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SpaceX asks permission to take Starship on a high-altitude test flight
One of the next major steps in SpaceX's plans for true spaceflight will be a 12-mile-high test flight. Sometime between March and September, the company plans to launch its Starship suborbital test vehicle from Boca Chica, Texas. The Starship will travel to an altitude of 12.4 miles, or 20 kilometers. SpaceX will then attempt to land and recover the vehicle.
Iran says it will launch an observation satellite 'in the coming days'
Iran is set to become the latest country to launch an observation satellite, according to the country's national space agency. The satellite, named Zafar (which means victory in Farsi), began development three years ago. It will be launched by a Simorgh rocket 329 miles above the Earth, and will make 15 orbits daily, collecting imagery to help with the study of natural disasters and agriculture.
Capturing the Sun's Texas-sized cells in the highest detail ever
The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) started with some controversy, but its first images are already changing the field of solar science. The Maui observatory captured the highest-resolution photos of the sun ever taken, revealing detail down to a mere 18 miles in size. The image above shows turbulent kernel-like cells made up of boiling gases influenced by the Sun's strong magnetic field, each one about the size of Texas.
MIT's 'smart surface' could improve your WiFi signal tenfold
There's a problem with stuffing wireless connections into ever-smaller devices: they can struggle to maintain a good signal when there's so little space for antennas. MIT CSAIL researchers might have a fix, though. They've developed an RFocus "smart surface" that "can work both as a mirror or a lens" to focus radio signals onto the right devices on either side of the "fence." In return, this improves the median signal strength by nearly 10 times, while doubling the median channel capacity in an office environment. Instead of just a handful of monolithic antennas, the RFocus prototype revolves around 3,000-plus tiny antennas with software that arranges them to maximize reception. In other words, RFocus is acting as a beamforming controller in the middle, as opposed to letting the radio endpoints -- transmitters and client devices -- manage this activity, which would be difficult to implement on tiny devices.
Bird-inspired wings could help small drones fly four times longer
Small drones seldom last more than half an hour in the air due to their inefficiency. They frequently have short, thick wings that help them survive wind gusts, but are terrible for range. However, scientists might have a way to make drones last: borrow another cue from nature. Researchers at Brown University and EPFL have developed a bird-inspired wing design that can deliver just under 3 hours of flight for a tiny 100g (3.5oz) drone, four times what you'd get from comparable fliers, without sacrificing stability. Effectively, it recognizes that common wisdom surrounding wings doesn't apply when the wingspan is a foot or less.
NASA decommissions Spitzer Space Telescope after 16 years of service
NASA is flipping the switch on the Spitzer Space Telescope today. The observatory has made groundbreaking discoveries about the universe since its launch in 2003, from imaging some of the oldest stars in the universe to detecting the light reflected by exoplanets. The Spitzer was previously scheduled to go offline in 2018, but has continued operating due to NASA's followup telescope being postponed. With the James Webb Space Telescope nearing completion, Spitzer's mission is over.
NASA is fixing a Voyager 2 snag that deactivated sensors
Voyager 2 might already have crossed into interstellar space, but that isn't stopping NASA from providing some technical help. The administration is in the midst of fixing a problem with the probe that led it to shut off its science equipment. When a delay in the execution of a standard rotation maneuver (to calibrate the magnetic field instrument) left two high-power systems running at the same time, Voyager 2 overdrew from its power supply and tripped a system that shut off the scientific gear to conserve electricity. NASA turned off one of the power-hungry systems and revived the science hardware, but has yet to resume collecting data or otherwise restore business as usual.
'Journey to the Savage Planet' is a funnier take on space exploration
I step on to the glimmering blue teleporter and beam aboard my Javelin spaceship, a slew of aluminum, carbon and silicon particles in hand. Immediately, some screens on the upper deck start playing an advert for something called Mini-Mall Monkeys. I scramble up the stairs and stare dumbfounded as the booming voiceover explains how anyone can make tiny humans by "adding sub-zero radioactive water to a microlife power packet mix." The clip, performed by real actors in brightly colored outfits, is shot like a toy commercial from the 1990s.
NASA picks space tourism outfit for its first commercial ISS module
The ongoing NASA privatization push just reached an important milestone. The administration has chosen Axiom Space to supply its first commercial destination module for the International Space Station. The habitable module will connect to the station's Node 2 forward port and serve as an example of what companies can do -- Axiom Space has plans for space tourism and other private journeys. Officials at NASA hope it will usher in a "low-Earth orbit economy" aboard the ISS where NASA is just another customer.
IBM uses AI to predict progress of Huntington's disease symptoms
IBM is using its AI-based health prediction skills to help tackle the challenge of Huntington's disease. The tech firm has teamed up with CHDI Foundation on an artificial intelligence model that can predict when patients will experience Huntington's symptoms and, crucially, determine how rapidly those symptoms will progress. The team used MRI brain scans to train the AI, using signals from white matter (relatively untapped in brain studies) to help the system gauge how cognitive and motor performance will change over time.
US Space Force logo unveiled with a clear Star Trek influence
The president has been pushing to create a new military branch, dubbed Space Force, since 2018 and today tweeted out a logo for the department. The most noticeable part of the logo is right in the center, where a design that closely resembles Star Trek's arrowhead-style Starfleet insignia sits.
'Picard’ is the Star Trek show we’ve been waiting for
This article contains spoilers for the first episode of 'Star Trek: Picard'. Star Trek: Picard, a brand-new drama that brings back fan-favorite character Jean-Luc Picard in an entirely new way, premiered yesterday on CBS All Access. The show is set two decades after the end of the last The Next Generation movie, the critically panned Nemesis, and follows threads set up in that film -- the centrality of the Romulans, the marriage of Deanna Troi and William Riker and the death of Data, the beloved android played by Brent Spiner. The new series, which has already been renewed for a second season, opens with Jean-Luc Picard living a very different life than he used to. He's retired from Starfleet and returned to his family vineyards in La Barre, France. He lives a quiet life, but from the beginning, it's clear it's a little too contemplative. He has too much time to think about the past, about his regrets and the life he misses.
DirecTV satellite is at risk of explosion due to battery issues
DirecTV has one month to remove a satellite from geostationary orbit, so it doesn't take other satellites down with it if it ends up exploding. The AT&T-owned TV service fears that its Spaceway-1 satellite (a Boeing 702HP model) might explode due to battery issues that started manifesting in December. According to SpaceNews, DirecTV explained in an FCC filing dated January 19th that an anomaly caused "significant and irreversible thermal damage" to the satellite's batteries.
India will launch a humanoid robot ahead of its first crewed space mission
Before sending its first crewed mission in late 2021, India will launch a humanoid robot called Vyommitra into space, reports The Tribune. It will take flight later this year and in 2021. According to the publication, the robot's name is a combination of the Sanskrit words for "space" and "friend," and as you can see from the video below, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) modeled it after a human woman -- though it doesn't feature any legs.
Google helps publish the largest high-res map of brain connectivity
A joint effort between Google and the Janelia Research Campus has just achieved a significant breakthrough in brain mapping. They've published the largest high-resolution map of brain connectivity to date, offering a 3D model of 25,000 fruit fly neurons across a diverse range of cell types and multiple brain regions. The team achieved the feat by cutting sections of the fly's brain into ultra-thin (20-micron) slices, imaging those pieces with electron streams from a scanning electron microscope and stitching them back together. The result is a sophisticated map with so few disruptions that it's practical to trace neurons through the brain.
The Hayden Planetarium’s new show celebrates unmanned space probes
The astronomy I learned as a kid was pretty limited — the Earth revolves around the Sun and, of course, the whole "My Very Energetic Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas" thing. Of course, that expression no longer applies because our understanding of the solar system is a lot more nuanced these days. Not just because we're adults now, but because the entire field has been revolutionized by probes, plumbing the depths of distant bodies and returning that data to us over decades. That deeper understanding of our solar system is at the heart of the American Museum of Natural History's new space show, Worlds Beyond Earth, but its unsung hero is the technology that made it possible.
A Lego version of the International Space Station is coming February 1st
Thanks to a new set from Lego, you'll soon be able to give the International Space Station (ISS) the place of honor it deserves in your home. The 864-piece model will set you back $70 when the company releases it on February 1st.
Discovery shows early galaxies could have very short lives
You'd think that galaxies from the young universe would still be thriving, but that's not necessarily the case. Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute and the National Observatory of Japan have discovered the farthest known dying galaxy (that is, with greatly suppressed star formation) known to date at about 12 billion light-years away. In other words, it was already waning roughly 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang -- the first galaxies had come into being about a billion years earlier. The team used a combination of Keck telescope systems and the Very Large Telescope to measure the motion of stars and learn that the galaxy's core was nearly fully formed.
ESA opens plant that turns moondust into oxygen
If humans are going to have a long-term presence on the Moon, they're going to need breathable air and rocket fuel -- and the ESA might just have a way to create both using the Moon itself. The agency is running a prototype plant that converts moondust (currently simulated, of course) into oxygen that could be used for air and fuel. The technique unlocks the high amounts of oxygen in regolith using molten salt electrolysis that superheats the dust and migrates the oxygen along the salt until it's collected at an anode. The basic process has already been used for metal and alloy production, but the ESA tweaked it to ensure oxygen was available to measure.
Elon Musk expects SpaceX's first crewed mission between April and June
Now that SpaceX has completed Crew Dragon's in-flight launch escape test, when can you expect a mission with humans aboard? At last, the company has a more specific answer than early 2020. Company chief Elon Musk told attendees at a post-test conference that the crewed mission to the International Space Station will likely take place in the second quarter of the year, or sometime between April and June. SpaceX was "highly confident" the hardware would be ready in the first quarter, "most likely" in February.