Snowy scene: the location in Vermont where the distribution of microfibres in snow was measured. (Courtesy: Rachael Miller) I grew up in Canada, which has two things in abundance: electric clothes dryers and snow. So, I was immediately drawn to a paper in PLOS ONE by Kirsten Kapp and Rachael Miller that quantifies the number
Science
COMPANY PROFILE: ENPULSION Today we present ENPULSION, an Austrian company developing cutting edge thruster solutions for small and medium satellites. Founded in 2016, it has delivered more than 130 thrusters and 50 of them are already propelling satellites of various size in space. How did the company achieve that? Milestones: 2017 – ENPULSION is founded.
Maj. Gen. Kim Crider said space “will become the next front of the cyber conflict” WASHINGTON — As many as 1,000 enlisted personnel and 130 officers currently in Air Force cyber security jobs will be asked to join the U.S. Space Force, a senior official said Oct. 8. The selected airmen from cyber security career
Upper limit: a US Navy F/A-18 travelling near the speed of sound in air. The white halo comprises water droplets that have condensed from the air because of the sudden drop in pressure behind the shock cone around the aircraft . (Courtesy: John Gay/US Navy) The upper limit on the speed of sound in solids
WASHINGTON — NASA is delaying the launch of the first operational SpaceX commercial crew mission to the first half of November to provide more time to review a problem during a recent Falcon 9 launch attempt. NASA announced Oct. 10 the Crew-1 mission, which was scheduled to launch on a Falcon 9 in the early
How NASA’s InVEST program is yielding big dividends for future Earth-observing missions For the last several years at the Small Satellite Conference, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) has held a “Small Satellite Mission of the Year” competition. An AIAA committee gathers nominations for smallsats that have launched in the last year and
The INFN Gran Sasso National Laboratory (LNGS). Courtesy: INFN-LNGS Our everyday experience shows that the macroscopic world is different from the quantum one. Unlike quantum particles, the objects in our daily existence do not, for example, exist in a superposition of different states. Traditionally, physicists explain the transition between the two worlds by saying that
SAN FRANCISCO – Exolaunch signed an agreement to secure rides for dozens of small satellites on SpaceX rideshare missions scheduled to launch later this year and in 2021. Under the agreement announced Oct. 8, Germany’s Exolaunch plans to integrate 30 U.S. and European cubesats and microsatellites on Falcon 9 rideshare flights to sun-synchronous orbit scheduled
WASHINGTON — Despite dire predictions just six months ago, space companies in general, and startups in particular, have survived the pandemic and its economic fallout in relatively good shape. In sessions at the three-day Satellite Innovation 2020 conference that concluded Oct. 8, executives and other industry observers concluded that the industry fared better than expected
VALLETTA, Malta — A solid rocket booster designed for Europe’s next-generation Ariane 6 and Vega C launch vehicles completed a third and final static fire test Oct 7. Developed by an ArianeGroup and Avio joint venture called Europropulsion, the P120C is a multipurpose solid rocket booster designed to be used as the first stage of
Slingshot received a $1 million Small Business Innovation Research contract and an additional $1 million from ATX Venture Partners WASHINGTON — Space startup Slingshot Aerospace announced Oct. 8 it has won a U.S. Space Force contract to develop an immersive simulation of the orbital environment. Military students will use the tool to learn the mechanics
By: Hannah Pell On 23 January 2020, the Doomsday Clock was calibrated to 100 seconds before midnight — the closest it has even been — by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the organization in charge of the clock. Because the Doomsday Clock is set no sooner than annually, this decision was made even before
In this episode we look at the ground-breaking research on black holes that led to Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez winning the 2020 Nobel Prize for Physics. On hand are experts Laura Nuttall of the University of Portsmouth and the LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA collaboration, who studies gravitational waves from merging black holes and Harvard University’s
WASHINGTON — A startup is using an initial round of funding to build up tools it believes will provide more accurate notifications of potential collisions for satellite operators. Kayhan Space, based in Boulder, Colorado, announced Oct. 6 it closed a $600,000 “pre-seed” round, led by an Atlanta-based venture capital firm, Overline. Other participants in the
WASHINGTON — Chris Ferguson, the former NASA astronaut who was to command the first crewed flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle, has withdrawn from the mission for personal reasons, the company announced Oct. 7. Ferguson, who joined Boeing in 2011 after a NASA career that included commanding the final space shuttle mission, was
The study employed kilovoltage intrafraction monitoring (KIM) to monitor prostate motion during high-dose radiotherapy delivered in five fractions. Treatment was adapted to the measured motion using either real-time MLC tracking or gating with couch shifts. (Courtesy: Julia Johnson) Stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR), in which high radiation doses are delivered over just a few fractions, requires
SAN FRANCISCO – Rather than pushing the state-of-the art, Boeing, Maxar Technologies and Northrop Grumman are emphasizing reliability in satellites they are manufacturing to help Intelsat and SES clear C-band spectrum, according to speakers at the Satellite Innovation 2020 conference. “Schedule is king,” said Jordan Bletscher, Boeing Space Launch chief strategist. “We want to get