United Airlines unveils plan to revive supersonic jet travel
Friday, 04 June 2021 05:15United Airlines announced plans Thursday to buy 15 planes from airline startup Boom Supersonic in a move that could revive the high-speed form of air travel after the Concorde was wound down in 2003. Under the deal, United would purchase Boom's "Overture" aircraft once the planes meet "United's demanding safety, operating and sustainability requirements" with an aim to start passenger travel
SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches cargo to space station
Friday, 04 June 2021 03:14SpaceX launched tiny squids, medical experiments and improved solar panels for the International Space Station from Florida on Thursday afternoon. The 7,300-pound cargo mission rose into a mostly cloudy sky aboard a Falcon 9 rocket as planned at 1:29 p.m. EDT from Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center. Eight minutes after launch, SpaceX recovered the first-stage booster by landing
TikToker in space: Virgin Galactic to send up well-known researcher
Friday, 04 June 2021 03:14Space tourism company Virgin Galactic announced Thursday it will send researcher Kellie Gerardi, a well-known figure on TikTok, into space to conduct experiments for several minutes while weightless. The move presents an ideal opportunity for the company to flaunt its ambitions not only to send wealthy tourists on pleasure rides costing $200,000 or more, but also to advance science. The
NASA's OSIRIS-REx celebrates perfect departure maneuver from Asteroid Bennu
Friday, 04 June 2021 03:14NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is 328,000 miles, or 528,000 kilometers, away from the asteroid Bennu, having fired its engines on May 10 to initiate a return trip to Earth. The spacecraft is on track to deliver an asteroid sample to Earth on September 24, 2023. Mission engineers had planned to do a small thruster firing last week to ensure the spacecraft stays on the correct path back to Ear
NASA's Juno to get a close look at Jupiter's Moon Ganymede
Friday, 04 June 2021 03:14On Monday, June 7, at 1:35 p.m. EDT (10:35 a.m. PDT), NASA's Juno spacecraft will come within 645 miles (1,038 kilometers) of the surface of Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede. The flyby will be the closest a spacecraft has come to the solar system's largest natural satellite since NASA's Galileo spacecraft made its penultimate close approach back on May 20, 2000. Along with striking imagery
Leiden astronomers calculate genesis of Oort cloud in chronologically order
Friday, 04 June 2021 03:14A team of Leiden astronomers has managed to calculate the first 100 million years of the history of the Oort cloud in its entirety. Until now, only parts of the history had been studied separately. The cloud, with roughly 100 billion comet-like objects, forms an enormous shell at the edge of our solar system. The astronomers will soon publish their comprehensive simulation and its consequences i
Front-row view reveals exceptional cosmic explosion
Friday, 04 June 2021 03:14Scientists have gained the best view yet of the brightest explosions in the universe: A specialised observatory in Namibia has recorded the most energetic radiation and longest gamma-ray afterglow of a so-called gamma-ray burst (GRB) to date. The observations with the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) challenge the established idea of how gamma-rays are produced in these colossal stella
Which way does the solar wind blow?
Friday, 04 June 2021 03:14The surface of the sun churns with energy and frequently ejects masses of highly-magnetized plasma towards Earth. Sometimes these ejections are strong enough to crash through the magnetosphere - the natural magnetic shield that protects the Earth - damaging satellites or electrical grids. Such space weather events can be catastrophic. Astronomers have studied the sun's activity for centuri
Isotropic Systems and SES GS complete trials for of new connectivity for US Military
Friday, 04 June 2021 03:14SES Government Solutions (SES GS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of SES, and Isotropic Systems, a leading developer of transformational broadband terminal technologies, announce the successful completion of the first of two milestone next-generation antenna trials with the U.S. Military aimed at unleashing unprecedented information distribution to warfighters across the battlefield. The U.S. A
Kleos Polar Vigilance Mission Satellites dispatched to Cape Canaveral for Launch
Friday, 04 June 2021 03:14Kleos Space S.A, a space-powered Radio Frequency Reconnaissance data-as-a- service (DaaS) company confirms the successful dispatch of its cluster of four Polar Vigilance Mission satellites (KSF1) from Delft in the Netherlands to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Under a rideshare contract with Spaceflight Inc., the satellites will lift-off aboard the Spaceflight SXRS-5 / SpaceX Transport
China launches new meteorological satellite
Friday, 04 June 2021 03:14China sent a new meteorological satellite into planned orbit from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan Province on Thursday morning. The satellite, Fengyun-4B (FY-4B), was launched by a Long March-3B rocket at 12:17 a.m. (Beijing Time). It was the 372nd flight mission of the Long March rocket series, said the launch center. As the first of China's new-generation meteorologi
One small step for cephalopods: SpaceX carrying research squids to ISS
Friday, 04 June 2021 03:14A SpaceX rocket took off Thursday for the International Space Station carrying supplies for scientific experiments, including some surprising passengers - squids and virtually indestructible microorganisms called tardigrades. The rocket, leased by NASA, launched from Florida at 1:29 pm local time (1729 GMT). The Dragon capsule detached from the Falcon 9 rocket about 12 minutes after take-of
Scientists, generals, policy experts ponder future role of Space Force
Thursday, 03 June 2021 22:53WASHINGTON — A group of senior military leaders, scientists and other space professionals met this week in Colorado Springs to discuss the future of the U.S. Space Force.
“We are trying to anticipate what’s coming and prepare for an uncertain future,” said Joel Mozer, chief scientist of the Space Operations Command, based at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs.
Climavision emerges from stealth mode with $100 million for weather intelligence network
Thursday, 03 June 2021 20:07TAMPA, Fla. — Private equity firm TPG has poured $100 million into weather services startup Climavision, which will marry satellite and terrestrial radar observations to improve climate intelligence.
Louisville, Kentucky-based Climavision emerged from stealth mode June 2 after being borne out of Enterprise Electronics Corporation, a 50-year old U.S.
Space bubble experiment could lead to more effective early cancer screenings
Thursday, 03 June 2021 19:55Researchers studying how bubbles form and function are sending a fully automated, self-contained experiment into space.
The study, led by Tengfei Luo, a professor in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame, will be initiated by astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Using real-time results sent back to Earth for analysis, Luo and his team hope to gain a better fundamental understanding of how bubbles form, grow and detach from solid surfaces with different nanoscale features.
This information could improve diagnostic capabilities for life-threatening diseases including certain cancers.
"What we are looking at in parallel to the research taking place on the ISS is how to use these bubbles for cancer detection at early stages—when cancerous cells are still at very low concentrations," Luo said. "Our method is a potential method to increase sensitivity and improve early cancer detection."
In a 2020 study published in Advanced Materials Interfaces, Luo successfully used laser heating to generate bubbles in a solution containing biological molecules.