WASHINGTON — The New Zealand government announced May 31 that it had signed the U.S.-led Artemis Accords governing best practices for space exploration activities, showing a particular interest in the document’s stance on space resources.

ESA is seeking proposals to investigate the application of cellular agriculture as a novel technique to produce food, in particular cultured meat, during future long-term space missions.

Meet Hera, our very own asteroid detective. Together with two briefcase-sized Cubesats – Milani the rock decoder and Juventas the radar visionary – Hera is off on an adventure to explore Didymos and Dimorphos, an asteroid pair typical of the thousands that pose an impact risk to planet Earth.

Wright-Patterson AFB OH (AFNS) May 27, 2021
An AFRL researcher grew up with two parents who worked as pharmacists, so he was initially interested in medicine as a young student. Once he reached high school, though, his passion for mathematics blossomed, thanks to one of his high school teachers. This teacher showed him that math has real-world applications and he was excited to learn more. 1st Lt. Jonathan "Luke" Hill turned his ent

New Orleans LA (SPX) May 28, 2021
NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) team fully stacked three hardware elements together May 24 to form the top of the rocket's core stage for the Artemis II mission. NASA and core stage prime contractor Boeing connected the forward skirt with the liquid oxygen tank and intertank flight hardware inside an assembly area at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. Teams had previously st

London, UK (SPX) May 28, 2021
What does quark-gluon plasma - the hot soup of elementary particles formed a few microseconds after the Big Bang - have in common with tap water? Scientists say it's the way it flows. A new study, published in the journal SciPost Physics, has highlighted the surprising similarities between quark-gluon plasma, the first matter thought to have filled the early Universe, and water that comes

Arlington VA (AFNS) May 31, 2021
The Department of the Air Force released its Fiscal Year 2022 budget proposal, May 28, focusing on investing in people and capability, building the future force and delivering joint lethality and effectiveness. The Department's $173.7 billion request includes the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force budgets. The Air Force's budget of $156.3 billion is a 2.3% increase and the Space Force's b

Washington DC (AFNS) May 31, 2021
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency, in cooperation with the U.S. Navy, conducted Flight Test Aegis Weapon System 31 Event 1 on May 29, 2021. The objective of the test was to demonstrate the capability of a ballistic missile defense (BMD)-configured Aegis ship to detect, track, engage and intercept a medium range ballistic missile target with a salvo of two Standard Missile-6 Dual II (BMD-init

As our climate warms, ice melting from glaciers around the world is one of main causes of sea-level rise. As well as being a major contributor to this worrying trend, the loss of glacier ice also poses a direct threat to hundreds of millions of people relying on glacier runoff for drinking water and irrigation. With monitoring mountain glaciers clearly important for these reasons and more, new research, based on information from ESA’s CryoSat mission, shows how much ice has been lost from mountain glaciers in the Gulf Alaska and in High Mountain Asia since 2010.

The Arctic. Bitterly cold and crossed by blinding storms. Shrouded in darkness half the year. A place of legend where polar bears roam and gigantic icebergs plunge into the sea.

But the Arctic is changing. The six years ending in 2019 were the warmest ever recorded.