Copernical Team
Europe's Vega-C rocket failure traced to defective engine part: ESA
The failed launch of a Vega-C European rocket in French Guiana last December was due to the deterioration of a key engine component that resulted in a rapid loss of boosting power, European Space Agency officials said Friday.
The launching from the Kourou space port would have been the first commercial launch for the Vega-C and presented a new option for European space payloads after numerous delays to the next-generation Ariane 6 rocket and cancelled Russian cooperation over the Ukraine war.
But shortly after lift-off on December 21 with a payload of two observation satellites, the rocket deviated from its programmed trajectory and communications were lost, forcing officials to destroy it over the Atlantic Ocean.
An ESA investigative panel found that pressure in the Zefiro 40 motor, made by Italy's Avio, had started falling during the second stage of lift-off, the commission's co-president Pierre-Yves Tissier told journalists.
At three minutes 27 seconds after the launch, "the rocket's acceleration had fallen almost to zero," he said.
Investigators determined that a nozzle neck supposed to ensure constant combustion pressure in the motor had failed to resist the enormous pressure and temperatures reaching 3,000 degrees Celsius (5,432 degrees Fahrenheit).
Scientists discover answer to the mystery of cloudy filters on satellites
Week in images: 27 February - 03 March 2023
Week in images: 27 February - 03 March 2023
Discover our week through the lens
Drugs from the deep: scientists explore ocean frontiers
Some send divers in speed boats, others dispatch submersible robots to search the seafloor, and one team deploys a "mud missile" - all tools used by scientists to scour the world's oceans for the next potent cancer treatment or antibiotic.
A medicinal molecule could be found in microbes scooped up in sediment, be produced by porous sponges or sea squirts - barrel-bodied creatures that c China invests $1.9 bn in top chipmaker: report
China is pumping $1.9 billion into its top memory chipmaker, according to media reports, as US restrictions on semiconductor exports threaten Beijing's tech ambitions.
Semiconductor manufacturer Yangtze Memory Technologies Co (YMTC) is set to receive 12.9 billion yuan from the state-owned National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing government CHIPS Act just the first step in addressing threats to US leadership in advanced computing
When Liu He, a Chinese economist, politician, and "chip czar," was tapped to lead the charge in a chipmaking arms race with the United States, his message lingered in the air, leaving behind a dewy glaze of tension: "For our country, technology is not just for growth... it is a matter of survival."
Once upon a time, the United States' early technological prowess positioned the nation to ou Tech rivals chase ChatGPT as AI race ramps up
Chasing Microsoft, global tech giants have rolled out announcements on how they will implement ChatGPT-like artificial intelligence into their world leading platforms and applications, with YouTube the latest to present plans.
Here is a roundup of how the world's biggest tech companies plan to surf the AI wave:
- Microsoft -
Microsoft has gone the furthest in pushing out generative A Scientists believe they've found untapped helium reserves
The amount of helium in underground geological formations could satisfy thousands of years of global demand, researchers said in an article published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Like other essential commodities, there are supply-side concerns for helium as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year. Sanctions and other restrictions mean supplies from Russia's Amur plant, ex Galactic explosion offers astrophysicists new insight into the cosmos
Using data from the James Webb Space Telescope's first year of interstellar observation, an international team of researchers was able to serendipitously view an exploding supernova in a faraway spiral galaxy.
The study, published recently in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, provides new infrared measurements of one of the brightest galaxies in our cosmic neighborhood, NGC 1566, also kno SpaceX Dragon crew enter International Space Station
Four astronauts entered the International Space Station on Friday after their SpaceX Dragon Crew-6 mission successfully docked, a NASA livestream showed.
The SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft arrived at the orbiting station at 0640 GMT on Friday, the US space agency said in a statement.
NASA's Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, Russia's Andrey Fedyaev and Sultan al-Neyadi of the United Arab Emirates entered the station about two hours later, the livestream showed.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the spacecraft had blasted off to the station on Thursday after the launch was scrubbed just minutes before liftoff earlier in the week.
The crew will spend six months on the station, where they will conduct more than 200 science experiments and technology demonstrations, according to SpaceX.
The mission was the first space flight for Neyadi, Hoburg and Fedyaev.