Lifeboat Foundation

The launch of the Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) observatory is now targeting December 13 2021, onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The IXPE X-Ray observatory is the latest spacecraft in NASA’s historic Small Explorers (SMEX) program.

The IXPE mission was first selected as a part of the Explorers program in January 2017. NASA awarded the IXPE team $188 million for the spacecraft and mission, including the cost of the launch vehicle, post-launch operations, and data analysis. The spacecraft will be used to study Black Holes and other cosmic X-ray mysteries.

Built by Ball Aerospace at facilities in Boulder, Colorado, the IXPE spacecraft is based on the Ball Configurable Platform (BCP)-100 satellite bus. The BCP-100 is one of Ball Aerospace’s offerings for a modular satellite bus for low-Earth orbit (LEO) operations. It was most recently used by NASA’s Green Propellant Infusion Mission (GPIM) to test a new type of Green propellant for space operations.

Um wut o.o!!!

What’s beyond the edge of the universe we live in? It’s difficult to say.

– SciTechDaily o.o!!!!

Dark energy, the mysterious force that causes the universe to accelerate, may have been responsible for unexpected results from the XENON1T experiment, deep below Italy’s Apennine Mountains.

A new study, led by researchers at the University of Cambridge and reported in the journal Physical Review D, suggests that some unexplained results from the XENON1T experiment in Italy may have been caused by dark energy, and not the dark matter the experiment was designed to detect.

Continue reading “XENON1T Experiment May Have Detected Dark Energy” »

Hyundai has already achieved this feat emphatically with the brilliant and much-loved Ioniq 5. It’s a car with more charm than just about every Hyundai ever made before it, and now comes Kia’s response. And I won’t waste your time: It’s absolutely brilliant.

Everything we admire about Kias of old remains with the new EV6: The pricing is competitive, the standard equipment is ample, the range, while perhaps no longer segment-leading, is more than enough for any use case, and the car is littered with small, thoughtful touches designed to make your life a little easier. But on top of that, and unlike the brilliant e-Niro, it looks fantastic, it’s enjoyable to drive, and the interior is exquisite. It’s comparable more to high-end e-SUVs like the I-Pace and EQC than the ID.4s and Mustang Mach-Es that it’s closer to in price.

Continue reading “Kia EV6 review — This electric car is out of this world [Video]” »

Boeing displayed a Long-Range Air-to-Air Missile (LRAAM) concept at the annual Air, Space, and Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, this week.

The two-stage missile reportedly has a “kill vehicle” attached atop a rear booster section. The end of the missile is ejected after the initial burst, igniting the front section and propelling it to the target.

According to War Zone, Boeing began development of the concept in response to the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Broad Area Announcement (BAA) last year requesting novel solutions for faster, longer-range air-to-air missile development.

The US Space Force announced the transfer of satellite communications billets, funding, and mission responsibility from the Army and Navy.

The United States Space Force, through its chief of operations, announced that the satellite communications billets, funding, and mission responsibility of the US Army and Navy will be transferred to the Space Force.

Space Force Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond made the announcement on Tuesday at the Air Force Association meeting in Washington. The transfer is not yet complete and still needs approval from the Department of Defense.

Continue reading “US Space Force to Take Over Military Satellite Communications” »

The US Air Force recently tested a robotic system prototype for aircraft weapon loading at the Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana.

The Square One Systems Design, MHU-TSX, uses non-hydraulic actuation making its movements precise, a key advantage over the current weapon hauling systems, the Jackson-based company revealed.

Bob Viola, Square One Systems Design director of engineering, stated that adding a sensor package to the system would make it more autonomous, leaving the personnel only to “supervise what it’s doing, which should make the loading process quicker.”

Stellarators, twisty magnetic devices that aim to harness on Earth the fusion energy that powers the sun and stars, have long played second fiddle to more widely used doughnut-shaped facilities known as tokamaks. The complex twisted stellarator magnets have been difficult to design and have previously allowed greater leakage of the superhigh heat from fusion reactions.

Now scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP), working in collaboration with researchers that include the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) is a collaborative national laboratory for plasma physics and nuclear fusion science. Its primary mission is research into and development of fusion as an energy source for the world.

SpaceX’s under-development rocket, Starship, is designed to take humans to Mars. When it will do so is another question.