The United States’ reliance on China for rare earth elements could soon come to an end, thanks to a new process that pulls the valuable metals from the ash left over when we burn coal.
Why it matters: The 17 rare earth elements aren’t actually rare — they’re all more common than gold, and one is more abundant than copper. But getting our hands on them is difficult because they’re widely dispersed in Earth’s crust and hard to extract through mining.
That’s a problem because we need rare earth elements to make a lot of products, from smartphones and satellites to electric cars and wind turbines.
“Spacecraft antenna designs are challenging due to their conflicting requirements for high gain, wide bandwidth, and low weight,” Mitsubishi announced. “High gain and wide bandwidth necessarily require a large aperture, but economical orbital deployment conventionally dictates that designs be lightweight and small enough to fit or fold inside a launch vehicle or satellite deployment mechanism.”
Mitsubishi also claimed that, with its new technology, ‘additive-manufacturing in space has now become possible.’ However, it’s worth noting that the International Space Station already features a 3D printer launched to the orbital station back in 2014. The European Space Agency also announced last year it would experiment with 3D printing in space using scrap metals from the Moon.
Still, the company’s new method has the potential to reduce the cost of satellite launches significantly, and it could pave the way for the construction of other vital parts for future space missions.
In over six decades since the first satellite, the mode of communication hasn’t changed. Now, this technology will herald a new era of secure, faster connections.
“there’s a new record to report: a new solar cell has hit 39.5 percent efficiency ”.
Scientists keep on pushing the efficiency of solar panels higher and higher, and there’s a new record to report: a new solar cell has hit 39.5 percent efficiency under the standard 1-sun global illumination conditions.
That 1-sun marker is simply a standardized way of measuring a fixed amount of sunlight, and almost 40 percent of that radiation can now be converted into electricity. The previous record for this type of solar panel material was 39.2 percent efficiency.
There are more types of solar cells around than you might have realized. The type used here, triple-junction III-V tandem solar cells, are often deployed in satellites and space vehicles, though they have plenty of potential here on solid ground as well.
Len RosenFalcon 9 has been a spectacular success for SpaceX. The purpose of the Falcon Heavy is likely to be superseded by Starship which likely means the Heavy will be discontinued sooner than later.
Eric KlienAuthor.
Len Rosen Actually, Starship will rapidly grab all of the Falcon 9 payloads, except for humans which will be much slower to transition. In fact, it looks like the first orbital Starship launch will try to launch some Starlink satellites.
The reason the Falcon Heavy hasn’t flown in about 3 years is that the Falcon 9 ended up having about twice the capacity that was planned for and so the Falcon 9 took away many missions from the Falcon Heavy. (There will finally be some more Falcon Heavy missions later this year…)
Anyway, SpaceX has again increased the capacity of the Falcon 9. They have changed certain timings during flight like igniting the MVac engine a few seconds earlier than on other missions and are separating the fairing closer to stage separation to shed dead weight earlier in the flight.
Additionally, SpaceX is loading propellants on the rocket at slightly lower temperatures than usual in order to pack more of them into the tanks and increase the amount of Starlink satellites the Falcon 9 can put into orbit.
SpaceX has launched its twentieth Falcon 9 rocket of the year with a batch of Starlink satellites to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) on the Starlink Group 4–15 mission. Liftoff occurred on Saturday, May 14 at 4:40:50pm EDT (20:40:50 UTC) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) in Florida.
The Falcon 9 for this mission was of special interest as it uses a new booster, B1073-1, something not seen until now on a Starlink mission.
At 9.2 tons, it may be the largest spacecraft to ever launch to geostationary orbit.
SpaceX will launch the heaviest commercial geostationary satellite ever aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket early next year, following several delays.
Earlier this month, SpaceX customer EchoStar announced satellite builder Maxar Technologies had delayed the delivery of the much-anticipated Jupiter-3, which had been scheduled to launch near the end of the year.
Google Maps, the world’s most-downloaded travel app, will soon become more immersive and intuitive thanks to a major upgrade.
The online tool is used by over 1 billion people every month. It already includes satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panoramic views of streets, real-time traffic conditions, and route planning. At its annual I/O developer conference held in California, Google announced key features being added to further enhance its appearance and functionality.
Two SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets have completed back-to-back Starlink launches less than 24 hours apart, successfully delivering 106 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO).
Originally scheduled just a handful of hours apart, slight delays eventually saw Starlink 4–13 and Starlink 4–15 settle on 6:07 pm EDT, May 13th and 4:40 pm EDT, May 14th, respectively. Entering the final stretch, launch preparations went smoothly and both Falcon 9 rockets ultimately lifted off without a hitch.
The series began with Starlink 4–13 on Friday. SpaceX chose Falcon 9 B1063 to support the Starlink launch and the booster did its job well, wrapping up its fifth launch since November 2020 with a rare landing aboard drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY). Since SpaceX permanently transferred OCISLY from the East Coast to the West Coast in mid-2021, the drone ship has only supported five booster recoveries. Save for an unusual East Coast Starlink launch in May 2021, Falcon 9 B1061 has also primarily been tasked with supporting SpaceX’s West Coast launch manifest. With only one older pad – Vandenberg Space Force Base’s (VSFB) SLC-4 complex – available to SpaceX, the company’s West Coast Falcon launches are also considerably rarer than its East Coast missions.
