Cleveland OH (SPX) Jan 28, 2021
NASA is one step closer to understanding the solar power challenges and opportunities on the Moon's surface after completing the build and readiness review of the Photovoltaic Investigation on the Lunar Surface, or PILS, experiment. The agency overcame multiple engineering challenges to get the experiment ready for integration with a commercial lander for a ride to the Moon as part of NASA's Com

Washington DC (UPI) Jan 27, 2021
Sirius XM's newest satellite isn't working properly and may be the subject of a $225 million insurance claim, the company said Wednesday in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Elon Musk's SpaceX launched the SXM-7 communications satellite Dec. 13, and testing of its systems began Jan. 4. But "events occurred which have caused failures" on the craft, Sirius XM repo

Austin TX (SPX) Jan 26, 2021
NASA is funding a major project on the future of autonomous air cargo transportation, and The University of Texas at Austin will be playing a lead role. The COVID-19 vaccine rollout - the largest global logistics effort since World War II - has underscored the importance of increasing efficiencies in the global supply chain infrastructure. Autonomous aerial vehicles have the potential to revolut

Washington (AFP) Jan 25, 2021
The United States is leading rivals in development and use of artificial intelligence while China is rising quickly and the European Union is lagging, a research report showed Monday. The study by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation assessed AI using 30 separate metrics including human talent, research activity, commercial development and investment in hardware and software.

Brighton UK (SPX) Jan 28, 2021
Scientists have calculated the mass range for Dark Matter - and it's tighter than the science world thought. Their findings - due to be published in Physics Letters B in March - radically narrow the range of potential masses for Dark Matter particles, and help to focus the search for future Dark Matter-hunters. The University of Sussex researchers used the established fact that gravity act

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jan 28, 2021
American astronauts in 2024 will take their first steps near the Moon's South Pole: the land of extreme light, extreme darkness, and frozen water that could fuel NASA's Artemis lunar base and the agency's leap into deep space. Scientists and engineers are helping NASA determine the precise location of the Artemis Base Camp concept. Among the many things NASA must take into account in choos

Bay St, Louis MS (SPX) Jan 28, 2021
At NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, technicians from Orion prime contractor Lockheed Martin have welded together three cone-shaped panels on Orion's crew module for the Artemis III mission that will land the first woman and next man on the Moon. The crew module's primary structure, the pressure vessel, is comprised of seven machined aluminum alloy pieces that are welded tog

Washington DC (UPI) Jan 27, 2021
Two NASA astronauts were unable to complete work during a spacewalk Wednesday on hooking up Europe's new Bartolomeo science platform outside the International Space Station. Mike Hopkins and Victor Glover spent 6 hours, 56 minutes on the spacewalk. The assignment was the first spacewalk for Glover, the first Black astronaut to live and work aboard the space station. Nearly halfwa

Seattle WA (SPX) Jan 28, 2021
In September, a team led by astronomers in the United Kingdom announced that they had detected the chemical phosphine in the thick clouds of Venus. The team's reported detection, based on observations by two Earth-based radio telescopes, surprised many Venus experts. Earth's atmosphere contains small amounts of phosphine, which may be produced by life. Phosphine on Venus generated buzz that the

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jan 28, 2021
NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission is just 22 days from landing on the surface of Mars. The spacecraft has about 25.6 million miles (41.2M km) remaining in its 292.5-million-mile (470.8M km) journey and is currently closing that distance at 1.6 miles per second (2.5 kilometers per second). Once at the top of the Red Planet's atmosphere, an action-packed seven minutes of descent aw