La Jolla CA (SPX) Dec 31, 2020
Chemists at Scripps Research have made a discovery that supports a surprising new view of how life originated on our planet. In a study published in the chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie, they demonstrated that a simple compound called diamidophosphate (DAP), which was plausibly present on Earth before life arose, could have chemically knitted together tiny DNA building blocks called deo

Washington DC (UPI) Dec 23, 2020
NASA has shown what it will look like when its Perseverance rover touches down on Mars, a challenging sequence that the agency describes as "7 minutes of terror." The Perseverance rover was launched in the summer and is scheduled to arrive on Mars in February. Once it reaches Mars' atmosphere on its way to Jezero Crater, it must slow down from its speed of 12,000 mph in a span of

Adelphi MD (SPX) Dec 31, 2020
Multi-domain operations, the Army's future operating concept, requires autonomous agents with learning components to operate alongside the warfighter. New Army research reduces the unpredictability of current training reinforcement learning policies so that they are more practically applicable to physical systems, especially ground robots. These learning components will permit autonomous a

Brussels, Belgium (SPX) Dec 31, 2020
The European Commission has selected a consortium of European satellite manufacturers, operators and service providers, telco operators and launch service providers to study the design, development and launch of a European-owned space-based communication system. The study will assess the feasibility of a new initiative aiming to strengthen European digital sovereignty and provide secure co

Kourou, French Guiana (SPX) Dec 31, 2020
For its 10th and final launch of the year, Arianespace used a Soyuz rocket to orbit the CSO-2 defense and security observation satellite for the French CNES space agency (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales) and DGA defense procurement agency (Direction generale de l'armement), on behalf of the French armed forces. With this launch, Arianespace has once again demonstrated its ability to ens

Washington DC (SPX) Dec 31, 2020
In the far north, the swelling Arctic Ocean inundated vast swaths of coastal tundra and steppe ecosystems. Though the ocean water was only a few degrees above freezing, it started to thaw the permafrost beneath it, exposing billions of tons of organic matter to microbial breakdown. The decomposing organic matter began producing CO2 and CH4, two of the most important greenhouse gases. Thoug

Swansea UK (SPX) Dec 31, 2020
A fast, green and one-step method for producing porous carbon spheres, which are a vital component for carbon capture technology and for new ways of storing renewable energy, has been developed by Swansea University researchers. The method produces spheres that have good capacity for carbon capture, and it works effectively at a large scale. Carbon spheres range in size from nanomete

Munich, Germany (SPX) Dec 31, 2020
Analytical optical methods are vital to our modern society as they permit the fast and secure identification of substances within solids, liquids or gases. These methods rely on light interacting with each of these substances differently at different parts of the optical spectrum. For instance, the ultraviolet range of the spectrum can directly access electronic transitions inside a substance wh

WASHINGTON — The recent selection of NSTXL to manage space technology projects for the U.S. Space Force is being reexamined following revelations that a Texas court ruled the company acted fraudulently in a dispute with a business partner.

WASHINGTON — The White House released a national strategy for planetary protection Dec. 30, outlining new assessments to prevent terrestrial contamination of other worlds and vice versa.

The National Strategy for Planetary Protection, developed by an interagency working group led by the National Space Council and Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), outlines work to be done over the next year to update planetary protection policies, considering both scientific advances as well as growing private capabilities in space exploration.