Science

While ULA builds the Atlas 5 for NROL-101 it also is working to get NROL-44 launched on a Delta 4 Heavy. WASHINGTON — United Launch Alliance has begun assembling the Atlas 5 rocket that will launch a classified spy satellite sometime before the end of the year, the company said Sept. 11 via Twitter. The

WASHINGTON — The Japanese space agency JAXA announced Sept. 11 that the first launch of the country’s new H3 rocket will be delayed to no earlier than the spring of 2021 because of problems with the rocket’s main engine. JAXA said that the first flight of the rocket is now scheduled for some time in

Raytheon is one of several major defense contractors selected by the U.S. Air Force for the program known as “defense experimentation using commercial space internet.” WASHINGTON — Raytheon Technologies on Sept. 10 received a $13 million contract to test the use of commercial space internet services on military aircraft. Raytheon is one of several major

Sen. Cramer: The Space Force caucus will provide an avenue to craft bipartisan legislative ideas. WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of U.S. senators announced they have formed a Space Force Caucus to help the new military branch advance issues on Capitol Hill. Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) will chair the group.

VALLETTA, Malta — QuadSAT, a Danish startup that tests and calibrates antennas using quadcopter drones as stand-ins for satellites, announced Sept. 10 that it raised 2 million euros ($2.35 million) in a Pre-Series A investment round as it prepares to productize its technology. QuadSAT plans to use the money to fuel its pivot from traveling

Lt. Gen. Liquori: Access to the space domain is vital to economic prosperity WASHINGTON — In meetings with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, Space Force leaders are making the case that the service plays a central role defending national security and also economic interests. The Space Force envisions as one of its responsibilities to protect space

WASHINGTON — NASA’s Juno mission orbiting Jupiter is seeking a long-term extension that would allow the spacecraft to carry out new studies of the planet and some of its largest moons. Juno, part of the New Frontiers class of medium-sized planetary science spacecraft, is finalizing a proposal for an extended mission that would keep the

Trees that grow quickly die younger, risking a release of carbon dioxide that challenges forecasts that forests will continue to be a “sink” for planet-warming emissions, scientists said Tuesday. Tree cover absorbs a significant proportion of carbon dioxide emitted by burning fossil fuels and plays a crucial role in projections for our ability to wrestle

WASHINGTON — The former head of NASA’s human spaceflight program, now working as a consultant to SpaceX, said he welcomes greater commercial activity in low Earth orbit but cautioned against ending the International Space Station prematurely. Bill Gerstenmaier discussed the importance of the ISS, from a technical and policy standpoint, during a virtual town hall

To the innocent eyes of animals, the appearance of humans on the horizon represents more of an existential threat than the vast environmental upheaval of previous climate change up until now, new research suggests. According to a new study, mammal extinctions tracing back as far as 126,000 years ago have had more to do with

It’s like something out of Stranger Things, but with fewer Demogorgons and less of the sinister darkness: physicists have flipped reality on its head, creating their own ‘upside down’ by getting small boats to float underneath a levitating liquid. Seeing it in action, you would think you were watching some kind of sci-fi movie effect,

All around the world, people honour their dead in myriad ways. In Vietnam, families burn cash, clothes, shoes, even luxury items, all made from paper to bid their loved ones well in the afterlife. In India, mourners carry bodies wrapped in coloured cloths to the banks of the River Ganges where they are cremated on

How do you study something invisible? This is a challenge that faces astronomers who study dark matter. Although dark matter comprises 85 percent of all matter in the Universe, it doesn’t interact with light. It can only be seen through the gravitational influence it has on light and other matter. To make matters worse, efforts

In the hot sunshine, asphalt road and roof coverings can put out more secondary organic aerosol (SOA) pollutants than the cars on the road, according to a new study that looked at the South Coast Air Basin in California. Cars still produce more overall pollution, but SOAs – such as the ones emitted by hot

Scientists have unveiled a new printing process that can turn just about any piece of paper or cardboard into a waterproof keyboard that you can fold up and put in your pocket – and it doesn’t require a power source. The tech makes use of a special coating that’s repellent to liquids and dust, which allows

WASHINGTON — The White House released a new space policy directive Sept. 4 intended to improve cybersecurity of space systems. Space Policy Directive (SPD) 5 is billed as the first comprehensive government policy related to cybersecurity for satellites and related systems, and outlines a set of best practices, but not firm requirements, that agencies and

Hearing loss in humans can make life challenging in our hustle-bustle landscape. But when your world is literally as silent as a grave, being hard of hearing just might be something of a superpower. For naked mole rats and their cousins, the loss of genes that would usually amplify noises is another extraordinary adaptation in

While filming herself getting ready for work recently, TikTok user @gracie.ham reached deep into the ancient foundations of mathematics and found an absolute gem of a question: “How could someone come up with a concept like algebra?” She also asked what the ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras might have used mathematics for, and other questions that

You’d think a plant scientist would feel at home on a farm, but Neil Stewart was used to working with potatoes, not human cadavers.  Fascinated by environmental contaminants, Stewart was on tour at the University of Tennessee’s ‘body farm’ – more formally known as the Anthropology Research Facility – where forensic anthropologists study the effects

One of the most powerful solar observatories in the world has just completed a major upgrade. And now, the GREGOR solar telescope in Spain has taken some of the most high-resolution images of our Sun ever obtained in Europe. In the upgraded telescope’s new images, details as small as 50 kilometres (31 miles) across can

The physical footprints left behind by humankind don’t wash away with the waves.  Human construction has modified the oceans as much as it has urbanised the land, a new analysis reveals. Mapping the global extent of human development in Earth’s oceans, an international team calculated the footprint occupied by human built structures as of 2018,

New CSIS report looks at three key governance issues: orbital debris mitigation, rendezvous and proximity operations, and insurance requirements WASHINGTON — Commercial and government activities in space keep growing and yet nations are making little progress in establishing rules and norms of behavior, says the Center for Strategic and International Studies in a new report

When an earthquake struck the Italian mountain town of L’Aquila in April 2009, few people would have been thinking that carbon dioxide had anything to do with it. But geologists were on the case straight away. Immediately after the L’Aquila earthquake, a team from the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology started measuring the

What happens to materials in Earth’s crust when a meteorite slams into them? Specifically, what happens to the quartz found in many different rock types? Scientists thought they already knew the answer – but new lab tests suggest we might have to think again. In the absence of any imminent meteorite strikes, researchers used a

Earth, with its reassuringly familiar continents, arranged in the dependable configuration you know and love, didn’t always look the way it does now. Its land masses, once locked together in supercontinents, have cracked and broken and slid away from each other, and repeatedly come together again over the course of our planet’s 4.5-billion-year history. In

From 7 billion light-years away, a pair of colliding black holes has delivered up, on a shiny gravitational wave platter, one of the most sought-after detections in black hole astronomy – the extremely elusive ‘middleweight’ black hole, which lies in between stellar-mass black holes and supermassive behemoths. Not only, however, did the two colliding black

The volume of lakes formed as glaciers worldwide melt due to climate change had jumped by 50 percent in 30 years, according to new study based on satellite data. “We have known that not all meltwater is making it into the oceans immediately,” lead author Dan Shugar, a geomorphologist and associate professor at the University

Of the many high expectations we have of quantum technology, one of the most exciting has to be the ability to simulate chemistry on an unprecedented level. Now we have our first glimpse of what that might look like. Together with a team of collaborators, the Google AI Quantum team has used their 54 qubit

WASHINGTON — SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk said the company is making “good progress” on its next-generation Starship launch vehicle despite delays in the schedule of test flights of the vehicle. In an interview broadcast during the Humans to Mars Summit by the advocacy group Explore Mars Aug. 31, Musk emphasized the progress the company

Animals have been hibernating for a long, long time, a new study shows. Researchers have analysed 250 million-year-old fossils and found evidence that the pig-sized mammal relation, a genus called Lystrosaurus, hibernated much like bears and bats do today. Finding signs of shifts in metabolism rates in fossils is just about impossible under normal conditions – but