Science

HELSINKI — China has developed a vision for an international lunar research station and is seeking international involvement in the project.  The project, named the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), is to be situated in the lunar south pole region. It will be developed through a number of upcoming robotic Chang’e missions across the 2020s

The United States is the dominant space power and the “gains we possess are being threatened,” said Defense Secretary Mark Esper WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Aug. 20 presided over a ceremony at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, where Space Force Gen. John “Jay” Raymond relinquished command of U.S. Space Command and handed

This x-ray map is much more than a beautiful desktop background. By Allison Kubo On June 19, the eRosita instrument aboard the Russian-German “Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma” (SRG) mission finished cataloging more that 1 million high energy x-ray sources more than had ever been recorded before this study. The image above shows our sky illuminated in x-rays, the

An array of piezo-electric patches modulated in time. Credit: Amir Ardabi Researchers have succeeded in controllably propagating sound waves along the boundaries of topological metamaterials using a modulation technique that breaks time-reversal symmetry. This feat, which was accomplished by a team of researchers based at Georgia Tech and the City University of New York (CUNY)

WASHINGTON — Fleet operator SES on Aug. 20 said it selected SpaceX to launch four recently ordered O3b mPower broadband satellites.  The agreement means SpaceX will launch all 11 of SES’s O3b mPower satellites to medium Earth orbit across four Falcon 9 launches. Boeing is building all 11 mPower satellites.  SES chose SpaceX in 2019

SAN FRANCISCO – After four years and six competitions, SpaceNet, the nonprofit focused on geospatial applications for artificial intelligence, is conducting its first temporal challenge with new partner Planet. Competitors in SpaceNet 7 the Multi-Temporal Urban Development Challenge will have two months starting August 31st to devise change-detection algorithms to track building construction over time.

The interior of grapefruit skin. Credit: Leighton Kitson, Durham University A highly deformable material that cannot be cut, even with tools such as angle grinders or power drills, could find use in a wide range of security and safety equipment. The new material – dubbed “Proteus” by its developers in the UK and Germany –

SAN FRANCISCO — Kepler Communications announced a launch agreement Aug. 18 with Exolaunch of Germany for two cubesats scheduled for flight in September on a Russian Soyuz rocket rideshare mission. Under the contract, Exolaunch will provide launch, mission management, integration and deployment services for Kepler’s two six-unit XL cubesats built by the University of Toronto Institute

WASHINGTON — A long-running debate about how to launch a multibillion-dollar NASA mission to Jupiter is now further complicated by potential technical issues involving one of the vehicles. At an Aug. 17 meeting of NASA’s Planetary Science Advisory Committee, Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s planetary science division, said the Europa Clipper mission had recently discovered

(Courtesy: iStock/borchee) Researchers in the US and Italy have identified a second critical point in two realistic theoretical models of water. This finding, which draws on state-of-the-art computational methods and supports a hypothesis first put forward more than 25 years ago, suggests that water exists in two distinct liquid phases, one of which is less

WASHINGTON — SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket Aug. 18 on a mission that reused the same first-stage booster for a sixth time, setting a record for Falcon 9 booster reuse. The Falcon 9 lifted off at 10:31 a.m. Eastern from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, carrying 58 small broadband satellites for

At 80 to 100 kilometers in circumference, the future supercollider, located near the LHC at the Swiss-French border, would dwarf its record-holding counterpart. Credit: CERN By Korena Di Roma Howley In a 100-kilometer leap for particle physics, the governing body of European lab CERN recently approved taking additional steps toward plans to build a $24-billion

Armagno was commissioned into the Space Force and promoted to three-star general Aug. 17 in a ceremony at the Pentagon. WASHINGTON — Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno is the first female U.S. Air Force general officer to transfer to the U.S. Space Force. Armagno was commissioned into the Space Force and promoted to three-star general Aug.

What Planck saw: does the cosmic microwave background harbour evidence for loop quantum cosmology? (Courtesy: ESA and the Planck Collaboration) A theory of quantum gravity that describes the universe as beginning in a “Big Bounce” rather than a Big Bang has succeeded in explaining several anomalies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. Loop quantum

WASHINGTON — Satellite communications provider Speedcast is seeking to sell itself to one of its largest debt holders as a means of exiting Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.  The Australian company filed for bankruptcy protection in April as the coronavirus pandemic weakened demand for its connectivity services to cruise lines, oil rigs and other customer platforms. 

SAN FRANCISCO – The U.S. Air Force and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) noted significant improvements in numerical weather prediction models with the recent addition of global navigation satellite system radio occultation datasets. “It’s been a great year for radio occultation,” Sean Healy, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, said during an Aug.

Taken from the August 2020 issue of Physics World. Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue via the Physics World app.

Debra Facktor, head of Airbus U.S. Space Systems, is banking on government demand for commodity satellites OneWeb Satellites, a joint venture of Airbus and OneWeb, inaugurated its $85 million factory in Florida last July with plans to produce hundreds or thousands of low Earth orbit satellites for OneWeb’s broadband megaconstellation at the rate of two