Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: space – Page 572

“We’re trying to ice skate to where the puck is going,” Ellis said, adding that Relativity wants to be similarly disruptive to SpaceX, but in its own way. “What we keep hearing from customers is that they don’t want just a single launch company that is, frankly, the only quickly moving, disruptive provider.”

Powered by seven main engines, the Terran R vehicle will initially launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Relativity has set a goal to launch in 2024, and Ellis said the company has signed a binding contract for multiple launches with an “anchor customer” he declined to name. Relativity has not publicly released a price for a launch.

Read more | >

The U.S. Department of Treasury and NASA did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.

Launched in 1998, the ISS serves as the largest hub for scientific research and collaboration in orbit. The U.S., Russia, Canada and Japan alongside a dozen countries participating in the European Space Agency work in support of the ISS.

Read more | >

Researchers have found that graphene-enhanced hard drives can store data at ten times the density of existing HDDs.

By leveraging the wonder material graphene, a group at the University of Cambridge is claiming an advance in data storage that resembles more of a leap than a step forward. The new design unlocks higher operating temperatures for hard disk drives (HDDs) and with it, unprecedented data density, which the team says represents a ten-fold increase on current technologies.

In a HDD, data is written onto fast-spinning platters by a moving magnetic head. Special layers called carbon-based overcoats (COCs) protect these platters from mechanical damage and corrosion during operation, though these can only perform within a certain temperature range and also take up a lot of space.

The Cambridge researchers were able to replace the COCs used in commercial HDDs with between one and four layers of graphene, a material that is a single layer of carbon atoms with incredible strength and flexibility, among other highly-valued properties. The thinness of the graphene enabled significant space savings but also outperformed current COCs in preventing mechanical wear, reduced corrosion by 2.5 times and also offered a two-fold reduction in friction.

Read more | >

The Moon will get between us and the Sun next week, creating a fiery halo.

During the annular eclipse, the Sun is at its nearest point to Earth, while the Moon is at its greatest distance away from Earth, so it is not large enough to cover up the entirety of the Sun from our view from Earth.

When is the annular solar eclipse?

The annular solar eclipse will take place on Thursday, June 10, and the exact times are dependent on your location. The eclipse will begin at sunrise for many in North America and last a little less than an hour.

Read more | >

Space weaponization is on the rise between the 3 super powers. This is dangerous and it could lead to the Stone Age.

HELSINKI — Russia and China have formally invited countries and international organizations to join the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) project being developed by the two nations.

China National Space Administration (CNSA) and Russia’s Roscosmos said the ILRS project would be open to participation at all stages and levels. This includes planning, design, research, development, implementation and operations.

CNSA and Roscosmos will promote extensive cooperation for the development of human space science and technology and socio-economic progress, said CNSA deputy director Wu Yanhua.

Read more | >

A team of Leiden astronomers has managed to calculate the first 100 million years of the history of the Oort cloud in its entirety. Until now, only parts of the history had been studied separately. The cloud, with roughly 100 billion comet-like objects, forms an enormous shell at the edge of our solar system. The astronomers will soon publish their comprehensive simulation and its consequences in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The Oort cloud was discovered in 1950 by the Dutch Jan Hendrik Oort to explain why there continue to be new comets with elongated orbits in our solar system. The cloud, which starts at more than 3000 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun, should not be confused with the Kuiper belt. This is the rim of rock, grains and ice in which the dwarf planet Pluto is located and which orbits relatively close to the Sun at about 30 to 50 times the Earth-Sun distance.

Read more | >

The space agency is launching two missions to study Venus’ atmosphere and geological history.

“I did a lot of screaming and jumping up and down,” Grinspoon tells Inverse. “I scared my dog.”

On Wednesday, NASA selected both DAVINCI+ and another Venus mission, VERITAS, to study the planet’s atmosphere and geological history. It will mark a return to Venus after decades away.

By returning to Venus, it could answer questions both intriguing, like if Venus ever had the right conditions for life, and existential, like if Venus is a vision of our future.

Read more | >