What happens when you focus one of the world’s most powerful lasers on a spot so tiny it can be hidden by a human hair? Using the J-KAREN-P laser at the Kansai Photon Science Institute (KPSI) in Japan, a team led by researchers from the National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology (QST)
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WASHINGTON — SpaceX has received a license from the Federal Aviation Administration allowing the company to carry out suborbital flight tests of its Starship next-generation launch vehicle. The FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation published the launch license May 28 for what it calls the Starship Prototype Launch Vehicle. The license allows SpaceX to conduct
WASHINGTON — Viasat says it is open to building a constellation of nearly 300 satellites in low Earth orbit if it can qualify for some of the $20.4 billion in broadband subsidies the U.S. Federal Communications Commission intends to dole out under the Rural Digital Opportunities Fund. Viasat CEO Mark Dankberg said May 27 that
All-seeing: artist’s impression of the biomimetic eye (Courtesy: Yaying Xu/oFantastic Color Animation Technology Co.) An artificial device that closely mimics the structure and function of the human eye has been unveiled by Leilei Gu and colleagues at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The team based its design around a hemispherical arrangement of
HELSINKI — China is preparing to carry out 11 missions in two years to construct a space station and will soon select a new batch of astronauts for the project. The first module for the Chinese space station will launch next year, said Zhou Jianping, chief designer of China’s human spaceflight program, on the sidelines
Gen. Murray: “It’s about figuring out what capabilities they can provide, and what vulnerabilities do they have?” WASHINGTON — The upcoming evaluation of SpaceX’s Starlink broadband by the U.S. Army will look primarily at the reliability of the service and potential vulnerabilities of the satellites to hostile attacks, a senior Army official said May 27.
Speech bubbles: electron micrograph of SARS-CoV-2 virions, which are the cause of COVID-19. (Courtesy: NIAID-RML/CC BY 2.0) Droplet clouds emitted during 1 min of loud speech by an individual infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus could contain more than 1000 virus particles – according to new calculations done by scientists in the US. This work, alongside observations
WASHINGTON — As NASA and SpaceX complete final preparations for the first crewed flight of the Crew Dragon spacecraft, the agency is already looking ahead to the spacecraft’s next mission. Technicians spent the day May 26 wrapping up work ahead of the scheduled 4:33 p.m. Eastern May 27 launch of the Crew Dragon spacecraft on
SAN FRANCISCO – Roccor has completed radio frequency testing of the antenna scheduled for launch later this year on the satellite housing Viasat’s Link 16 military communications terminal. The firm known for deployable spacecraft structures, is working with BluFlux, an antenna technology specialist, to complete environmental testing of the helical L-band antenna for XVI, an
Handy material: this model of a human hand was made using a liquid metal matrix. (Courtesy: Pu Zhang) A liquid metal lattice that can be crushed but returns to its original shape on heating has been developed by Pu Zhang and colleagues at Binghamton University in the US. The material is held together by a
WASHINGTON — NASA and SpaceX officials said after a final pre-launch review they had no major issues about the upcoming Demo-2 commercial crew launch beyond one over which they have no control: the weather. NASA concluded a launch readiness review May 25 for the Demo-2 mission, the final pre-launch review for a mission that will
Updated 5:00 p.m. Eastern. WASHINGTON — Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne failed to reach orbit in its first launch attempt May 25, with the mission “terminated” moments after the rocket’s release from its aircraft. The company’s “Cosmic Girl” aircraft, a modified Boeing 747, took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California at 2:56 p.m.
Tiphaine Kouadou is a PhD student who is supposed to finish her dissertation this year and Mattia Walschaers is a CNRS research scientist. Both work in the multimode quantum optics group at the Laboratoire Kastler Brossel (LKB) in Paris, France, which is affiliated with Sorbonne Université, CNRS, ENS Université PSL, and Collège de France. This
The Air Force sent the report to congressional committees May 21 and notified them the next day that what they had received was not the final version. WASHINGTON — A Department of the Air Force report sent to Congress last week proposing changes to Space Force acquisition programs was an “initial version” and not the
NASA has selected three companies to begin development of lunar landers that could return astronauts to the surface of the moon as soon as 2024. The program makes use of public-private partnerships, rather than conventional contracts, to fund these efforts. What are the next steps in developing these landers? Why are partnerships the best approach
On the move: time sequence of the electron distribution of the molecule 1,3-cyclohexadiene after it is excited by a light pulse. (Courtesy: SLAC) Scientists in the US and UK are the first to observe electrons rearrange their positions in molecules during the early stages of a light-driven chemical reaction. They did so by firing ultrashort
WASHINGTON — While both the president and vice president plan to attend the Demo-2 commercial crew launch, there will be far fewer people attending the first American human orbital spaceflight in nearly a decade than once expected. The White House announced May 22 that President Donald Trump will go to the Kennedy Space Center for
WASHINGTON — Virgin Orbit says that it’s ready for its first orbital launch attempt, scheduled for May 24, while acknowledging potentially long odds of successfully placing a payload into orbit. Company executives said in a May 23 media call that final preparations for the inaugural LauncherOne mission are proceeding, with a “green board” and no