Washington DC (SPX) Jun 02, 2022
The radio frequency (RF) spectrum environment is rapidly evolving. To achieve superiority in electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) operations in the modern era - including over adversaries gaining ground in the domain - requires higher-level performance and flexibility in critical elements. One area of priority: heightened multifunctionality and granular optimization in Active Electronically Scanned Ar

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jun 02, 2022
Each year, strong winds carry more than a billion metric tons - or the weight of 10,000 aircraft carriers - of mineral dust from Earth's deserts and other dry regions through the atmosphere. While scientists know that the dust affects the environment and climate, they don't have enough data to determine, in detail, what those effects are or may be in the future - at least not yet. Launchin

A week after the launch of its first space tug, Momentus is still dealing with “anomalies” with the vehicle, but the company’s chief executive remains optimistic those issues will be resolved.

Denver CO (SPX) Jun 02, 2022
Ursa Major, America's only privately funded company that focuses solely on rocket propulsion, has introduced the latest in its line of engines. Arroway is a 200,000-pound thrust liquid oxygen and methane staged combustion engine that will serve markets including current U.S. national security missions, commercial satellite launches, orbital space stations, and future missions not yet conceived.

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jun 02, 2022
During its first couple hundred days in Jezero Crater, NASA's Perseverance Mars rover saw some of the most intense dust activity ever witnessed by a mission sent to the Red Planet's surface. Not only did the rover detect hundreds of dust-bearing whirlwinds called dust devils, Perseverance captured the first video ever recorded of wind gusts lifting a massive Martian dust cloud. A paper rec

Washington DC (SPX) Jun 02, 2022
NASA has selected Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace to advance spacewalking capabilities in low-Earth orbit and at the Moon, by buying services that provide astronauts with next generation spacesuit and spacewalk systems to work outside the International Space Station, explore the lunar surface on Artemis missions, and prepare for human missions to Mars. The awards leverage NASA expertise

Copenhagen, Denmark (SPX) Jun 02, 2022
While some galaxies form stars at a continuous rate, others die out and lead a more passive life. What made these galaxies stop forming stars at an early age is not well established, not the least because they are so distant and faint that they evade being observed. But looking at the combined light from thousands of galaxies, a team of astronomers including the University of Copenhagen showed t

Paris (ESA) Jun 02, 2022
A test version of the payload module of ESA's exoplanet-detecting Plato spacecraft underwent a prolonged vacuum soak within Europe's largest thermal vacuum chamber, to evaluate its endurance of space conditions. There are tasks in space where multiple smaller imagers are better than one big equivalent. ESA PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars mission, Plato, is to detect Earth-scal

Irvine CA (SPX) Jun 02, 2022
A thorough understanding of galaxy evolution depends in part on an accurate measurement of the abundance of metals in the intergalactic medium - the space between stars - but dust can impede observations in optical wavelengths. An international team of astronomers at the University of California, Irvine, Oxford University in England, and other institutions uncovered evidence of heavier elements

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jun 02, 2022
"One of the key goals, when you think about modern astronomy, considers the life cycle of molecular material," said Arshia Jacob, an astronomer at Johns Hopkins University. Diffuse atomic gas becomes dense molecular gas, which ultimately forms stars and stellar systems, and continues to evolve over time. Though astronomers understand much of this process, there are a lot of missing pieces.