Science

WASHINGTON — Northrop Grumman won a $45.5 million contract to launch a small weather satellite in 2025, the U.S. Space Force announced May 25. The company’s Minotaur 4 rocket will launch a payload called Electro-Optical Infrared (EO/IR) Weather System (EWS) prototype that will demonstrate commercial weather imaging technologies for military use. The launch contract was

ST LOUIS – Iceye unveiled a new imaging mode that distinguishes human-made from natural objects and highlights moving vehicles. For Dwell, the synthetic aperture radar imaging mode Iceye announced May 22 at the GEOINT Symposium here, satellites focus on an area for 25-seconds. Iceye’s traditional imagery is derived from 10-second views. Iceye developed Dwell to

Andrew Robinson reviews Curious Devices and Mighty Machines: Exploring Science Museums by Samuel J M M Alberti Museum-worthy An accelerating cavity from CERN’s Large Electron Positron collider, which was operational from 1989 to 1995. (Donation by CERN. Image © National Museums Scotland) “You owe me a new mobile,” grumbled Samuel J M M Alberti’s colleague

WASHINGTON — Two companies are preparing for a 2026 launch of what they believe will be the first commercial robotic Mars lander mission, the start of what the companies plan to be a regular series of such missions. Impulse Space and Relativity Space announced last July plans for the lander mission, with Impulse leading development

ST LOUIS — British Earth observation startup Satellite Vu raised 12.7 million British pounds ($15.8 million) for its thermal-imaging satellite constellation. Molten Ventures, an existing Satellite Vu investor, led the Series A-2 investment round announced May 24. Other previous Satellite Vu investors participated including Seraphim Space Investment Trust, A/O Proptech, Lockheed Martin, Ridgeline Ventures, Earth

Shaping up: A new machine learning algorithm helps physicists reconstruct the shapes of particle accelerator beams from tiny amounts of training data. (Courtesy: Greg Steward/SLAC National Accelerator Lab) Researchers in the US have developed a machine learning algorithm that accurately reconstructs the shapes of particle accelerator beams from tiny amounts of training data. The new

ST. LOUIS — The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is planning a new procurement of commercial services to monitor activities from space.  “We’re preparing for commercial advancements in analytics through our upcoming Luno contract,” NGA’s director Vice Adm. Frank Whitworth said May 22 at the GEOINT 2023 symposium. Luno is the follow-on to NGA’s economic indicator monitoring

ST LOUIS – Hyperspectral startup Orbital Sidekick is acquiring imagery from its first two satellites launched in April on the SpaceX Transporter-7 rideshare flight. “We recently acquired first light, which was very exciting,” Katie Corcoran, OSK vice president of government affairs, said May 22 at the GEOINT Symposium here. “We have two healthy payloads on

The UK has announced a £20bn package for carbon-capture projects, but not everyone is convinced it will be enough to deliver the country’s net-zero targets, as Michael Allen reports Green ambition The UK government wants to capture and store 20–30 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually by the end of this decade. (Courtesy: Patrice Latron

ST LOUIS – OneWeb announced six finalists May 22 for its annual Innovation Challenge. The finalists selected by the London-based broadband communications company are: KP Labs, a Polish startup that applies artificial intelligence for demanding space missions; LUTW, a Canadian nonprofit focused on off-grid solar energy projects; MAV Reality, a cloud collaboration and video conferencing

Updated 8:15 p.m. Eastern with comments from post-launch press conference. WASHINGTON — Axiom Space’s second private astronaut mission is on its way to the International Space Station after a launch May 21. A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A at 5:37 p.m. Eastern. The Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying the

[embedded content] First up in this week’s Red Folder are robots that have been inspired by the humble centipede and created by researchers at Georgia Tech in the US. You might be wondering why they have gone to the bother of creating a robot with lots of legs, if many animals are happy with having

ST. LOUIS — The data analytics firm Royce Geo used imagery from Planet Labs and vessel-tracking information from Spire satellites to uncover illicit oil trading by Russian tankers around the globe.  The analysis published May 16 also found that more tankers coming from Russian ports are now heading towards Chinese export destinations. Using artificial intelligence

WASHINGTON — Three U.S. government agencies are undertaking studies to examine the safety issues associated with a new generation of launch vehicles that use liquid oxygen and methane propellants. At a May 15 meeting of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Group (COMSTAC), FAA officials described efforts that are underway to understand the

Join the audience for a live webinar at 3 p.m. BST/4 p.m. CEST/10 a.m. EDT on 6 July 2023 looking at bringing ultimate precision to space by qualifying the optical frequency comb for in-orbit operation Want to take part in this webinar? Optical frequency comb technology and its capability to directly measure and convert optical

TAMPA, Fla. — SpaceX launched a technology demonstration satellite for OneWeb’s second-generation broadband constellation May 20, along with spares for the British firm’s current low Earth orbit (LEO) network and another that U.S.-based Iridium Communications operates. A Falcon 9 rocket carrying a total 21 spacecraft lifted off 9:16 a.m. Eastern amid heavy fog at Vandenberg

WASHINGTON — NASA selected Blue Origin to develop a second Artemis lunar lander because of technical strengths such as an aggressive schedule of test flights as well as its lower cost. In a source selection statement published shortly after NASA announced it picked Blue Origin for the Sustaining Lunar Development (SLD) award May 19, the

Steven Judge argues that it would be wrong for countries to revert to imperial measures Balancing act The two systems of measurement – imperial and metric – are often used together in UK shops. (Courtesy: iStock) When I was at primary school in the 1960s, measurements were performed using traditional, or imperial, units. The ounce,