Photographer Steve Rice had fantasized about taking such pictures for years before a Cygnus cargo resupply mission created the perfect opportunity.
For people such as soldiers, security officials and airport workers, drones aren’t always a welcome sight. That’s why drone-jamming guns were developed, and the new Paladyne E1000MP “pistol” is said to be one of the most compact on the market.
Manufactured by British company Drone Defence, the E1000MP works in the same fashion as similar products – it emits an electromagnetic signal at the same frequency that a target drone utilizes for control communications, GPS orientation, and video transmission. This causes the drone to lose communication with its operator, resulting in it automatically landing or returning to its point of take-off.
The gun has an operational range of 1 km (0.6 miles), and can be used with either a directional or omnidirectional antenna – the former focuses the jamming signal on one particular drone, while the latter spreads the signal out over a wider area that needs protecting.
NASA will broadcast key events, including an Artemis program update, of the 71st International Astronautical Congress (IAC), which takes place virtually Monday, Oct. 12, through Wednesday, Oct. 14. Coverage will air on NASA Television and the agency’s website.
During the conference, NASA will discuss international cooperation for the agency’s lunar exploration plans throughout the Artemis program, which includes sending American astronauts to the surface of the Moon in 2024 and establishing a sustainable lunar presence by the end of the decade.
In addition to participation in events outlined below, NASA will have a virtual exhibit featuring information on Artemis, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, and the International Space Station. Visitors also will have an opportunity to contribute to a digital mosaic of the space station on social media using #NASAVirtualExhibit.
Unmanned combat air vehicles have notched up kills against armored fighting vehicles all over the world. Does it mean the end of the tank?
But people need to be kept at the centre of it.
There is more than one reason that we need to reforest Planet Earth. Less than a fifth of Earth’s original forests have survived the rise of humans since the last glaciation, and over half of them are in just five countries (see figure below).
The biggest effect from loss of forests is loss of habitat and the resultant loss of biodiversity, even if you don’t care about climate change. We’re burning billions of acres of pristine Indonesian rain forests to plant palm oil trees (Scientific American) just to get a cooking oil with a better shelf life.
Forest biodiversity encompasses not just trees, but the multitude of plants, animals and microorganisms that inhabit forested areas — and their associated genetic diversity. Over a billion humans depend on dense forests for their survival, although all humans depend on forests in some degree for some aspect of their lives.
IKEA Poland has gathered a multidisciplinary team to imagine how we can integrate a more eco-friendly lifestyle into our future homes. In the centre of Szczecin, Poland, the results are showcased in the Home of Tomorrow — a spacious, plant-filled living environment where visitors can get inspired on how to turn their own homes into healthier and more sustainable spaces.
I’m excited to welcome Catherine Johnson, a planetary geophysicist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona and an expert on the planet Mercury; the innermost planet in our solar system. Spacecraft have only visited Mercury twice, via flyby and orbit. But in 2025, a European mission is scheduled to orbit this puzzling planet with two separate spacecraft and should help further lift the scientific veil on this tiny world. Catherine and I will be talking all things Mercury! Stay tuned.
Airborne taxis are coming?
“Flying taxis” will start taking off from an aerodrome north of Paris as soon as next June, operators said, in a trial ahead of a vast tourist influx for the 2024 Olympics.
The experiment will take place at the Pontoise-Cormeilles-en-Vexin aerodrome some 90 minutes northwest of the capital by car, according to a joint announcement by the Ile-de-France region, airports operator Groupe ADP and the RATP public transport agency.
A drone-like, fully-electric vertical take-off and landing vehicle (VTOL) dubbed VoloCity, produced by German company Volocopter, was chosen for the innovative trial with flying taxis in a peri-urban area, they said.
Elon Musk’s company SpaceX has given emergency responders in Washington access to its Starlink satellites to help fight fires.
Through the satellite-based internet constellation Starlink, SpaceX plans to provide broadband internet across the globe and enable connectivity to billions of people who may not have reliable internet access.
SpaceX has already launched hundreds of satellites into orbit, though the firefighters’ use of the network is the first early application of the internet service to be disclosed.