Science

Alternative source: if you don’t like broccoli, an algal mat will also emit methyl bromide. (Courtesy: CA Water Quality Monitoring Council) The discovery of life on another planet or moon would have a profound effect on how we see our place in the cosmos. Such discoveries could be forthcoming because astrobiologists are looking for signs

WASHINGTON — SpaceX completed its fourth operational commercial crew mission to the International Space Station Oct. 14 with the safe return of a Crew Dragon spacecraft with four American and European astronauts on board. The Crew Dragon spacecraft Freedom splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean east of Jacksonville, Florida, at 4:55 p.m. Eastern, less than

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – In spite of progress, different Earth observation systems cannot exchange information easily. “The way we are interoperable today is messy and time-consuming and annoying to the end user,” David Gauthier, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Source Commercial & Business Operations Group director, said Oct. 14 at the MilSat Symposium here. A decade ago,

Cosmic fingerprint (courtesy: NASA/ESA/CSA/STSCI/JPL-CALTECH) Astronomers have explained a “baffling” image that was taken earlier this year by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The picture, taken in July, shows a distant binary star known as WR140 surrounded by concentric geometric ripples. The WR140 binary, located just over 5 000 light-years from Earth, is made up

TAMPA, Fla. — Starlink is deepening its foothold in Japan as SpaceX’s satellite broadband service looks to expand elsewhere in Asia, which will be critical for generating much-needed revenues. Japanese telco KDDI announced a deal Oct. 12 to resell Starlink to its enterprise and civil government customers this year — days after SpaceX said it

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – While Astra Space is taking the delisting warning the company received from NASDAQ seriously, the company has “lots of different strategies” to address it, Astra CEO Chris Kemp said at the Satellite Innovation conference here. “Our plan is to work really hard to ship lots of great products for our customers

Near-deterministic loading: The neutral-atom qubit setup at JILA. (Courtesy: Aruku Senoo) Two US-based research teams have developed quantum information processors that use neutral ytterbium (Yb) atoms as qubits – the first time this atomic species has been employed for this purpose. Trapping 100 Yb atoms in a 10 × 10 array, the researchers showed that

WASHINGTON — NASA’s Artemis 1 mission and a Japanese lander are set to launch to the moon from Florida within days of each other in November. NASA announced Oct. 12 that it has scheduled the launch of the Artemis 1 mission for Nov. 14 from the Kennedy Space Center. The launch would take place during

Vulcan’s first mission will carry Astrobotic’s lunar lander, Celestis payloads and two Project Kuiper prototype satellites WASHINGTON — The first two satellites of Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband constellation — Kuipersat-1 and Kuipersat-2 — will launch on the maiden flight of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket, the company announced Oct. 12. ULA said the first

Shutting down: Operations at the CERN particle-physics lab will be curtailed by 20% next year to save energy (courtesy: CERN) The CERN particle-physics lab near Geneva will be reducing the planned operation of its accelerator complex by 20% next year. The lab says the cuts are a response to the energy supply and cost crisis

TAMPA, Fla. — Emirati fleet operator Yahsat said Oct. 11 it has invested in Californian startup eSAT Global, which is developing a chip that would enable phones to connect to its satellites in geostationary orbit (GEO). The companies did not disclose financial details about Yahsat’s acquisition of a minority stake in eSAT. The deal includes

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – NASA has awarded contracts to KSAT Inc. and SpaceLink as part the space agency’s campaign to begin investigating commercial sources for future space communications services. NASA awarded KSAT a $162,000 contract and SpaceLink a $190,000 contract to conduct studies related to direct-to-Earth and lunar-space-relay communications. The contracts stem from the effort

Telling tales To create an image for the cover of the book, Jacob Van Dyk volunteered to undergo a 3T MRI scan. He notes that the two mirror images (generated using different MR settings) look like they are telling true tales to each other. (Reproduced with permission from Springer Nature, ©Jacob Van Dyk) What is

TAMPA, Fla. — SpaceX Oct. 8 successfully deployed the first two of seven satellites Intelsat needs to clear C-band spectrum in the United States, keeping the operator on course to launch all but one of them before the end of this year. A Falcon 9 carrying Galaxy 33 and Galaxy 34 lifted off at 7:05

TAMPA, Fla. — Former SES CEO Karim Michel Sabbagh has returned to the space industry to oversee strategy in Europe and the Middle East for E-Space, the connectivity startup plotting a network of hundreds of thousands of satellites. Sabbagh left SES in April 2018 after four years with the Luxembourg-based satellite operator to head Abu

Ultralow-vibration performance and operational flexibility are defining features of ICEoxford’s latest closed-cycle cryostat Cool thinking, cold science: Paul Kelly (left), chief technical officer at ICEoxford, and Greg Graf, the firm’s engineering manager, headed up the design effort on the DRY ICE DYAD cryostat. (Courtesy: ICEoxford) While the mercury was hitting record highs in the UK

WASHINGTON — Virgin Orbit says it is technically ready for its next LauncherOne mission, and the first orbital launch from the United Kingdom, but is still waiting on a launch license from the British government. Virgin Orbit announced Oct. 5 that it completed a launch rehearsal for the mission, including fueling of the rocket, three

The White House on Oct. 7 released ‘The National Strategy for the Arctic Region’ WASHINGTON — An updated U.S. strategy for the Arctic the Biden administration released Oct. 7 predicts greater power competition in that part of the world, fueled by climate change and growing military activities.  The strategy updates the 2013 version, and lays