Science

WASHINGTON — Astra launched its Rocket 3.1 vehicle late Sept. 11, but the flight ended during the small launch vehicle’s first-stage burn. The rocket lifted off from Pacific Spaceport Complex Alaska on Kodiak Island at approximately 11:20 p.m. Eastern, according to a series of tweets by the company, which did not provide live video of

HELSINKI — Launch of a Kuaizhou-1A satellite carrying a remote sensing satellite ended in failure following liftoff from Jiuquan Saturday. The Kuaizhou-1A solid rocket lifted off from a transporter erector launcher at Jiuquan in the Gobi Desert at 01:02 a.m. Eastern Saturday. Amateur footage of the apparent launch appeared on Chinese social media shortly after.

A cut above: how to share a watermelon. (Courtesy: Timoteo Carletti) What is the fairest way to slice up a watermelon? A juicy question that you might never have considered unless you are suddenly given the task at a children’s birthday party. Well, physicists in Belgium, France and Italy have now tackled the problem using

While ULA builds the Atlas 5 for NROL-101 it also is working to get NROL-44 launched on a Delta 4 Heavy. WASHINGTON — United Launch Alliance has begun assembling the Atlas 5 rocket that will launch a classified spy satellite sometime before the end of the year, the company said Sept. 11 via Twitter. The

Raytheon is one of several major defense contractors selected by the U.S. Air Force for the program known as “defense experimentation using commercial space internet.” WASHINGTON — Raytheon Technologies on Sept. 10 received a $13 million contract to test the use of commercial space internet services on military aircraft. Raytheon is one of several major

For almost 75 years, the Doomsday Clock has monitored how close humankind is to global catastrophe. With the clock now closer to midnight than ever before, the science writer Rachel Brazil talks to Physics World’s Matin Durrani about how the clock is set by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and how physicists can engage

Sen. Cramer: The Space Force caucus will provide an avenue to craft bipartisan legislative ideas. WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of U.S. senators announced they have formed a Space Force Caucus to help the new military branch advance issues on Capitol Hill. Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) will chair the group.

By Hannah Pell Alice and Bob are recurring characters in science. They can usually be found chatting over the phone or playing games of chance with each other, such as poker or flipping coins. But no matter Alice’s and Bob’s thought-experiment scenario, there is always some sort of a communication problem at the core of

WASHINGTON — One of the two co-founders of launch vehicle company Relativity Space is stepping down as the company’s chief technology officer to create a new startup. In a series of tweets Sept. 9, Jordan Noone announced he was transitioning from chief technology officer to “executive advisor” at Relativity “in preparation for starting my next

Senior author Karunesh Ganguly discusses electrocorticography brain recording data with student Stefan Lemke. (Courtesy: UCSF) Brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) offer the potential for people with severe motor disabilities to control external assistive devices with their mind. Current BCI systems are limited, however, by the need for daily recalibration of the decoder that converts neural activity into

Northrop Grumman statement: “We have chosen not to continue development of the OmegA launch system at this time.” WASHINGTON — Northrop Grumman announced it will not move forward with the development of the OmegA rocket. The vehicle was designed for the sole purpose of competing for a National Security Space Launch contract award but didn’t

Brig. Gen. Cothern: What type of launch vehicles will be needed “depends on the threats.” WASHINGTON — The launch vehicles the U.S. Space Force selected last month to fly its satellites — United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur, and SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy — meet the national security needs for the foreseeable future, said

Taken from the September 2020 issue of Physics World. Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue via the Physics World app. The lockdown measures imposed by many nations due to the COVID-19 pandemic have led to air pollution falling dramatically, thereby offering scientists a rare opportunity to study its links with

Northrop Grumman was the only bidder for GBSD after Boeing decided to drop out of the competition. WASHINGTON — The Department of the Air Force on Sept. 8 awarded Northrop Grumman a $13.3 billion contract to develop the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) intercontinental ballistic missile. The GBSD is the follow-on to the Minuteman 3

Topsy-turvy: plastic boats floating above and below a levitated liquid layer. (Courtesy: Benjamin Apffel et al./Nature) Physicists in France have made small objects float upside-down on the underside of a layer of viscous liquid levitating in air. Although their apparently gravity-defying demonstration breaks no laws of physics, they say it could shed new light on

HELSINKI — A Chinese reusable experimental spacecraft released an unknown object before deorbiting Sunday, ending a secretive two-day mission in low Earth orbit. The spacecraft launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert Thursday atop a Long March 2F rocket. Airspace closure notices issued a day earlier provided the only clue to

WASHINGTON — NASA and Northrop Grumman successfully tested Sept. 2 a solid rocket booster developed for the Space Launch System that incorporates improvements intended for future SLS missions. The five-segment booster, built by Northrop Grumman for the Flight Support Booster 1 test, ignited at 3:05 p.m. Eastern at a company test site in Promontory, Utah.

Simulated mountain and valley landscape created by buckling in graphene. Credit: Yuhang Jiang An international team led by researchers at Rutgers University in the US has found a way to create “flat” electronic bands – that is, electron states in which there is no relationship between the electrons’ energy and velocity – in graphene simply by