On board the International Space Station since May 2018 is a mini-fridge-size facility called the Cold Atom Lab (CAL), capable of chilling atoms in a vacuum down to temperatures one ten billionth of a degree above absolute zero. It is, for all intents and purposes, one of the coldest spots in the known universe. And according to a new study published…
Tag: propulsion
The European Space Agency is Funding Its Own Reusable Rocket
“SpaceX may be best known for revolutionizing rocket launches with its reusable rockets…” writes Digital Trends, but now, “Europe wants to get in on the action.” The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced it is developing its own reusable rocket engine…with the aim of making rocket launches considerably cheaper. The ESA described its planned engine as “the precursor of ultra-low-cost rocket…
ESA moves ahead on low-cost reusable rocket engine
ESA’s Prometheus is the precursor of ultra-low-cost rocket propulsion that is flexible enough to fit a fleet of new launch vehicles for any mission and will be potentially reusable. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-06-esa-low-cost-reusable-rocket.html…
Air deliveries bring NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover closer to launch
Progress continues to speed along as NASA’s Perseverance rover readies for its launch this summer. On May 11, the rover team at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida received the tubes tasked with holding the first samples collected at Mars for eventual return to Earth. A week later, the Atlas V launch vehicle that will hurl Perseverance to the Red…
Is NASA Actually Working On a Warp Drive?
“Is NASA really working on… a warp drive?” asks Popular Mechanics? Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 shares their report:
An internal feasibility report suggests the agency might be, or at least that the idea of traveling through folded space is part of the NASA interstellar spaceflight menu. In the report, advanced propulsion physicist Harold “Sonny” White explains the ideas of theoretical physicist (and…
Lunar Flashlight to seek ice on the moon
Future astronauts on the moon will need to have water, and now NASA has designed a new CubeSat spacecraft to search for ice in lunar craters using laser beams. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/lunar-flashlight-moon-ice-infrared-laser-beams…
NASA engineers build new COVID-19 ventilator in 37 days
A prototype ventilator built in just 37 days by engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory passed a key test this week at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. Source: https://www.livescience.com/nasa-covid-19-ventilator-passes-test.html
Curiosity keeps rolling as team operates Mars rover from home
The NASA Curiosity mission team is keeping the rover moving and working on the surface of Mars while they #stayathome. Find out how they’re managing it. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/curiosity-keeps-rolling-as-team-operates-mars-rover-from-home…
California nebula stars in final mosaic by NASA’s Spitzer
Five days before NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope ended its mission on Jan. 30, 2020, scientists used the spacecraft’s infrared camera to take multiple images of a region known as the California Nebula—a fitting target considering the mission’s management and science operations were both based in Southern California at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech. This mosaic is made from those images….
Simulating early ocean vents shows life’s building blocks form under pressure
Where did life first form on Earth? Some scientists think it could have been around hydrothermal vents that may have existed at the bottom of the ocean 4.5 billion years ago. In a new paper in the journal Astrobiology, scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory describe how they mimicked possible ancient undersea environments with a complex experimental setup. They showed that…