Washington (AFP) May 6, 2025
Elon Musk's SpaceX on Tuesday received approval from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to increase the number of annual Starship rocket launches from five to 25 at its Texas base, marking a major boost for the company's ambitions. Following a multi-year environmental review, the FAA concluded that the expanded cadence of launches and landings would not significantly affect the env

Washington DC (SPX) May 07, 2025
Engineers, technicians, mission planners, and the four astronauts set to fly around the Moon next year on Artemis II, NASA's first crewed Artemis mission, are rapidly progressing toward launch. At the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, teams are working around the clock to move into integration and final testing of all SLS (Space Launch System) and Orion spacecraft elements. Recentl

New Delhi (AFP) May 6, 2025
India's space agency said Tuesday it planned to launch an uncrewed orbital mission later this year before its first human spaceflight in early 2027. "It represents India's rise as a global space power", Jitendra Singh, the country's science and technology minister, said in a statement. The world's most populous country has flexed its spacefaring ambitions in the last decade with its spac

Just a week after its launch, ESA’s Biomass mission has reached another critical milestone on its path to delivering unprecedented insights into the world’s forests and their vital role in Earth’s carbon cycle – the satellite’s 12-metre-diameter antenna is now fully deployed.

Los Angeles CA (SPX) May 06, 2025
Abundant and affordable clean energy moved a step closer to realization thanks to a breakthrough by scientists from The University of Texas at Austin, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Type One Energy Group. Their work addresses a critical obstacle in developing viable fusion energy systems. Fusion reactors aim to confine high-energy alpha particles to sustain the extreme plasma conditio

Washington DC (SPX) May 06, 2025
In the waters off New England, one of Earth's rarest mammals swims slowly, mouth agape. The North Atlantic right whale filters clouds of tiny reddish zooplankton - called Calanus finmarchicus - from the sea. These zooplankton, no bigger than grains of rice, are the whale's lifeline. Only about 370 of these massive creatures remain. For decades, tracking the tiny plankton meant sending rese

Berlin, Germany (SPX) May 06, 2025
At long last, physicists may be nearing a breakthrough that unifies gravity with electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces. For decades, the challenge has been reconciling quantum field theory with Einstein's general relativity-a task that generations of scientists have pursued without success. Now, researchers at Aalto University have proposed a new quantum theory of gravity

Los Angeles CA (SPX) May 06, 2025
NAL Research has integrated Iridium's Enhanced Short Burst Data (ESBD) technology into its SHOUT series of tracking devices, reinforcing its role in providing advanced wireless and assured position, navigation, and timing (APNT) solutions. This enhancement is designed to support secure and resilient communications for the U.S. Department of Defense and other authorized government partners.

Washington DC (SPX) May 06, 2025
Though they don't orbit around our Sun, sub-Neptunes are the most common type of exoplanet, or planet outside our solar system, that have been observed in our galaxy. These small, gassy planets are shrouded in mystery...and often, a lot of haze. Now, by observing exoplanet TOI-421 b, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is helping scientists understand sub-Neptunes in a way that was not possible pr

Paris, France (SPX) May 06, 2025
Physicists continue to grapple with the elusive singularities believed to reside at the cores of black holes, a concept long regarded as signaling the breakdown of known physical laws. Stefano Liberati, director of IFPU, invokes the Latin phrase "Hic sunt leones" to describe this uncharted territory. The phrase historically marked unexplored regions on maps-an apt metaphor for the unknown physic