SpaceX and NASA are “go” to launch the Crew-3 astronaut mission to the International Space Station, mission officials announced late tonight.
The decision clears the way for SpaceX to launch four astronauts on a Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule at 9:03 p.m. EST (0203 GMT Nov. 11) from Pad 39A of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
There is an 80% chance of good weather at launch time, according to a forecast from Space Launch Delta 45 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station near NASA’s KSC spaceport.
Four diaper-wearing astronauts undocked from the International Space Station on Monday and have embarked on their journey home following a 200-day stay in space.
NASA’s Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, along with the European Space Agency’s Thomas Pesquet and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s astronaut Akihiko Hoshide separated from the ISS at 2:05pm ET, as scheduled, and are now on track for at 10:33pm ET splashdown off the Florida coast.
Their return was initially set for Sunday afternoon, but high winds pushed the return for the Crew-2 team back one day.
The noise barriers built in Switzerland can supply up to 101 gigawatt hours of solar electricity every year. The prerequisite is that all noise barriers are covered with solar installations, as far as this is possible and economical. This would be possible with a solar capacity of 111 megawatts. This is the result of a study commissioned by the Swiss Federal Council at the instigation of Bruno Storni, a member of parliament from the Swiss Social Democratic Party.
This potential is far below what is technically feasible. However, the authors of the study subtracted the potential that would hardly be economically feasible according to the current state of the art. In addition, they had to take into account site conditions such as shading of the walls or safety aspects.
101 gigawatt hours sounds a lot. But this is only 0.15 per cent of the usable solar potential on roofs and facades used for comparison in Switzerland. For the federal road administration Astra and the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB), however, it is nevertheless a major step towards climate neutrality. After all, solar installations on noise barriers near road tunnels alone cover eleven per cent of the potential on Astra’s total surfaces.
When a highly coherent light beam, such as that emitted by radars, is diffusely reflected on a surface with a rough structure (e.g., a piece of paper, white paint or a metallic surface), it produces a random granular effect known as the ‘speckle’ pattern. This effect results in strong fluctuations that can reduce the quality and interpretability of images collected by synthetic aperture radar (SAR) techniques.
SAR is an imaging method that can produce fine-resolution 2D or 3D images using a resolution-limited radar system. It is often employed to collect images of landscapes or object reconstructions, which can be used to create millimeter-to-centimeter scale models of the surface of Earth or other planets.
To improve the quality and reliability of SAR data, researchers worldwide have been trying to develop techniques based on deep neural networks that could reduce the speckle effect. While some of these techniques have achieved promising results, their performance is still not optimal.
The Parker Solar Probe is an engineering marvel, designed by NASA to “touch the sun” and reveal some of the star’s most closely guarded secrets. The scorch-proof craft, launched by NASA in August 2,018 has been slowly sidling up to our solar system’s blazing inferno for the past three years, studying its magnetic fields and particle physics along the way. It’s been a successful journey, and the probe has been racking up speed records. In 2,020 it became the fastest human-made object ever built.
But Parker is learning a lesson about the consequences of its great speed: constant bombardment by space dust.
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If you traveled 10,000 years into the future, what would planet Earth look like? Would most of its surface be covered in volcanoes? Or would it be frozen in ice? What if you traveled even further, to one million years in the future? Would all of the oceans have evaporated? Or would it have become one giant water world? Now, what about one billion years? Would there be any humans left? Or would they have settled in other parts of the galaxy?
A US$500 billion accelerator of human progress — mansoor hanif, executive director, emerging technologies, NEOM.
Mansoor Hanif is the Executive Director of Emerging Technologies at NEOM (https://www.neom.com/en-us), a fascinating $500 billion planned cognitive city” & tourist destination, located in north west Saudi Arabia, where he is responsible for all R&D activities for the Technology & Digital sector, including space technologies, advanced robotics, human-machine interfaces, sustainable infrastructure, digital master plans, digital experience platforms and mixed reality. He also leads NEOM’s collaborative research activities with local and global universities and research institutions, as well as manages the team developing world-leading Regulations for Communications and Connectivity.
Prior to this role, Mr Hanif served as Executive Director, Technology & Digital Infrastructure, where he oversaw the design and implementation of NEOM’s fixed, mobile, satellite and sub-sea networks.
An industry leader, Mr Hanif has over 25 years of experience in planning, building, optimizing and operating mobile networks around the world. He is patron of the Institute of Telecommunications Professionals (ITP), a member of the Steering Board of the UK5G Innovation Network, and on the Advisory Boards of the Satellite Applications Catapult and University College London (UCL) Electrical and Electronic Engineering Dept.
Prior to joining NEOM, Mr Hanif was Chief Technology Officer of Ofcom, the UK telecoms and media regulator, where he oversaw the security and resilience of the nation’s networks.
Gold is one of the world’s most popular metals. Malleable, conductive and non-corrosive, it’s used in jewelry, electronics, and even space exploration. But traditional gold production typically involves a famous toxin, cyanide, which has been banned for industrial use in several countries.
The wait for a scalable non-toxic alternative may now be over as a research team from Aalto University in Finland has successfully replaced cyanide in a key part of gold extraction from ore. The results are published in Chemical Engineering.
Study shows new chloride-based process recovers 84% of gold compared to the 64% recovered with traditional methods.
