Collaborate Disseminate
Reaching orbit around Earth is an incredibly difficult feat. It’s a common misconception that getting into orbit just involves getting very high above the ground — the real trick is …read more Continue reading Single-Stage-to-Orbit: The Launch Technology We Wish Was Real
There have been all kinds of wild ideas to get spacecraft into orbit. Everything from firing huge cannons to spinning craft at rapid speed has been posited, explored, or in …read more Continue reading You’ve Probably Never Considered Taking an Airship To Orbit
NASA has completed the analysis of a chunk of metal that crashed into the roof of a house in Naples, Florida, a few weeks ago. The agency says it came from a pallet of trash released from the International Space Station three years ago.Continue Reading… Continue reading Space junk that tore through Florida home was from ISS, confirms NASA
Power demand spikes in the early morning and later evening, when solar arrays can’t help. But researchers in Scotland say orbital launch costs are getting so cheap that giant space-based reflectors could soon be a viable way to power these timeslots.Co… Continue reading Orbital reflectors could boost solar energy around dusk and dawn
Two test satellites blasted off on board a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket emblazoned with Amazon’s famous logo on Friday, ahead of more than 3,200 planned to orbit the Earth to directly challenge Elon Musk’s reign over space broadband real… Continue reading Amazon launches two test satellites, initiating star wars with Elon Musk
There may not be any air in space, but there’s wind – solar wind, made up of charged particles thrown off by the Sun. The exact mechanism behind this phenomenon remains murky, but now ESA’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft has observed previously unknown “tiny… Continue reading Newly discovered Sun “nanoflares” could be source of solar wind
Remember that time when the entire physics community dropped what it was doing to replicate the extraordinary claim that a room-temperature semiconductor had been discovered? We sure do, and if …read more Continue reading Hackaday Links: August 13, 2023
Rockets are expensive, so a number of kinetic launch startups are working on ways to simply yeet payloads into orbit and bring costs down. This one’s very fun – a six-mile long concrete cannon that’ll squeeze launch vehicles to Mach 30 in one second.Co… Continue reading Longshot targets $10/kg launch costs with Nazi uber-cannon on steroids
Astronomers using an array of 66 radio telescopes have discovered what may be the first example of a star with two exoplanets circling it that share the same orbit, something that was thought to be theoretically possible but never seen until now.Contin… Continue reading Distant star may have two planets in the same orbit
A Caltech team is celebrating the world’s first space-based wireless power transmission, and the first time detectable levels of power have been beamed down to Earth. The Space Solar Power Project (SSPP) aims to unlock huge orbital clean energy resourc… Continue reading World-first space solar demonstration beams power from orbit to Earth