Science

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

Ringing in the new: microscope image of a ring laser used by the Harvard group. (Courtesy: Capasso Lab/Harvard SEAS) Frequency combs are one of the most important developments in metrology in the 21st century, but conventional combs are bulky and highly sensitive to external perturbations. Now two independent groups present key developments in solid state

The contract would keep the Defense Support Program early-warning satellites in service until 2030. WASHINGTON — Northrop Grumman has been awarded a $222.5 million contract for technology upgrades to the Defense Support Program, a constellation of early warning satellites that has been in operation since the 1970s. The contract announced on June 26 by the

SAN FRANCISCO – The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration plans to acquire commercial radio occultation data for operational use, according to a detailed report released June 26 on the agency’s Commercial Weather Data Pilot. “Based on the results of the technical evaluation of the data provided by two vendors in the CWDP Round 2 Pilot,

Interstellar umbrella: artist’s impression of ‘’Oumuamua, which some astronomers claim could be an alien light-sail. (Courtesy: ESO/M Kornmesser) Breakthrough Listen is an organization that searches for evidence of technological life by surveying one million nearby stars in the Milky Way as well as 100 nearby galaxies. The search has been going for five years and

WASHINGTON — The European Space Agency formally started the search for its next leader June 25, with the current head of the agency recommending it select a “dynamic young successor.” ESA formally posted the job opening for director general a day after the conclusion of a meeting of the ESA Council, featuring representatives of its

SAN FRANCISCO – Ball Aerospace won a $96.9 million contract June 25 to build, integrate and operate the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Follow On (SWFO) satellite destined for Earth-Sun Lagrange Point 1. Under the firm fixed-price contract awarded by NASA on behalf of NOAA, Ball Aerospace will design and manufacture the satellite

This episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast features three physicists at McMaster University in Canada. They responded to COVID-19 restrictions on in-person learning by mailing-out simple equipment so their students could do undergraduate lab experiments at home. Instead of just getting by with the new arrangements, Sara Cormier, Adam Fortais and Kari Dalnoki-Veress were

WASHINGTON — Space tourism company Space Adventures has signed a contract with RSC Energia for a Soyuz flight to the International Space Station that will include an opportunity for one customer to perform a spacewalk. Under the contract announced June 25, a Soyuz spacecraft will fly a “short duration” mission, which Space Adventures described in

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