University of Utah takes top honors in BIG Idea Lunar Forge Challenge 

A member of the winning team of NASA’s 2023’s BIG Idea Challenge working on their Lunar Forge project, Production of Steel from Lunar Regolith through Carbonyl Iron Refining (CIR). University of Utah Through Artemis, NASA plans to conduct long-duration human and robotic missions on the lunar surface in preparation for future crewed exploration of Mars. Expanding exploration capabilities requires a robust lunar infrastructure, including practical and cost-effective ways to construct a lunar base. One method is employing in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) – or the ability to use naturally occurring resources…

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DJI Osmo Action 4 review

Key specs: Camera: 1/1.3-inch sensor / f/2.8 / 155° FOV Video resolution: 4K, 2.7K, 1080p Frame rates: 4K up to 60FPS, 2.7K up to 120FPS, 1080p up to 240FPS Slow motion: 4K up to 120FPS, 2.7K up to 120FPS, 1080p up to 240FPS Dimensions: 2.77 x 1.74 x 1.29 in (70.5 x 44.2 x 32.8 mm) Weight: 5.11 oz (145 g) Compatible with: Larger FPV drones Action cameras are an essential element for FPV drones because, in the majority of cases, these drones require an additional camera for capturing video.…

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SpaceX’s epic Starship liftoff didn’t damage launch pad, Elon Musk says

SpaceX’s Starship launch pad appears to have passed its second trial by fire. The pad, at SpaceX‘s Starbase site in South Texas, took a beating on April 20, during the first-ever test flight of a fully stacked Starship vehicle. The huge rocket’s 33 first-stage Raptor engines blasted out a big crater beneath the pad that day, sending chunks of concrete and other debris high into the Texas sky. SpaceX installed a water-spewing steel plate beneath the pad in the aftermath of the debut flight, to prevent such damage from happening…

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Watch all the Star Trek you want and save 67% on 3 months of Paramount Plus in this early Black Friday deal

With this year’s finale of “Star Trek: Picard” (and the latest season of “Star Trek: Lower Decks,” there’s more Trek on TV than ever before, nearly all of it live on the Paramount Plus streaming service. And now, you can beam up a subscription for 67% off your first three months ahead of Black Friday.  You can get a limited-time offer on the Paramount Plus streaming service on sale right for 67% off. There are no less than 27 different Star Trek films, TV series or documentaries available on Paramount…

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NASA to Talk Science Highlights of First Artemis Robotic Moon Landing

Teams with Astrobotic install the NASA meatball decal on Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander on Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2023, at the Astrotech Space Operations Facility near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA/Isaac Watson NASA will host a What’s on Board media teleconference at 2 p.m. EST Wednesday, Nov. 29, to discuss the science payloads flying aboard the first commercial robotic flight to the lunar surface as part of the agency’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative under the Artemis program. Carrying NASA and commercial payloads to the Moon, Astrobotic…

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PRIME-1 Simulation

A team of engineers participate in simulation training for the Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1) on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023, inside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The purpose of the training is to get the integrated PRIME-1 team – engineers with PRIME-1’s MSOLO (Mass Spectrometer Observing Lunar Operations) and Honeybee Robotics’ TRIDENT (The Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain) drill – prepared to operate the instrument on the lunar surface. The team commanded the PRIME-1 hardware, located at…

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Seeing Sagittarius C in a New Light

The NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s reveals a portion of the Milky Way’s dense core in a new light. An estimated 500,000 stars shine in this image of the Sagittarius C (Sgr C) region, along with some as-yet unidentified features. A large region of ionized hydrogen, shown in cyan, contains intriguing needle-like structures that lack any uniform orientation. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, and S. Crowe (University of Virginia) A star-forming region, named Sagittarius C (Sgr C), is seen in exceptional detail in this image from…

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NASA’s X-59 ‘quiet’ supersonic jet heads for a new red, white and blue paint job

NASA’s experimental supersonic jet is ready to rock a red, white and blue color scheme ahead of it’s first flight in which it will quietly shatter the sound barrier over Earth. The X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (Quesst) jet moved to the paint barn at Lockheed Martin Skunk Works’ facility in Palmdale, California, on Nov. 14, 2023. The jet’s color scheme was changed from green to a white body with a sonic blue underside and red wing accents. The patriotic new paint job is more than just aesthetic, however. The paint…

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Fisher Space Pens to fly with Blue Origin crews as ‘official ballpoint’

Fisher Space Pen has some new Blue ballpoints. The maker of the pressurized-ink writing instruments used by astronauts to scrawl in space has partnered with Blue Origin to become the company’s official pen provider. Fisher Space Pen will be the only brand ballpoint pen used on all of Blue Origin’s upcoming crewed launches. “We can see the future, and Blue Origin is helping fly us there,” Matt Fisher, vice president of Fisher Pen Company, said in a statement. “My grandfather helped build this company with an innovative product that yesterday’s…

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