Science

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force on Oct. 4 released two solicitations for the next round of national security launch contracts, known as National Security Space Launch Phase 3. NSSL Phase 3 is a multibillion-dollar procurement of launch services projected for 2025 through 2034. United Launch Alliance and SpaceX won NSSL Phase 2 in 2020,

BAKU, Azerbaijan — Japan’s SLIM spacecraft has completed a flyby of the moon as part of a months-long deep space journey to set up a lunar landing attempt. The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) lander made its closest approach to the moon at 2:47 a.m. Eastern, Oct. 4. It passed just under 5,000 kilometers

In and out: An illustration of the quantum engine as a piston, showing the piston compressed when the particles in the gas exist as bosonic molecules and expanded when they are individual fermionic atoms. (Courtesy: Miriam Neve) Most regular engines convert thermal energy into mechanical work, but an international team of researchers has now designed

BAKU, Azerbaijan — China will send new modules to its Tiangong space station in coming years to expand the outpost’s volume and capabilities. Future plans for Tiangong were presented at the 47th International Astronautical Congress in Baku Oct. 4. Zhang Qiao of the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) presented plans to expand Tiangong from

WASHIINGTON — Axiom Space has selected an unconventional partner to assist in its development of spacesuits that will be worn by the next NASA astronauts to walk on the moon: Prada. Axiom Space and Prada, the Italian luxury fashion house, announced Oct. 4 they would collaborate on spacesuits Axiom is developing for use on Artemis

Join the audience for a live webinar at 4 p.m. GMT/11 a.m. EST on 7 November 2023, introducing our superconducting, qubit hardware and exploring the state-of-the-art experiments it enables Want to take part in this webinar? In recent years superconducting qubits have become one of the leading platforms for quantum computation and simulation. In 2019,

BAKU, Azerbaijan — The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is working on plans for a new, large and reusable launch vehicle as the core of its future space transportation plans. The launcher will be designed jointly by JAXA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI). It is to be reusable while also increasing payload capability and decreasing launch

TAMPA, Fla. — The Federal Communications Commission has fined Dish Network $150,000 for failing to properly remove a satellite from geostationary orbit, the U.S. regulator said Oct. 2 in a first for its space debris enforcement action. The settlement includes an admission of liability from Dish for leaving EchoStar-7 at 122 kilometers above its operational

MIR Vibrationally-Assisted Luminescence (MIRVAL). (Courtesy: Dr Rohit Chikkaraddy, Assistant Professor in Physics at the University of Birmingham) A new, streamlined method of “seeing” vibrations in molecules could have applications in real-time gas sensing, medical imaging, astronomical surveys and even quantum computing. These molecular vibrations occur in the mid-infrared (MIR) range of the electromagnetic spectrum, and

WASHINGTON — A plan floated by military agencies to interconnect commercial and government satellite networks into a “hybrid” space architecture seems impractical, industry executives said.  The concept, sometimes referred to as the “outernet,” has been embraced by the U.S. Space Force and the Defense Innovation Unit. The idea is that, in a hybrid network, communication

HELSINKI — China will launch its Chang’e-6 lunar sample return mission next year in an attempt at a first-ever collection of material from the far side of the moon. Chang’e-6 will launch following the deployment of a new lunar relay satellite in the first half of the year to support the mission, the China National

WASHINGTON — A short-term funding bill passed at the last minute includes a three-month extension of the “learning period” limiting regulations on commercial spaceflight participant safety. The House of Representatives and the Senate passed Sept. 30 a continuing resolution (CR) funding the federal government through Nov. 17. The bill passed by wide margins in both

WASHINGTON — NASA has selected SpaceX to launch a pair of smallsats to study space weather as part of a rideshare mission in 2025. NASA announced Sept. 29 that it awarded SpaceX a task order to launch the Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites (TRACERS), a pair of smallsats that will study space weather

WASHINGTON — The American subsidiary of Japanese company ispace has revised the design of a lunar lander it is providing for a NASA mission, pushing back the launch of that mission by a year. The company, ispace technologies U.S., unveiled the new lander design, called APEX 1.0, at a Sept. 28 event at its new

WASHINGTON — NASA has agreed to extend operations of its New Horizons spacecraft through late this decade to support “multidisciplinary” science that could include another Kuiper Belt object flyby. NASA announced Sept. 29 that it would extend New Horizons, currently approved for operations through the end of fiscal year 2024, until the spacecraft exits the

WASHINGTON — The Space Development Agency awarded a $14.2 million contract to General Atomics to produce two optical communications terminals hosted on two small satellites for an in-space demonstration.  The contract, announced Sept. 27, is for a demonstration of satellite-to-satellite laser communications under adverse conditions that can degrade the communication link.  General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems,

WASHINGTON — NASA has postponed the launch of the asteroid mission Psyche a week to update the configuration of thrusters on the spacecraft. NASA announced late Sept. 28 that it has rescheduled the launch of the spacecraft, previously planned for Oct. 5, for Oct. 12. A Falcon Heavy rocket will have an instantaneous launch window

Approaching quantum advantage: researchers have simulated a phase transition on a 20-qubit quantum processor. (Courtesy: iStock/agsandrew) A 20-qubit quantum processor has been used to simulate the classical and quantum nature of non-equilibrium phase transitions. The work was done by researchers in the US and Canada, who used a processor made by Quantinuum, which is based