Keep this surface dirty
Monday, 18 January 2021 15:15
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A ‘do not touch’ directive applies to both a Matisse painting and this Matiss experiment on board the International Space Station.
Designed to test the antibacterial properties of hydrophobic (or water-repelling) surfaces on the Station, the sample holders of the upgraded Matiss-2.5 experiment have done their work for roughly a year on board and are now back on Earth for analysis.
Bacteria are a big problem in space as they tend to build up in the constantly-recycled atmosphere of the Space Station. For the six astronauts living in humanity’s habitat in space, keeping the Station clean is an important
The first CubeSat with a Hall-effect thruster has gone to space
Monday, 18 January 2021 14:00 Write a comment
Student-led teams aren't the only ones testing out novel electric propulsion techniques recently. Back in November, a company called Exotrail successfully tested a completely new kind of electric propulsion system in space—a small Hall-effect thruster.
Hall effect thrusters themselves have been around for awhile. However, they have been limited in their practicality, primarily because of their size. Normally they are about the size of a refrigerator and require kilowatts of power, making them impractical for any small satellites.
That's where Exotrail's novel system shines. It is about the size of a 2 liter bottle of soda (or pop if you're from that part of the world), and only requires around 50 watts of power. This makes the propulsion system ideal for satellites ranging from 10 to 250 kg.
The demonstration system launched aboard a PSLV rocket on November 7th, and completed its first in flight maneuvers using the Hall effect thruster in December. With those tests successfully completed the team plans further testing to prove how useful these thrusters can be for collision avoidance, orbital maintenance, and intentional deorbiting.
China’s iSpace advances with IPO plans, reusable launcher landing leg tests
Monday, 18 January 2021 13:13 Write a comment
HELSINKI — Chinese private rocket firm iSpace is planning an IPO while also making progress on technology for a reusable launch vehicle.
Boeing Starliner completes software requalification
Monday, 18 January 2021 12:09 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — Boeing has completed a requalification of software on its commercial crew spacecraft as it prepares to launch the vehicle on a second test flight as soon as late March.
Boeing announced Jan. 18 it completed a “formal requalification” of the software on its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft.
Astronauts to boost European connectivity
Monday, 18 January 2021 11:27 Write a comment
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are planning a spacewalk to install a high-speed satellite link that will improve their connections with Europe.
Aurora Insight to launch cubesats for RF sensing
Monday, 18 January 2021 10:00 Write a comment
SAN FRANCISCO – Aurora Insight, a Denver startup that gathers data on terrestrial and satellite communications, plans to launch the first of two cubesats on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare mission scheduled for liftoff Jan. 21.
Satellite manufacturer NanoAvionics built the six-unit cubesats, Bravo and Charlie, and integrated them with Aurora Insight sensors.
Autonomous driving on intelligent road at Europe’s edge
Monday, 18 January 2021 08:41 Write a comment
An ESA-supported effort put an intelligent road up in Finnish Lapland through its paces, assessing its suitability for testing autonomous vehicles in some of Europe’s most challenging driving conditions.
China issues document to boost global cooperation on lunar samples
Monday, 18 January 2021 07:39 Write a comment
China published its Regulations on the Management of Lunar Samples on Monday morning, aiming to improve scientific research and international cooperation.
Developed by the China National Space Administration, the document has nine chapters and 37 clauses, governing the storage, management and use of lunar samples brought back by the country's Chang'e 5 mission.
According to the regul X-Rays surrounding 'Magnificent 7' may be traces of sought-after particle
Monday, 18 January 2021 07:39 Write a comment
A new study, led by a theoretical physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), suggests that never-before-observed particles called axions may be the source of unexplained, high-energy X-ray emissions surrounding a group of neutron stars.
First theorized in the 1970s as part of a solution to a fundamental particle physics problem, axion A 'super-puff' planet like no other
Monday, 18 January 2021 07:39 Write a comment
The core mass of the giant exoplanet WASP-107b is much lower than what was thought necessary to build up the immense gas envelope surrounding giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn, astronomers at Universite de Montreal have found.
This intriguing discovery by Ph.D. student Caroline Piaulet of UdeM's Institute for Research on Exoplanets (iREx) suggests that gas-giant planets form a lot more Back to Venus armed with laboratory findings
Monday, 18 January 2021 07:39 Write a comment
Venus's impenetrable atmosphere has long made it difficult to conduct a thorough investigation of our neighbouring planet. In a step forward, by conducting laboratory experiments scientists from the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) have now developed a way of determining the nature of the planet's surface using new instruments from orbit. The entire surfac Simulating evolution to understand a hidden switch
Monday, 18 January 2021 07:39 Write a comment
Computer simulations of cells evolving over tens of thousands of generations reveal why some organisms retain a disused switch mechanism that turns on under severe stress, changing some of their characteristics. Maintaining this "hidden" switch is one means for organisms to maintain a high degree of gene expression stability under normal conditions.
Tomato hornworm larvae are green in warm Dark Energy Survey makes public catalog of nearly 700 million astronomical objects
Monday, 18 January 2021 07:39 Write a comment
The Dark Energy Survey, a global collaboration including the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, and the National Science Foundation's NOIRLab, has released DR2, the second data release in the survey's seven-year history. DR2 is the topic of sessions today and tomorrow at the 237th Meeting of the American Astronomical String of stars in Milky Way are related
Monday, 18 January 2021 07:39 Write a comment
The Milky Way houses 8,292 recently discovered stellar streams - all named Theia. But Theia 456 is special.
A stellar stream is a rare linear pattern - rather than a cluster - of stars. After combining multiple datasets captured by the Gaia space telescope, a team of astrophysicists found that all of Theia 456's 468 stars were born at the same time and are traveling in the same direction a Milky Way's Defensive Halo Blocks Incoming Gas Cloud
Monday, 18 January 2021 07:39 Write a comment
How are galaxies able to keep forming stars and planets? Astronomers from Texas Christian University are using the Green Bank Telescope to reveal more about this process, studying high-velocity clouds that are being pulled into our Milky Way galaxy by its gravitational pull.
Stars and planets require large amounts of gas to form, and galaxies can run out of this cosmic building material un