Beijing (XNA) Jan 03, 2022
The China National Space Administration published on Saturday four pictures taken by its Tianwen 1 Mars mission, including the first full photo of the mission orbiter. The color pictures show the orbiter flying around the Red Planet in an orbit, the ice cover on Mars' north pole and a scene of a barren Martian plain. The orbiter's full picture was taken by a camera released by the cr

Beijing (XNA) Jan 03, 2022
From hosting a children's art gallery in space to answering questions about manned spaceflight, the three astronauts onboard China's Tiangong space station celebrated the New Year by cultivating science and inspiration in the country's youth. On Saturday afternoon, astronauts Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu hosted a live video call and interacted with college students at venues in

Houston TX (SPX) Jan 03, 2022
As the International Space Station enters its third decade of continuous human presence, the impact of microgravity research conducted there keeps growing. The months between Nov. 2020 and Nov. 2021 saw publication of more than 400 scientific papers based on studies aboard the orbiting lab. Here are some highlights of recent results from groundbreaking space station science: b>More

Vienna, Austria (SPX) Jan 03, 2022
The exploitation and exploration of space opens the door to improvements of life on earth, new discoveries and new research opportunities. However, space flight also provides a unique range of challenges due to the harsh environment and difficulty in maintaining systems. Safety, fault-tolerance, and availability are key to ensuring successful missions - both for unmanned vehicles and in human sp

Washington DC (UPI) Jan 1, 2021
A massive sunshield aboard the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope has been successfully unfurled in a crucial step for its operations, NASA says. The telescope's second, or starboard, sunshield mid-boom was extended late Friday as the observatory "passed another critical deployment milestone," the space agency announced. The deployment capped a two-day operation in which all

Minneapolis MN (SPX) Dec 30, 2021
Some engineered living materials can combine the strength of run-of-the-mill building materials with the responsiveness of living systems. Think self-healing concrete, paint that changes color when a specific chemical is detected or material that could reproduce and fill in a crack when one forms. This would revolutionize construction and maintenance, with wide-reaching economic and environmenta

Boston MA (SPX) Dec 21, 2021
When it comes to robots, bigger isn't always better. Someday, a swarm of insect-sized robots might pollinate a field of crops or search for survivors amid the rubble of a collapsed building. MIT researchers have demonstrated diminutive drones that can zip around with bug-like agility and resilience, which could eventually perform these tasks. The soft actuators that propel these microrobot

London, UK (SPX) Dec 21, 2021
Researchers have incorporated phosphorene nanoribbons into new types of solar cells, dramatically improving their efficiency. Phosphorene nanoribbons (PNRs) are ribbon-like strands of the 2D material phosphorous, which, similar to graphene, are made of single-atom-thick layers of atoms. PNRs were first produced in 2019, and hundreds of theoretical studies have predicted how their propertie

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Dec 30, 2021
NASA's exploration requires research into how light affects both humans and plants: John Glenn's first trip into Earth orbit lasted just under five hours, but today, astronauts regularly stay six months or longer on the International Space Station. Experiencing over a dozen sunrises and sunsets each day means an astronaut's biological clock tends to be in the wrong time zone. And for longer deep

Moscow (Sputnik) Jan 01, 2022
The businessman revitalised the space company using his own funds back in 2017, when it was on the brink of bankruptcy. Since then, the firm secured its first contracts with the US government and held a partially successful first launch of a satellite. The US government demanded Ukrainian software mogul Max Polyakov to sell his entire stake in the space company Firefly Aerospace, which man