Science

Griffin’s resignation leaves the SDA without a major advocate inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense. WASHINGTON — Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Mike Griffin and his deputy Lisa Porter submitted letters of resignation to Defense Secretary Mark Esper on June 23 and plan to leave their posts by July 10. Esper

UHV Design continues to push the boundaries when it comes to sample manipulation, positioning and preparation in ultrahigh-vacuum environments Vacuum know-how: senior mechanical design engineer Lukasz Rybacki finalizes the test and assembly of a MultiCentre analytical stage in the UHV Design cleanroom. (Courtesy: UHV Design) There’s much ado about next to nothing, it seems, in

WASHINGTON — Small launch vehicle developer Relativity Space has won a contract to launch six Iridium replacement satellites, which it plans to carry out from a new launch site it proposes to develop at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Relativity announced June 24 that it won a contract from Iridium for “on-demand” launches of six replacement

The Air Force must fund three-year R&D agreements with companies to help them prepare to meet the requirements of the National Security Space Launch Phase 3 competition. WASHINGTON — The Senate Armed Services Committee’s markup of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 directs the Air Force to fund up to $250 million

Unexpected result: the SHARAQ detector at the Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory (Courtesy: RIKEN) Adding a single proton to a doubly magic isotope of oxygen is enough to significantly alter its properties, an international team of physicists has discovered. Led by Tsz Leung Tang at the University of Tokyo, the researchers made the unexpected discovery after

SAN FRANCISCO – York Space Systems and Metropolitan State University of Denver won a U.S. Air Force contract to investigate ways to reduce the cost and speed delivery of high-quality satellite imagery. Under an Air Force Small Business Technology Transfer study announced June 23, York will pair its commercial spacecraft and open-standard payload interfaces with

Companies are selected based on data provided to DoD leaders by the Defense Contract Management Agency and the Defense Logistics Agency. WASHINGTON — Companies are selected to receive emergency coronavirus rescue funds from the Defense Department based on multiple factors, said the Pentagon’s top procurement official Ellen Lord. “We have a team” that reviews data

Lorenzo Buffoni and Michele Campisi of Italy’s University of Florence have studied the thermodynamics of the D-Wave 2000Q quantum processor – which comprises 2000 interconnected superconducting circuits that each serve as a quantum bit (qubit). Here they tell Physics World what motivated them to study “reverse annealing” on the processor and how their results could

WASHINGTON — Atlanta, Georgia startup Carbice has developed a nanotech-based thermal-management material scheduled to launch on five satellites by the end of this year. The material, called Carbice Carbon, is designed to fill air gaps between computer chips, replacing epoxy- or graphite-based materials to dissipate heat from electronics. Carbice’s thermal material is made of aluminum

By the end of the year, the National Reconnaissance Office plans to issue “multiple operational commercial imagery contracts to support defense, security and many other U.S. government missions,” said Pete Muend, director of NRO’s Commercial Systems Program Office. “We’re very excited to begin to leverage all the capabilities that our U.S. domestic commercial industry base

In the lab. Courtesy: University of Warwick Scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) is routinely employed to identify individual molecules, but it cannot usually resolve their internal structure. An interdisciplinary team of researchers at the universities of Warwick and Cardiff in the UK has now shown that a variation of high-resolution STM can in fact deliver information

WASHINGTON — Smallsat builder Blue Canyon Technologies is moving employees into a recently opened factory designed to build 100 satellites a year, and more in the future.  The Crescent Satellite Constellation manufacturing facility in Lafayette, Colorado, near the city of Boulder, opened June 3, Matt Beckner, Blue Canyon chief operating officer, told SpaceNews.  Because the

WASHINGTON — European smallsat builder GomSpace has entered a settlement agreement with Aerial & Maritime, a company Gomspace helped start and for which it had already built eight satellites.  GomSpace said June 16 that Aerial & Maritime will be liquidated, and that GomSpace will retain ownership of the eight satellites, designed to track ships and

Unwanted change: solar geoengineering could affect the nature of heat waves in some locations. (Courtesy: Shutterstock/kwest) Using aerosols to reflect sunlight and cool the planet will weaken storm tracks in the temperate latitudes in both hemispheres, an international team of scientists warn. Their modelling suggests that while such solar geoengineering schemes could reduce the severity

WASHINGTON — Two years after a space policy directive gave it responsibility for space traffic management, the Commerce Department says it is making progress on implementing that policy as it continues to seek additional funding from Congress. On June 18, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross visited the headquarters of Analytical Graphics Inc. (AGI) outside of Philadelphia

WASHINGTON — Boeing announced late June 19 several changes in management of its work on the International Space Station and CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle. In a memo to employees of Boeing Space and Launch, Jim Chilton, senior vice president in charge of the division, announced that Mark Mulqueen will retire from the company July

Shut the lid: viruses could be lurking in this spotless loo. (Courtesy: Evert Meijs/ CC BY-SA 3.0) Here is another very good reason to wash your hands after using the facilities – and you might also want to wear a mask. Yun-Yun Li, Ji-Xiang Wang and Xi Chen of Southeast University in Nanjing, China have

A conversation with Col. Eric Felt, director of AFRL’s Space Vehicles Directorate The U.S. Space Force is small in size but big on technology. To stay ahead of rivals that are trying to compete with U.S. military might, the Space Force needs a research-and-development organization that brings a broad pipeline of ideas. That essentially is