Aerospace & Aeronautical

25 Jun 23

Laser-Comb Clocks Pierce Femtosecond Barrier

Aerospace & Aeronautical

By firing a laser from a volcano in Hawaii, scientists now reveal they can synchronize atomic clocks to 320 billionths of a billionth of a second (0.32 femtoseconds or 320 attoseconds) over a distance of more than 300 kilometers. This new study joins a range of findings over the past…

24 Jun 23

How to Build a Power Grid on the Moon

Aerospace & Aeronautical

The early forays to the moon employed throwaway technologies, designed to function during the two-week period of lunar daylight, then to perish in the freeze of the equally long night. But to sustain a colony, everything must be made to survive deathly extremes. During daytime, lunar temperatures can reach 120…

19 Jun 23

MIT Unveils a Megawatt Motor for Electric Aircraft

Aerospace & Aeronautical

Aviation aims to slash some of its substantial carbon emissions by electrifying aircraft, but the industry’s stringent weight restrictions make this difficult. Building electric motors that match the power-to-weight ratios of jet engines has proven especially challenging, so most efforts have been restricted to smaller aircraft. A new compact lightweight…

17 Jun 23

Is Russia’s Hypersonic Missile Vulnerable?

Aerospace & Aeronautical

The first reported use of a hypersonic weapon in combat was on 18 March 2022, when a Russian Kinzhal missile destroyed an alleged underground weapons depot of the Ukrainian armed forces in Deliatyn. Another such attack came the next day, then more in April and May, and still more eight…

30 Apr 23

Skylab: The Space Station That Fell on Australia

Aerospace & Aeronautical

Fifty years ago, on 14 May 1973, a modified Saturn V rocket launched from the Kennedy Space Center carrying Skylab, the United States’ first space station. Six years later, in the early hours of 12 July 1979, Skylab reentered Earth’s atmosphere in a fiery blaze, spreading debris across the Indian…

25 Apr 23

Expert Tips for Digital Phased Array Designs

Aerospace & Aeronautical

Get tips on efficiently improving the performance of phased array antenna designs. Dr. Wilfredo Rivas-Torres references real-world projects as he examines the RF characterization of a phased array receiver, including: Statistical and element failure analysis Active impedance Beamforming IC (BFIC) modeling Design trade-offs of performance versus cost, showcasing channel impairment…

14 Apr 23

Vast New Stores of Water Reported on the Moon

Aerospace & Aeronautical

Stay up late sometime when the moon is past full and look at the large dark oval near its western edge. Renaissance astronomers called it the Ocean of Storms, Oceanus Procellarum, not knowing it was a hundred times drier than the most arid desert on Earth. But there is water…

08 Apr 23

What Flight 50 Means for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter

Aerospace & Aeronautical

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Ingenuity helicopter is preparing for the 50th flight of its five-flight mission to Mars. Flight 49, which took place last weekend, was its fastest and highest yet—the little helicopter flew 282 meters at an altitude of 16 meters, reaching a top speed of 6.50 meters per…

27 Mar 23

CubeSat Operators Launch an IoT Space Race

Aerospace & Aeronautical

A rocket carrying CubeSats launched into Earth orbit two years ago, on 22 March 2021. Two of those CubeSats represented competing approaches to bringing the Internet of Things (IoT) to space. One, operated by Lacuna Space, uses a protocol called LoRaWAN, a long-range, low-power protocol owned by Semtech. The other,…

23 Mar 23

Relativity Space Launch: Oh, So Close

Aerospace & Aeronautical

Space is hard. Every time a rocket crashes or a probe goes silent, someone invokes the mantra that it’s hard to reach for the stars. Rockets are complicated machines, often with thousands of parts that can doom a mission if just one fails. Relativity Space, a California-based startup, is trying…