapes, and cuts. Scientists have marveled at skin’s strength for
The 2020 Nobel Prize for Physics will be announced on Tuesday 6 October. In the run-up to the announcement, Physics World editors have picked some of the people who they think have been overlooked for a prize in the past. Missing out: should Nicola Cabibbo have shared the 2008 Nobel Prize for Physics (Courtesy: ICTP Photo Archive)
The Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles Directorate is looking for companies with which to partner. WASHINGTON — The Pentagon contracting process can be a major deterrent to tech companies interested in selling products to the military. The U.S. Space Force is aware of that problem and is trying to incentivize suppliers that are developing
SAN FRANCISCO — SWISSto12 is working with Thales Alenia Space to expand the use of additively manufactured parts for geostationary communications satellites. Swissto12, a Lausanne, Switzerland, telecommunications component startup, has worked for years to design, manufacture and test waveguide signal interconnects for Thales Alenia Space communications satellites. Thales Alenia Space plans to install the 3D-printed
Join the audience for a live webinar at 9 a.m. BST/10 a.m. CET on 29 October 2020 to discover the benefits of using THALES 3D MR SCANNER Want to take part in this webinar? The market introduction of the MR-Linac technology improves the quality of patient care via the real-time imaging of the targeted PTVs.
Upgrades will include mix of new phased array antennas, commercial services and capacity from other U.S. government agencies. WASHINGTON – In a test this summer at Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado, an electronically steered phased array antenna made by Lockheed Martin and Ball Aerospace communicated with four military satellites across multiple orbits. This was a
WASHINGTON — Canadian startup Kepler Communications launched Sept. 28 the first two satellites built in its own facility as the company ramps up its plans to deploy a constellation for data and Internet of Things services. The two six-unit XL cubesats, known as Kepler-4 and Kepler-5 but nicknamed Antilles and Amidala, were among the 15
By Allison Kubo Hutchison Comparison of Earth, the Moon, and Ceres. Image by Gregory Revera NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA. Ceres is the largest body in the asteroid belt. It represents the history of our solar system as a protoplanet, a planetary embryo which formed 4.56 billion years ago. Earth itself is made of the agglomeration of several planetary