WASHINGTON — NASA plans to issue multiple contracts in the coming months for smallsat launch services in the second phase of a program intended to support the emerging small launch vehicle industry. NASA’s Launch Services Program released a draft request for proposals July 1 for its proposed Venture Class Launch Service (VCLS) Demonstration 2 procurement.
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One night in late April, my husband happened to look out the window and noticed, passing over our valley in southwest Montana, a string of around 30 mysterious lights—too fast to be aircraft and apparently too numerous to be satellites. The next day, a string of emails lit up a local listserv. People who’d observed
In this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast the philosopher of science Bob Crease chats about how physicists react when they have discovered something new – the topic of his latest column in Physics World: “The feelings you get when you discover something new”. Murder and the interpretations of quantum mechanics feature highly in
WASHINGTON — Airbus Defence and Space on July 2 announced that it will build a geostationary communications satellite for Optus that will provide coverage over Australia and the surrounding region. Airbus will build the satellite, called Optus-11, on its new OneSat platform, designed with a reconfigurable payload that can steer and reassign beams for different
3 Groundbreaking Experiments Happening Aboard the ISS Right Now https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/christina-koch-activates-the-new-biofabrication-facility NASA astronaut Christina Koch activates the BioFabrication Facility aboard the ISS in August 2019. Credit: NASA Astronauts often leave Earth with plenty of fanfare, but spacecraft bound for the International Space Station (ISS) also routinely carry components for on-orbit experimentation, known as payloads. These systems
SAN FRANCISCO – The Southwest Research Institute won a $15.6 million contract to design and build the Solar Wind Plasma Sensor for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Follow On (SWFO) Lagrange 1 satellite. NOAA announced the cost plus, fixed-fee contract July 1, which it awarded through NASA. Under the contract, the Southwest
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WASHINGTON — The European Space Agency on July 1 awarded 2.5 billion euros in development contracts for six new Earth-observation missions under the Copernicus remote-sensing satellite program. According to the German space agency DLR, some 800 million euros ($901 million) of those contracts will go to companies in Germany. Funding for the six so-called High-Priority
WASHINGTON — Amazon Web Services is increasing its effort to sell cloud services to the space industry through the formation of a dedicated business segment called “Aerospace and Satellite Solutions.” “AWS is committed to supporting our customers’ missions, even those outside the Earth’s atmosphere,” Teresa Carlson, vice president of worldwide public sector at AWS, said
For certain fields of physics, it can be tough to explain how the research has a direct benefit to society. That is never the case with medical physics – a career where you can apply a technical skillset to directly improve people’s everyday lives. In this episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester
WASHINGTON — Hughes Network Systems and Inmarsat are asking the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to amend its C-band auction rules to avoid giving Intelsat and SES an unfair competitive advantage in other spectrum bands and neighboring markets. In a letter to the FCC released June 29, the companies warned that competitors, particularly Intelsat and SES,
SAN FRANCISCO – German launch services provider Exolaunch announced contracts June 29 to integrate NanoAvionics cubesats on SpaceX’s rideshare missions. Under the agreements, Exolaunch is procuring the launch, handling integration and deploying in orbit two six-unit cubesats built by NanoAvionics, a Lithuanian nanosatellite manufacturer. The first NanoAvionics cubesat covered by the new contract is scheduled to
SEM image of electrodes infiltrated with quantum dots. Courtesy: LANL Semiconducting nanocrystals called colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) are ideal for applications such as large-panel displays and photovoltaic cells thanks to their high efficiency and colour purity. Their main drawback is their toxicity, since they have traditionally been made from cadmium or other heavy metals, such
WASHINGTON — As revised commercial remote sensing regulations win widespread approval, the industry is turning its attention to how those new rules will be implemented. The Commerce Department published May 19 the final version of revised regulations for commercial remote sensing satellite systems, a year after releasing a draft rule. The intent of the new
The integration of ICBMs and space operations creates synergy and also signals a commitment by the U.S. to deterrence in and out of the space domain. The Air Force personnel who control land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and the Army personnel who operate national missile defense systems will not be part of the U.S. Space
Ocean Insight’s Liquid Transmission Measurement System (LTMS) provides real-time, in-line monitoring of liquid colouring and coating applications used across the consumer electronics and food processing industries Optical know-how: an LTMS test assembly at Ocean Insight’s Rochester, NY, development facility. When deployed into an industry setting, the LTMS can generate high-precision colour and concentration measurements on
SpaceX on June 30 is scheduled to make its first attempt to recover the Falcon 9 booster after launching a military satellite. WASHINGTON — SpaceX’s Falcon 9 to date has performed 86 launches, in 47 of which the rocket’s first stage landed back on earth. While rocket landings have become the norm for SpaceX launches,
WASHINGTON — The Canadian Space Agency announced June 26 it plans to award a contract to MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) to build a robotic arm that will be Canada’s contribution to the lunar Gateway. The deal covers development of what the agency calls Canadarm3, which is an overarching robotic system for the Gateway rather