Lifeboat Foundation

On 7 May 1992, Space Shuttle Endeavour lifted off on her first voyage at 23:40 UTC from Pad-B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Her target: Intelsat VI F-3 (now known as Intelsat 603). The goal: rendezvous with, repair, and re-release the satellite.

In the now-30 years since that mission, on-orbit satellite repair and servicing have largely languished — save for the five Hubble servicing missions Endeavour and the Shuttle fleet would conduct after STS-49.

Continue reading “30 years after Intelsat VI rescue, Northrop Grumman aims to make in-space servicing a permanent reality” »

With the International Space Station (ISS) on its way out the door, governments and companies are racing to come up with solutions that could keep humans up in space even after 2031. By the looks of it, human presence up there will not only continue, but also expand, courtesy of the countless space companies developing their own space stations.

Take a tour of Earth’s inner core.

The deepest depths of Earth could reveal what makes our planet behave the way it does — and give us lessons beyond our Solar System.

Circa 2015 o.o!

The publication of Green and Schwarz’s paper “was 30 years ago this month,” the string theorist and popular-science author Brian Greene wrote in Smithsonian Magazine in January, “making the moment ripe for taking stock: Is string theory revealing reality’s deep laws? Or, as some detractors have claimed, is it a mathematical mirage that has sidetracked a generation of physicists?” Greene had no answer, expressing doubt that string theory will “confront data” in his lifetime.

Recently, however, some string theorists have started developing a new tactic that gives them hope of someday answering these questions. Lacking traditional tests, they are seeking validation of string theory by a different route. Using a strange mathematical dictionary that translates between laws of gravity and those of quantum mechanics, the researchers have identified properties called “consistency conditions” that they say any theory combining quantum mechanics and gravity must meet. And in certain highly simplified imaginary worlds, they claim to have found evidence that the only consistent theories of “quantum gravity” involve strings.

Continue reading “In Fake Universes, Evidence for String Theory” »

Dan BreedenHe shall lead us to a brave new world.

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Len Rosen shared a link.

Continue reading “Jeff Bezos Wants Manufacturing to Move Off Planet and NASA is Exploring the Possibilities” »

In partnership with NASA, Sandia researchers design reliable and resilient microgrids that could sustain astronauts, mining and fuel processing on the moon.

The earliest possible flight of the Space Launch System rocket is in mid-summer.

After a third attempt at a wet dress rehearsal failed, NASA sent Artemis 1 back to the VAB — and set back the anticipated launch date by three months.

The stars are officially aligned for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

The extremely expensive space observatory has finished its alignment phase, with scientists confirming that it’s almost ready to kick off official scientific operations later this year.

In other words, the $10 billion telescope is on the home stretch, nearing its biggest milestone yet. NASA also released a slew of stunning new sample images taken by the telescope, showing the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of our Milky Way — stunning previews, hopefully, for a slew of imagery we’ll see from the ‘scope.

Nobody can explain why this ‘sinuous discrete aurora’ happened.

While scientists have detected discrete auroras above certain patches of the Red Planet before, never have they seen one on such a “massive scale,” the team said. The solar storm that propelled charged particles into the Martian atmosphere at a faster and more turbulent pace than usual is likely a key factor in this type of long, sinuous aurora, the researchers added.

Solar storm occurrences are predicted to increase over the next several years as the sun approaches its solar maximum — the period of greatest activity in the sun’s 11-year cycle — in 2025. The EMM’s Hope orbiter will continue watching for these newly discovered auroras in the meantime, while scientists dig into archival data collected by NASA and the European Space Agency to hunt for more examples of the snake-like streaks over Mars.