Collaborate Disseminate
The BepiColombo deep-space probe has successfully made its flyby of Earth on its journey to explore the planet Mercury. On April 10, 2020, at 6:25 am CEST, the joint ESA/JAXA mission passed within 12,700 km (7,891 mi) of the Earth’s surface as the spac… Continue reading BepiColombo completes close encounter with Earth
On April 11, 1970, at 19:13 GMT, Apollo 13 lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Atop the giant Saturn V booster sat Command Module 109 and Service Module 109, which together formed CSM-109 (otherwise known as Odyss… Continue reading “Houston, we’ve had a problem”: The story of NASA’s most successful failure
DARPA is planning to develop a travel adapter for the human body. Called the ADvanced Acclimation and Protection Tool for Environmental Readiness (ADAPTER), the new program aims to produce an implantable or ingestible bioelectronic device to help soldi… Continue reading DARPA program looks to use biotech to prevent jet lag and diarrhea
NASA has awarded a US$75.9-million contract to Masten Space Systems of Mojave, California, to produce and operate eight lunar mission payloads, including nine science and technology instruments to be delivered to the lunar surface in 2022. The objectiv… Continue reading Masten Space Systems selected to deliver payloads to lunar south pole
Boeing’s Loyal Wingman combat drone has achieved two more development milestones by taking its weight on its wheels for the first time and having aircraft power switched on. Coming only weeks after the assembly of the fuselage was completed, the compan… Continue reading Boeing’s Loyal Wingman drone puts weight on wheels for the first time
NASA and SpaceX have carried out a test of launch pad evacuation systems as part of the run-up to the first manned flight of the Crew Dragon. On April 3, 2020 at Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, teams conducted an end-to-end d… Continue reading NASA and SpaceX test launch pad evacuation systems
British engineers are developing a modern version of the Negative Pressure Ventilator (NPV), more popularly known as the “iron lung,” to provide COVID-19 patients under the care of the NHS with a simple, inexpensive alternative to ventilators.Continue … Continue reading Modern iron lung designed to address ventilator shortage
Boeing has announced that it will refly the failed unmanned first flight of its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft. The do-over of the December 2019 Orbital Test Flight will be paid for by Boeing and is aimed at fulfilling the test objectives that the shorte… Continue reading Boeing to refly failed Starliner space mission
NASA has given the green light to a new CubeSat mission to study the giant space weather storms produced by the Sun. Slated to launch after July 1, 2023, the Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment (SunRISE) will use six toaster-oven-sized spacecraft… Continue reading NASA okays SunRISE CubeSat mission to study solar storms
A team of scientists at North Carolina State University have developed a technique that could allow bricks and other common building materials to act as “cameras” that can reveal the location and distribution of radioactive materials that were once in … Continue reading Scientists turn bricks into gamma-ray cameras