The problem arose early Tuesday when the spacecraft’s main engine shut down earlier than expected. A problem with the main engine on Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL spacecraft will keep it from delivering 11,000 pounds of supplies and experiments to the International Space Station as scheduled on Wednesday. In a…
“We’re excited that Northrop is ready to deliver this incredibly beneficial increase in capacity.” What happens when you use a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to launch Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus supply ship? A record-setting resupply mission to the International Space Station. The first flight of Northrop’s upgraded Cygnus spacecraft, called…
NatGeo’s new documentary series, Top Guns: The Next Generation, shows the sweat behind the spectacle. The blockbuster success of the 1986 film Top Gun—chronicling the paths of young naval aviators as they go through the grueling US Navy’s Fighter Weapons School (aka the titular Top Gun)—spawned more than just…
Push to revive nuclear energy relies on deregulation; experts say strategy is misplaced. In May, President Donald Trump signed four executive orders to facilitate the construction of nuclear reactors and the development of nuclear energy technology; the orders aim to cut red tape, ease approval processes, and reshape the…
“When you turn off those spacecraft’s radio receivers, there’s no way to turn them back on.” Federal funding is about to run out for 19 active space missions studying Earth’s climate, exploring the Solar System, and probing mysteries of the Universe. This year’s budget expires at the end of…
Meanwhile, Congress is trying to keep serious scientists from weighing in. While the Trump administration has continued to refer to efforts to avoid the worst impacts of climate change as a scam, it has done almost nothing to counter the copious scientific evidence that demonstrates that climate change is…
Engineered pathway lets carbon be plugged directly into key metabolic pathways. Lots of people are excited about the idea of using plants to help us draw down some of the excess carbon dioxide we’ve been pumping into the atmosphere. It would be nice to think that we could reforest…
North Korea test-fired a powerful new solid rocket motor for its next-generation ICBM. Welcome to Edition 8.10 of the Rocket Report! Dear readers, if everything goes according to plan, four astronauts are less than six months away from traveling around the far side of the Moon and breaking free…
Physicists spliced merger’s gravitational signal into isolated frequencies to determine surface areas. Back in 1971, the late physicist Stephen Hawking made an intriguing prediction: The total surface area of a black hole cannot decrease, only increase or remain stable. So if two black holes combine, the newly formed black…
“This is the first time we’ll have a space layer fully integrated into our warfighting operations.” The first 21 satellites in a constellation that could become a cornerstone for the Pentagon’s Golden Dome missile defense shield successfully launched from California Wednesday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The Falcon…
