Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon and the world’s richest man, said Monday he was committing $10 billion to a new fund to tackle climate change. In a post to his 1.4 million followers on Instagram, the e-commerce tycoon said the Bezos Earth Fund would “fund scientists, activists, NGOs — any effort that offers
Building a military space culture may not require mass transfers of Army, Navy units to the Space Force The creation of the U.S. Space Force is a historic event, but many years of hard work lie ahead before we know what form the new service will take. One unanswered question that will shape the new
In a first, US researchers have used artificial intelligence to identify a powerful new antibiotic capable of killing several drug-resistant bacteria. Antibiotics have been a cornerstone of modern medicine since the discovery of penicillin, but their effectiveness has seriously diminished in recent years as overuse has led to bacteria becoming resistant. The scientists at MIT
Satellite builders booked more commercial orders in 2019 than the prior two years combined, but the industry remains in flux This article originally appeared in the Jan. 20, 2020 issue of SpaceNews magazine. Manufacturers are hopeful that 2019 marked the beginning of a turnaround for geostationary satellite orders, even though their market remains fraught with
One of the largest single items is $255 million to launch two GPS 3 satellites WASHINGTON — Soon after the Pentagon’s budget request is submitted to Congress each year, the military services send to Capitol Hill a separate wish list known as “unfunded priorities.” These are items the military would like Congress to fund if
WASHINGTON — Engineers plan to use the robotic arm on its InSight Mars lander to push a heat flow probe into the surface, acknowledging that they have “few alternatives” if that effort fails. The Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package instrument team has spent nearly a year trying to get the instrument’s probe, or “mole,”
SpaceX announced a new partnership Tuesday to send four tourists deeper into orbit than any private citizen before them, in a mission that could take place by 2022 and easily cost more than $100 million. The company signed the deal with Space Adventures, which is based in Washington and served as an intermediary to send
Civil aviation is one of the premiere success stories of the 20th century. Airmail was authorized by the US government in 1911 and began scheduled service in 1918. The federal government then authorized private contractors to carry the mail in 1925. An aviation boom followed. With the establishment of passenger airline service — initiated by
WASHINGTON — SpaceX has revived plans to develop a launch vehicle manufacturing facility at the Port of Los Angeles, a little more than a year after it abandoned its original agreement there. The Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners approved on a voice vote Feb. 20 an agreement between the port and SpaceX to lease
WASHINGTON — Intelsat on Feb. 19 urged the FCC to give the company at least $1 billion more of $9.7 billion in proposed compensation for clearing C-band spectrum for 5G networks and to treat the C-Band Alliance Intelsat formed with rivals SES and Telesat as essentially dead. Intelsat said it has more C-band revenue, capacity
The European Union unveiled proposals Wednesday to regulate artificial intelligence that call for strict rules and safeguards on risky applications of the rapidly developing technology. The report is part of the bloc’s wider digital strategy aimed at maintaining its position as the global pacesetter on technological standards. Big tech companies seeking to tap Europe’s vast
WASHINGTON — Airbus Group will shed about 7% of the workforce at its Airbus Defence and Space division after three years of weak sales, the company said Feb. 19. A “flat space market and postponed contracts on the defence side” of its business prompted the decision to cut 2,362 positions, Airbus Group CEO Guillaume Faury
WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence said in a Feb. 19 speech that the administration’s budget proposal for NASA to support a human return to the moon by 2024 has bipartisan support, a claim echoed by NASA despite criticism about some proposed cuts in the bill. Pence, speaking at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia,
TOKYO (Reuters) – Newly released data from a Japanese research institute appears to back the government’s case that its quarantine strategy for the Diamond Princess cruise ship was successful in stemming contagion of the coronavirus among passengers. Japan has been criticised for its handling of the quarantine, as more than 620 people on board have
WASHINGTON — Spaceflight Industries’ decision to sell its rideshare launch services company, Spaceflight, to two Japanese firms will benefit both Spaceflight and its parent company, executives of the two companies say. Spaceflight Industries announced Feb. 11 that it had an agreement to sell Spaceflight to Japanese companies Mitsui & Co., Ltd. and Yamasa Co., Ltd.,
US scientists announced Wednesday they had created the first 3D atomic scale map of the part of the Novel Coronavirus that attaches to and infects human cells, a critical step toward developing vaccines and treatments. It came as the death toll from the COVID-19 virus jumped past 2,000, almost all of them in mainland China
The “United States Space Force Vision for Satellite Communications” calls for an integrated network of commercial and military satcom services. WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force on Feb. 19 unveiled a plan to change how it acquires satellite-based communications for the Defense Department. The essence of the plan is to combine military and commercial satcom
LONDON (Reuters) – One scientific post suggests links between the new coronavirus and AIDS, a second says it may have passed to people via snakes, while a third claims it is a pathogen from outer space. The emergence in China of a new human coronavirus that is causing an epidemic of flu-like disease has sparked
WASHINGTON — The head of NOAA’s space weather office used a recent hearing to caution that a failure of an aging spacecraft in the next few years could leave the agency “hurting a little bit” in its ability to monitor solar activity. At a Feb. 12 hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee on “space missions
WASHINGTON — With just a week before the first scheduled launch in DARPA’s responsive launch competition, the agency is tweaking the rules to allow the sole remaining company to perform both launches from the same spaceport. Officials with the DARPA Launch Challenge said in a Feb. 18 media briefing that Astra will perform both launches
A celestial event in which Mars disappears behind the Moon will occur today. This phenomenon is called Moon-Mars occultation and NASA says it occurs twice a year making it not the rarest phenomenon but still a fascinating one to observe. Residents in North and Central America will be able to see it clearly in the
WASHINGTON — Arianespace completed its third launch of the year Feb. 18, sending a Japanese communications satellite and a South Korean weather satellite into geostationary transfer orbits. An Ariane 5 rocket lifted off at 5:18 p.m. Eastern from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana with Sky Perfect JSAT’s JCSAT-17 satellite and the South
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Neanderthal skeleton unearthed in an Iraqi cave already famous for fossils of these extinct cousins of our species is providing fresh evidence that they buried their dead – and intriguing clues that flowers may have been used in such rituals. A view of the entrance to Shanidar Cave in the foothills
The process of making a chemical tank trailer is serious business as they must be made completely secure to ensure public safety. | //www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/how-its-made/ Watch full episodes: //bit.ly/HowItsMadeFullEpisodes Subscribe to Science Channel: //www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=sciencechannel Check out SCI2 for infinitely awesome science videos. Every day. //bit.ly/SCI2YT Download the TestTube app: //testu.be/1ndmmMq
WASHINGTON — Intelsat has abandoned plans to order a one-for-one replacement for the Intelsat-29e satellite that failed last year and will rely instead on leased capacity, a borrowed satellite, and the newly ordered Intelsat-40e spacecraft to fill a coverage gap over North and South America. Intelsat said last summer it intended to award a contract
ATHENS (Reuters) – A humanoid figure dressed as a maid holds a jug in its right hand and, as hidden gears click and whirr, lifts it and pours wine into a cup a bystander has placed into the palm of its left. The automatic servant of Philon from the 3rd century BC, is seen at
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Blue Origin formally opened a factory Feb. 17 that the company plans to use to produce engines both for its vehicles and for United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket. A ribbon-cutting ceremony marked the completion of a 350,000-square-foot factory here that will produce BE-4 and BE-3U engines. The factory, built in a little
SpaceX successfully launched its latest cluster of high-speed Internet satellites into orbit Monday but was unable to land its rocket booster on an autonomous ship, missing a key milestone. The private company founded by billionaire Elon Musk has revolutionised spaceflight in recent years by developing rockets capable of delivering their payload in space then flying
A full moon rises behind the dome of the U.S. Capitol in 2015 in Washington. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls In a recent SpaceNews Op-ed, Louis Friedman, co-founder and executive director emeritus of The Planetary Society, argues that the U.S. should pursue “a policy more directed to Mars and away from commercial participation.” With all due respect to
WASHINGTON — The White House has added the Secretary of Energy and two other officials to the roster of members of the National Space Council. In a statement issued late Feb. 13, the White House announced that the Secretary of Energy, Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and the Assistant to the President for
China has been dealing with a massive outbreak of coronavirus for over a month now. With no cure in sight, China is focussing its efforts towards preventing the virus from spreading. The latest strategy is report the implementation of a ‘close contact detector’ that informs users if they have come in close contact with someone
HELSINKI — China has quietly rolled out a new Long March 7A rocket at a coastal launch site in preparation for launch of a ‘technology verification satellite’. Official acknowledgement of an mission involving the new launcher came on Feb. 12 (Chinese), but with no indication of its timeline. However images shared by Chinese space program
WASHINGTON — The Commerce Department is once again requesting a large budget increase for its Office of Space Commerce in order to work on space traffic management activities after Congress rejected a similar request last year. Parts of the department’s fiscal year 2021 budget proposal were not released with the rest of the White House’s
WASHINGTON — Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane arrived at the company’s spaceport in New Mexico Feb. 13, ready for a final series of test flights before the company starts commercial operations. The vehicle, named VSS Unity, flew from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California to Spaceport America in southern New Mexico attached to
If it’s clear on the morning of Tuesday, February 18th, you could see Mars wink out as the Moon passes in front of the Red Planet in what is known as an occultation. The Moon will cover up Mars five times in 2020, but February’s occultation is the only one that will be accessible to
WASHINGTON — A Cygnus cargo spacecraft launched Feb. 15 carrying more than three tons of supplies and experiments for the International Space Station. A Northrop Grumman Antares rocket lifted off from Pad 0-A the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at 3:21 p.m. Eastern, carrying a Cygnus spacecraft on a mission designated NG-13. The Cygnus, now in orbit,
WASHINGTON — NASA awarded a contract to Rocket Lab Feb. 14 for the launch of a cubesat mission that will serve as a precursor for the agency’s planned lunar Gateway. A Rocket Lab Electron will launch the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) satellite from the company’s Launch Complex 2 site
WASHINGTON — DirecTV’s Spaceway-1 satellite has been retired to a graveyard orbit 500 kilometers above the geostationary arc, eliminating the risk of the malfunctioning satellite exploding in an orbit populated by active satellites. Ground-based observations from ExoAnalytic Solutions’ network of space surveillance telescopes show that Spaceway-1 has been moved out of harm’s way and deactivated.
NASA’s Christina Koch returned to Earth safely on Thursday after shattering the spaceflight record for female astronauts with a stay of almost 11 months aboard the International Space Station. Koch touched down at 0912 GMT on the Kazakh steppe after 328 days in space, along with Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency and Alexander
WASHINGTON — As Astra prepares for its first orbital launch attempt, the company is setting expectations accordingly and taking the long view towards its goal of frequent, low-cost access to space. The launch window for Astra’s first orbital launch from Pacific Spaceport Complex – Alaska now opens Feb. 25, according to a U.S. Coast Guard
WASHINGTON — NASA is considering missions to Venus and two outer solar system moons as the next in its Discovery line of planetary science missions. NASA announced Feb. 13 it selected four finalists in the next round of the Discovery program from an unspecified number of proposals submitted last summer. Each of the mission proposals
WASHINGTON — Astranis, a startup satellite builder aiming to launch and operate a 350-kilogram geostationary communications satellite by year’s end, announced Feb. 13 that it raised $90 million in a debt and equity round led by Venrock and TriplePoint Capital. Astranis said it would use the new money to finish its first satellite, a broadband
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists examining the genomes of West Africans have detected signs that a mysterious extinct human species interbred with our own species tens of thousands of years ago in Africa, the latest evidence of humankind’s complicated genetic ancestry. FILE PHOTO: Yinka Sotomi stands atop Oluma Rock, a spiritual site for the Yoruba tribe,
Radar images from the Arecibo Observatory have shown that the asteroid by the name of 2020 BX12 that passed Earth earlier this month was a binary asteroid. What this means is the big asteroid had a smaller asteroid orbiting around it. The larger asteroid was discovered by Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) survey on
WASHINGTON — NASA’s fiscal year 2021 budget request proposes cancelling an airborne observatory, a move that has surprised many astronomers but is also not the first time the project has faced termination. The budget proposal, released Feb. 10, included the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) among the programs slated for termination. SOFIA, which received
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A vaguely hourglass-shaped icy object called Arrokoth residing in the far reaches of the solar system – the most distant body ever explored by a spacecraft – is giving scientists intriguing clues about the formation of the planets including Earth. Scientists on Thursday offered the fullest description yet of the composition and
Northrop Grumman won a $253.5 million payload development contract under the Protected Tactical Satellite Communications program. WASHINGTON — Northrop Grumman was awarded a $253.5 million contract by the U.S. Space Force to develop a cyber-secure communications payload that could be deployed on a military or commercial satellite. The U.S. Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems
Sigmatech will provide “architecture and integration support for Air Force space systems and programs.” WASHINGTON — Sigmatech, a professional services firm headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama, has won a five-year $74 million contract to provide expert support staff to the office of the assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration, the company
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