Science

WASHINGTON — SpaceX launched another set of Starlink satellites Oct. 24, marking the 100th time the company has placed payloads into orbit. The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 11:31 a.m. Eastern. The rocket’s upper stage deployed the payload of 60 Starlink satellites into

David Collomb is a PhD student at the University of Bath, UK, and is organiser of the International Physicists’ Tournament This post is part of a series on how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the personal and professional lives of physicists around the world. If you’d like to share your own perspective, please contact us

WASHINGTON — NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collected so much material from the surface of the asteroid Bennu that the lid of its sampling head is jammed open, causing material to leak out and changing the agency’s plans for the mission. At a media briefing called by NASA on short notice Oct. 23, three days after the

WASHINGTON — Axiom Space hopes to soon finalize its first commercial mission to the International Space Station, scheduled for late 2021, as it continues development of a commercial module for the station. During a panel discussion at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) Oct. 13, Michael Suffredini, president and chief executive of Axiom Space, said his

Collision prevention (left to right): Kyla Remillard, Fernando Hueso-González and David Craft are three of the four researchers who developed the radiotherapy collision assessment tool. (Courtesy: Kyla Remillard) A team at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has developed RadCollision – an open-source collision detection tool designed to aid dosimetrists planning photon or proton beam radiotherapy. When

The recent streak of launch scrubs proves that systems are working like they should, said Col. Douglas Pentecost. WASHINGTON — A streak of United Launch Alliance and SpaceX launch scrubs has frustrated rocket company executives and space aficionados. But Space Force launch managers are not discouraged, and in fact see scrubs as proof that systems

WASHINGTON — Small launch vehicle developer ABL Space Systems announced Oct. 22 that it has started a series of static-fire tests of the upper stage of its vehicle, putting the company on track for a first launch in 2021. The company said it performed integrated stage testing of the upper stage of its RS1 vehicle

NASA image of a dust storm from 1998. Provided by the SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE – NASA Visible Earth, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=402743 By Jeremiah O’Mahony The Canary Islands spent a few days of March 2018 shrouded in Saharan dust. Calimas, two-to three-day-long gusts of sand and warm wind named for the haze they

Finding a material that is a superconductor at room temperature has been the Holy Grail of condensed matter physics for over a century. In this episode we meet Ranga Dias of the University of Rochester whose team has created a material that is a superconductor at 15 °C. The only catch is that it has to

SAN FRANCISCO — Airbus Ventures invested 2.5 million Singapore dollars ($1.85 million) in Zero-Error Systems (ZES), a Singapore startup developing radiation-hardened integrated circuits. With the funding, ZES will “scale its operations, and work with international customers to deploy its products into space, as well as explore new applications, including self-driving vehicles with high levels of

Chairman Adam Smith said Space Force leaders so far have not pushed back against Rep. Crenshaw’s ‘Starfleet’ amendment WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said Space Force leaders so far have not pushed back against proposed legislation that would require the space service to use the Navy’s rank structure. The Space

Limitless: Paul Thibado holds prototype energy-harvesting chips. (Courtesy: Russell Cothren) The rippling thermal motion of a tiny piece of graphene has been harnessed by a special circuit that delivers low-voltage electrical energy. The system was created by researchers in US and Spain, who say that if it could be duplicated enough times on a chip,

The Space Operations Command, or SpOC, will be led by Lt. Gen. Stephen Whiting. WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force on Oct. 21 is standing up its first field command at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado.  The Space Operations Command, or SpOC, will be led by Lt. Gen. Stephen Whiting. He will officially assume command

SpaceX will use Microsoft Azure’s orbital emulator — a digital environment that allows the user to visualize an entire satellite architecture, test satellite designs and artificial intelligence algorithms.  WASHINGTON — SpaceX earlier this month won a $149 million contract from the Defense Department’s Space Development Agency to build four satellites to detect and track ballistic and

A linear accelerator with the portal dosimetry panel (EPID) deployed. (Courtesy: Murillo Bellezzo, Maastro Clinic) Radiation therapy is a complex procedure, with a series of equipment and dosimetry checks performed before every treatment to ensure its safety and accuracy. However, there’s still potential for errors to occur during the actual radiation delivery, such as changes

“We’re discussing with the Air Force the path forward for certification,” said Megan Mitchell, Blue Origin’s director of government and legislative affairs.  WASHINGTON — The Air Force in August selected United Launch Alliance and SpaceX as its launch providers for the next five years. Blue Origin competed for the job but lost and, as a

HELSINKI — Chinese large state-owned enterprise CASIC laid out a new set of commercial space plans for the next five years at a conference Monday. The China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp. (CASIC) outlined plans for developing launch services, satellite constellations and a reusable space plane at the 6th China International Commercial Aerospace Forum, which

Star struck: Betelgeuse’s sudden drop in brightness, dubbed the “great dimming”, has enthralled astronomers since it was first observed late last year (Courtesy: ESO/M. Montargès et al.) An international team of astronomers has proposed a telescope to monitor the bright star Betelgeuse to provide clues about the cause of its sudden drop in brightness. The