“Our capsule’s engines are not pointed in the right direction for optimum boost,” said Sarah Walker, SpaceX’s director of Dragon mission management. “So, this trunk module has engines pointed in the right direction to maximize efficiency of propellant usage.” When NASA says it’s the right time, SpaceX controllers will command the Draco thrusters to ignite and gently accelerate the massive …
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QUICK FACTS Where is it? Lake Van, Turkey [38.91395038, 43.12483070] What’s in the photo? Rare plumes of mostly inorganic matter swirling in an alkaline lake Who took the photo? NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, on board the International Space Station When was it taken? Sept. 12, 2016 This stunning astronaut photo shows a series of milky swirls that appeared in the …
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“We were interested in looking at the more durable systems,” Camarda told Ars. “The first thing I ever tested was actually an all-metallic shuttle wing leading edge, and it used heat pipes, and it was built by McDonnell Douglas. It was a competitor with the reinforced carbon-carbon, the passive leading edge system.” Ultimately, NASA went with the reinforced carbon-carbon heat …
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As you can probably imagine, we get tips on a lot of really interesting projects here at Hackaday. Most are pretty serious, at least insofar as they aim to solve a specific problem in some new and clever way. Some, though, are a little more lighthearted, such as a fun project that came across the tips line back in May. …
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The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has observed the interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS for the first time. The powerful space telescope trained its infrared vision and its Near-Infrared Spectrograph instrument (NIRspec) on the comet on Aug. 6, 2025. Discovered on July 1 by the ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) survey telescope, 3I/ATLAS is just the third-ever object found drifting through …
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An unpiloted SpaceX Dragon capsule loaded with 2.5 tons of supplies, research material and needed equipment approaches the International Space Station over western Africa. Image: Sen 4K camera An unpiloted SpaceX cargo ship docked at the International Space Station early Monday, delivering more than 5,000 pounds of equipment and supplies including 1,500 tortillas, the crumb-free bread substitute for crews dining …
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A sonic boom advisory has been issued ahead of SpaceX’s planned launch Tuesday from Vandenberg Space Force Base. The launch of the OHB Italia’s NAOS spacecraft has a 27-minute launch window opening at 11:53 a.m. If the launch does not happen during that time, another opportunity will be available at the same time on Wednesday. About eight minutes after liftoff, …
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The near-Earth asteroid Bennu contains stardust that is older than our solar system, as well as organic materials and ices from interstellar space, three fresh studies of the asteroid’s sample materials show. Scientists all over the world have been poring over samples of Bennu ever since material from the asteroid was brought to Earth in 2023, courtesy of NASA‘s OSIRIS-REx …
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A team using MeerKAT in South Africa spotted a new repeating source of short, sharp radio pulses and, within days, tracked it through an intense outburst that produced hundreds of events across multiple frequency bands. These bursts belong to a class known as fast radio burst (FRB) events, which last only milliseconds and come from far beyond our galaxy, with …
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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A little bit of Jacksonville is heading to space. Experiments from research at Mayo Clinic are going to be practiced during NASA’s 33rd SpaceX commercial resupply mission in space, which is scheduled to launch early Sunday morning. A Jacksonville doctor is behind it all. The research through Mayo Clinic is going to be a part of NASA’s …
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