world news today
NASA looks to solar sails as a way to power future missions
A NASA-funded project is developing new technologies that would allow a spacecraft to fly through the cosmos propelled entirely with solar sails that “bend” light. The agency announced Tuesday that it will provide $2 million over two years to the Diffractive Solar Sailing project, which is investigating ways to use energy from the sun to …
Crew Returns to Space Science Day after Starliner Lands – Space Station
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft descends to Earth underneath parachutes for a landing in New Mexico completing the Orbital Flight Test-2 mission. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls The seven Expedition 67 crew members are resuming their normal schedule of science and maintenance activities following Wednesday’s departure of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. The orbital residents focused on vein scans, robotics, and …
Starliner Completes Test Mission With Soft Landing
Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule parachuted safely to Earth at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico on Wednesday afternoon, capping a mostly successful uncrewed test trip to the International Space Station. The capsule was back on the ground less than four hours after it detached from the ISS and carried garbage from the station …
NASA’s Mars InSight lander snaps dusty ‘final selfie’ as power dwindles
NASA’s InSight lander is completely caked with a thick layer of Martian dust in its latest selfie, which the agency says will likely be the last of the mission. The solar-powered InSight lander is only working at about one-tenth of its landing capacity of 5,000 watt-hours, the agency said in a press conference May 17, …
Japan will send an astronaut to the moon with NASA, President Biden says
Japanese astronauts will ride on NASA Artemis missions to the moon, and potentially even reach the surface, amid an interagency push to expand lunar exploration. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida confirmed that commitment Monday (May 23) during a meeting in Tokyo, NASA and the White House said in separate announcements. A …
NASA plans to make Starliner crew assignments this summer
WASHINGTON — As Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner prepares to return from its brief trip to the International Space Station, NASA officials say they’ll wait until this summer to determine the schedule for the vehicle’s first crewed flight and the astronauts who will fly it. NASA said May 23 it would proceed with plans to have Starliner …
Teams in New Mexico gear up for Wednesday landing of Boeing Starliner capsule (photos)
Boeing’s Starliner capsule is scheduled to return to Earth on Wednesday (May 25), and teams on the ground have been gearing to welcome the spacecraft home. Starliner launched May 19 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida and successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS) a day later. The capsule’s uncrewed Orbital Flight …
NASA Has Identified ‘Something Weird’ Happening to the Universe | by slashdotted | May, 2022
New Hubble Space Telescope data suggests ‘something weird’ is going on with our universe, Nasa says “You are getting the most precise measure of the expansion rate for the universe from the gold standard of telescopes and cosmic mile markers” Photo by NASA on Unsplash NASA has discovered something strange’ occurring in the cosmos. For …
NASA’s Voyager 1 Space Probe From the ’70s Troubled by Mysterious Glitch
NASA’s 45-year-old Voyager 1 spacecraft, a marvel, is cruising along outside our solar system and still staying in touch with Earth. But it’s presented its team with what NASA is calling a “mystery.” It’s operating normally but sending back some weird telemetry data. The issue likely traces to Voyager 1’s attitude articulation and control system (AACS), …
Unique Quantum Material Could Enable Incredibly Powerful, Ultra-Compact Computers
Spintronic computing artistic concept illustration. Columbia University chemists and physicists find a link between tunable electronic and magnetic properties in a 2D semiconductor, with potential applications in spintronics, quantum computing, and fundamental research. Information in computers is transmitted through semiconductors by the movement of electrons and stored in the direction of the electron spin in …
