Tag: Tech

The future of cellular data transfer could lie in “curving” light beams midair to deliver 6G wireless networks with blazing-fast speeds — bypassing the need for line of sight between transmitter and receivers.  In a new study published March 30 in the journal Nature’s Communications Engineering, researchers explained how they developed a transmitter that can dynamically adjust the waves needed to support future 6G signals.  The most advanced cellular communications standard is 5G. Expected to be thousands of times faster, 6G will begin rolling out in 2030, according to the…

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Rocket Lab is taking a big step toward its first-ever rocket reflight. On Jan. 31, one of the company’s Electron rockets launched four private satellites to Earth orbit. The vehicle’s first stage then came back down for a soft ocean splashdown, and Rocket Lab fished it out of the sea and hauled it back to shore for inspection and analysis. The company has recovered boosters in this manner multiple times in the past, gathering information about how to make Electron first stages reusable. But this particular booster will break new…

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Like Tom Cruise’s “Maverick” character in “Top Gun,” Boom Supersonic is feeling the need for speed. The Colorado company has received a first-of-its-kind approval from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to exceed Mach 1 during test flights of its XB-1 supersonic jet. These flights are slated to occur sometime this year within the Black Mountain Supersonic Corridor in Mojave, California. The sleek, delta-shaped XB-1 took its maiden flight on March 22, 2024 from the Mojave Air & Space Port, and now it’s free to go supersonic at Boom’s California…

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South Korea’s “artificial sun” has set a new fusion record after superheating a plasma loop to 180 million degrees Fahrenheit (100 million degrees Celsius) for 48 seconds, scientists have announced.  The Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) reactor broke the previous world record of 31 seconds, which was set by the same reactor in 2021.The breakthrough is a small but impressive step on the long road to a source of near-unlimited clean energy.  Scientists have been trying to harness the power of nuclear fusion — the process by which stars…

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On Feb. 21, after some seven months in space, Varda Space Industries’ W-1 capsule successfully returned to Earth, carrying with it a unique payload: the HIV/AIDS medication ritonavir.  Varda Space seeks to autonomously manufacture pharmaceuticals in microgravity, a strategy that could ultimately reduce the cost of life-saving drugs — and, according to a new preprint paper, the company is one step closer to achieving that goal. The W-1 mission sought to test the feasibility of making therapeutics in space, testing Varda’s hardware off Earth for the first time. During its time…

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(Image credit: Future) The idea of being in a remote location, unable to communicate with civilization, is foreign to most people. With cell phones, Wi-Fi, and radio readily available to us, we hardly think about how difficult it would be to communicate over long distances without them. But that could be a reality for members of the United States Space Force in the future.  What do you do when your ability to communicate is hindered? In the second episode of the Space Force STEM Challenge, we show you how to…

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The search for water on Mars could include a hunt from Red Planet skies. An early-stage vehicle, affectionately called MAGGIE, would search for water on Mars from high in the planet’s atmosphere. In fact, MAGGIE just received its first tranche of funding from NASA on the long road to getting ready for flight. While there’s no timeline yet for the craft’s first flight, another flying vehicle on Mars continues to exceed and excel. The Ingenuity helicopter on the Red Planet, originally built for a mere five flights, is well past…

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Nuclear fusion power was supposed to be a dream come true. As soon as we discovered that you could smash little atoms together to make bigger atoms and release a small amount of energy in the process, scientists around the world realized the implications of this new bit of physics knowledge. Some wanted to turn it into weapons, but others wanted to develop it into a clean, efficient, inexhaustible supply of electrical energy. But it turns out that fusion power is … hard. Really hard. Really complicated. Full of unexpected…

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