WASHINGTON — A NASA small launch vehicle competition attracted bids from 10 companies, but half of them were effectively disqualified because of deficiencies or other problems.

NASA announced Dec. 11 it was awarding contracts to Astra Space, Firefly Aerospace and Relativity Space for its Venture Class Launch Services (VCLS) Demo 2 program.

Washington DC (UPI) Jan 02, 2021
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station celebrated the New Year in part by eating radishes, the first vegetables grown in space besides leafy greens. The space radishes were grown from seeds over the past 27 days in the microgravity of orbit as part of NASA's program to develop space agriculture. The astronauts appreciated having fresh produce on the orbiting space labo

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted 81-13 on Jan. 1 to override President Trump’s veto of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021.  

The New Year’s Day vote marked the first time Congress successfully overturned Trump’s veto.

Aalborg, Denmark (SPX) Jan 01, 2021
GomSpace has seen out 2020 with the signing of a contract with an existing customer within the North American market in the geo-intelligence industry for the delivery of a software defined radio modules and antenna systems. The contract is worth 5,1 MSEK and will be fully delivered in 2021. GomSpace has over the years built a strong product portfolio and in-orbit track record with its soft

Washington DC (UPI) Jan 01, 2021
For the first time, scientists successfully demonstrated sustained, long-distance teleportation of quantum information. The breakthrough, described this month in the journal PRX Quantum, suggests a viable quantum internet could soon be a reality. "Quantum teleportation is essential for many quantum information technologies, including long-distance quantum networks," according to

Canberra, Australia (The Conversation) Dec 23, 2020
A remote outback station about 800km north of Perth in Western Australia is one of the best places in the world to operate telescopes that listen for radio signals from space. It's the site of CSIRO's Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) and is home to three telescopes (and soon a fourth when half of the Square Kilometre Array, the world's largest radio telescope, is built there).

Pittsburgh PA (SPX) Dec 30, 2020
Light travels at a speed of about 300,000,000 meters per second as light particles, photons, or equivalently as electromagnetic field waves. Experiments led by Hrvoje Petek, an R.K. Mellon professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy examined ideas surrounding the origins of light, taking snapshots of light, stopping light and using it to change properties of matter. Petek worked w

London, UK (The Conversation) Jan 01, 2021
When it comes to the Moon, everyone wants the same things. Not in the sense of having shared goals, but in the sense that all players target the same strategic sites - state agencies and the private sector alike. That's because, whether you want to do science or make money, you will need things such as water and light. Many countries and private companies have ambitious plans to explore or

Washington DC (SPX) Jan 01, 2021
Space Exploration Technologies Inc. (SpaceX), Hawthorne, California, has been awarded a $150,450,000 firm-fixed-price contract for launch services from Vandenberg Air Force Base for the Space Development Agency's Tranche 0 Transport and Tracking Layer space vehicles. This award was made based on the Tranche 0 Launch request for proposal (HQ085021R0001) released Oct. 6, 2020, to which respo

Moscow (Sputnik) Jan 01, 2021
Russia plans to perform three launches of the Proton-M carrier rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome next year, three times more than in 2020, a space industry source told Sputnik. This year, only one Proton-M launch was carried out, putting telecommunications satellites Express-80 and Express-103 into orbit. "Next year, three Proton-M launches are being planned," a space industry sour