An adapted version of a composite bulkhead that safeguards satellites during their ascent on the ESA-developed Ariane 5 launch vehicle has been tested for service aboard single aisle Airbus aircraft. Fitted in the rear tail cone, it would serve as a firewall to protect passengers in the event of the rear auxiliary power unit engine catching fire or the main cabin pressure bulkhead rupturing.

New York NY (SPX) Feb 26, 2021
The Hypersonic Weapons Online Summit provides a forum for military leaders, program executive officers, industry executives, academics and researchers to focus emerging initiatives and focus areas that are critical to understanding the US Military senior leadership approach to the ongoing global proliferation of hypersonic weapons and capabilities for FY2021 and beyond. The event will take

Bethesda MD (SPX) Feb 26, 2021
A new arms race is unfolding among spacefaring nations. Space experts have been telling us about contested space for the last several years. The number of active satellites is exploding from about 1,000 a few years ago to an expected 50,000+ within 10 years. The sky is indeed getting very congested. These satellites provide worldwide communications, GPS navigation, weather forecasting and planet

Toronto, Canada (SPX) Feb 24, 2021
MDA reports it has been awarded an initial contract with an expected production value of more than CAD$60 million on the Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) project. Lockheed Martin Canada has contracted MDA to provide the Laser Warning and Countermeasure (LWCM) System that will protect the ships against laser and optical guided threats. MDA's Canadian-built solutions have the potential

Pasadena CA (JPL) Feb 26, 2021
Four advanced space concepts from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have been selected to receive grants for further research and development. Early-stage research into futuristic space ideas - a lunar levitation track system, light bending lunar power system, method for making soil from asteroid material, and more - could help revolutionize NASA's technology toolbox and pioneer new kinds o

Washington DC (UPI) Feb 28, 2021
SpaceX failed to launch a cluster of Starlink commuications satellites Sunday night when the countdown halted 1 minute, 24 seconds before the planned liftoff from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. No immediate explanation was given for the scrubbed launch. Elon Musk's rocket company said its next opportunity to get the Falcon 9 rocket off the ground and send 60 satellites into orb

Melbourne FL (SPX) Feb 26, 2021
L3Harris Technologies (has been awarded $89 million for option-year two of a U.S. Space Force and U.S. Space Command contract to continue maintaining and modernizing infrastructure to track objects in space. The Maintenance Of Space Situational Awareness Integrated Capabilities (MOSSAIC) program has an estimated contract value of $1.2 billion over 10 years. "MOSSAIC improves the syst

La Laguna, Spain (SPX) Feb 26, 2021
A study, led by researchers at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) and carried out with OSIRIS, an instrument on the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), has found the most densely populated galaxy cluster in formation in the primitive universe. The researchers predict that this structure, which is at a distance of 12.5 billion light years from us, will have evolved becoming a cluste

Washington DC (SPX) Feb 26, 2021
The investigation of Electron-Positron-Ion (EPI) plasma - a fully ionised gas of electrons and positrons that includes astrophysical plasmas like solar winds - has attracted a great deal of attention over the last twenty years. A new study published in EPJ D by Garston Tiofack, Faculty of Sciences, University of Marousa, Cameroon, and colleagues, assesses the dynamics of positron acoustic