Categories
GeekWire

Boom attracts $100M to build supersonic jet

Boom Supersonic jet
Boom Supersonic is assembling a subscale prototype called XB-1 in preparation for producing its Overture supersonic airliner. (Boom Supersonic Image)

Colorado-based Boom Supersonic says it has closed a $100 million Series B investment round to support the development of a Mach-2.2 commercial airliner called Overture.

The funding includes $56 million in new investment as well as $44 million in previously announced investments. Total funding for Boom now stands at more than $141 million. The round was led by Emerson Collective and includes funding from Y Combinator Continuity, Caffeinated Capital, SV Angel and individual investors, Boom said today.

“This new funding allows us to advance work on Overture, the world’s first economically viable supersonic airliner,” Boom founder and CEO Blake Scholl said in a news release. “Overture fares will be similar to today’s business class — widening horizons for tens of millions of travelers. Ultimately, our goal is to make high-speed flight affordable to all.”

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Cosmic snowman revealed, now in 3-D

Ultima Thule in 3-D
This first 3-D view of the icy Kuiper Belt object known as 2014 MU69 or Ultima Thule is best seen using red-blue glasses. Click on the image for a larger view. (NASA / JHU / SwRI via YouTube)

LAUREL, Md. — The science team behind NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft today released the first 3-D image of an icy object more than 4 billion miles from Earth, and the variations in the picture hint at ridges, craters and knobby features that will be more fully charted as the resolution improves.

Two pictures, separated by just a moment in time, were fused together to produce a somewhat fuzzy but depth-enabled glimpse at the object — which has the official designation of 2014 MU69 but has been nicknamed Ultima Thule by the New Horizon team.

“Features appear to be rotating into view as the object twists underneath us,” Paul Schenk, a New Horizons co-investigator from the Lunar and Planetary Institute, said during today’s briefing here at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory. “These have a knobby appearance, and could be the inside of a large impact crater that’s on the far side.”

The stereo view also appears to highlight ridge structures on the 19-mile-long object, which has been compared in appearance to a snowman or the BB-8 droid from “Star Wars.” Some of the ridges could represent elevation variations amounting to several hundred feet, he said.

Schenk said a side-by-side version of the 3-D images was created by Brian May, an astrophysicist specializing in scientific stereoscopy who also happens to be the lead guitarist for the classic rock group Queen.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

After 2-year gap, White House has a science chief

Kelvin Droegemeier
University of Oklahoma meteorologist Kelvin Droegemeier addresses a meeting of the National Science Board in 2016. (NSF Photo)

Nearly two years after taking office, President Donald Trump now has a Senate-confirmed science adviser: Kelvin Droegemeier, a meteorologist from the University of Oklahoma who’s gotten good reviews from climate advocates as well as climate deniers.

Trump chose Droegemeier to head the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in late July, but it took until Wednesday for the Senate to confirm the appointment on a voice vote. That was the last full day of the 115th Congress, and if the confirmation had been put off a day longer, the process would have had to start over.

Droegemeier is a former vice chair of the National Science Board, the oversight body of the National Science Foundation, and has long been active on national research policy.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

It’s a first! Chinese probe lands on moon’s far side

Yutu 2 on lunar surface
An image captured from the Chang’e-4 lander shows the Yutu 2 rover rolling onto the terrain of the lunar far side. (CLEP via Weibo / Twitter)

Official Chinese media confirmed that the nation’s robotic Chang’e-4 probe made the first-ever landing on the far side of the moon — but not before issuing, and then withdrawing, an initial set of announcements.

The honest-to-goodness announcement came via several state-run media outlets just after noon Beijing time on Jan. 3 (8 p.m. PT Jan. 2).

That’s about an hour after the Twitter accounts for China’s CGTV network and the China Daily newspaper flashed word of a landing. Within a minute or two, those tweets were deleted, but the media echoes nevertheless continued through the Twitterverse, mailing lists and online reports.

Those outlets apparently jumped the gun on what was intended to be a coordinated release of the news. In its re-issued announcement, CGTV said the landing took place at 10:26 a.m. Beijing time (6:26 p.m. PT), which meshes with the timing for the initial tweeted-then-deleted reports.

Chang’e-4 is the latest in a series of probes named after the moon goddess in Chinese mythology. The combination lander and rover was sent into space in early December, and followed a slow but efficient 4.5-day trajectory from Earth to the moon. The lander made a series of lunar orbits over the past couple of weeks to line it up for the landing.

Communications were facilitated by a relay satellite that was sent to a gravitational balance point about 33,000 miles beyond the moon last May.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Probe brings far-out cosmic snowman into focus

2014 MU69 / Ultima Thule
The latest view from NASA’s New Horizons probe shows an icy object known as 2014 MU69 or as Ultima Thule to consist of two balls of icy material stuck together. (NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI Photo)

LAUREL, Md. — The New Horizons spacecraft’s picture of an icy object 4 billion miles from Earth became a lot clearer today, and took on a surprisingly familiar shape.

“It’s a snowman,” mission principal investigator Alan Stern, a planetary scientist from the Southwest Research Institute, said during a news briefing here at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory.

The two-balled shape reminded others of BB-8, the plucky droid from “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” It even has a BB-8ish orangish-reddish color theme going on.

Today’s imagery, derived from data sent back to Earth on the previous day, literally casts a whole new light on the 19-mile-long object — which is known by its official designation, 2014 MU69, or by the nickname given by the New Horizons team, Ultima Thule (“Ul-ti-ma Too-lay”).

The views were captured by the piano-sized probe’s high-resolution camera from a distance of roughly 18,000 miles, a half-hour before the time of close approach on New Year’s Day. Two black-and-white pictures were released, with a resolution as fine as 140 meters (460 feet) per pixel.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Bradford acquires DSI asteroid mining venture

Nanosatellite
An artist’s conception shows a nanosatellite equipped with Deep Space Industries’ non-toxic, water-based Comet thruster system. (DSI / BSI Illustration)

Bradford Space Group says it’s acquired California-based Deep Space Industries, which means that both of the ventures that were created to mine asteroids have now been bought up to focus on different priorities.

The other asteroid-mining venture, Redmond, Wash.-based Planetary Resources, was purchased in October by Brooklyn-based ConsenSys with the aim of creating space applications for blockchain security technology.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Probe ‘phones home’ from 4 billion miles away

Celebration
New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern high-fives mission operations manager Alice Bowman at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory after the team receives word that the spacecraft is healthy. (NASA Photo / Bill Ingalls)

LAUREL, Md. — NASA’s New Horizons science team today received confirmation that its spacecraft survived a New Year’s encounter with an icy world 4 billion miles away known as Ultima Thule — and it’s carrying a priceless load of data.

“We have a healthy spacecraft,” mission operations manager Alice Bowman announced here at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory. “We’ve just accomplished the most distant flyby. We are ready for Ultima Thule science transmissions … science to help us understand the origins of our solar system.”

The report was greeted with cheers and hugs at APL’s mission control center.

“This spacecraft is rock-solid!” the mission’s principal investigator, Alan Stern, told GeekWire just after New Horizons’ status report.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Farthest flyby celebrated with New Year’s flair

New Horizons celebration
Surrounded by children, New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern and Ralph Semmel, director of Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, celebrate the moment when the New Horizons spacecraft flew past Ultima Thule. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

LAUREL, Md. — Hundreds of well-wishers took part in a different kind of New Year’s countdown, 33 minutes past midnight, to celebrate the moment when NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft flew past an icy object known as Ultima Thule, more than 4 billion miles away.

The revelers here at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory didn’t yet know for sure whether the piano-sized probe actually survived the encounter. Because of the complicated schedule for New Horizons’ observations, plus the 6-hour-plus time it takes for radio signals to travel from Ultima Thule to NASA’s Deep Space Network, definitive word of success (or failure) won’t come until hours later on New Year’s Day.

Despite the uncertainty, tonight’s gathering had many of the trappings of a New Year’s Eve party, including sparkling wine and party hats. Mission team members and New Horizons’ fans, plus family members, noshed on hors d’oeuvres and watched presentations and performances (including a sing-along in New Horizons’ honor) during the buildup to 12:33 a.m. ET (9:33 p.m. PT Dec. 31).

Just after midnight, rock-star astrophysicist Brian May — who has gained fame for his 3-D astronomical imagery as well as for his riffs as lead guitarist for the rock group Queen — unveiled the full version of a rock anthem he wrote for the occasion.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Rock-star astrophysicist debuts space anthem

Brian May
Brian May, who is the lead guitarist for the rock group Queen as well as a Ph.D. astrophysicist, shows off his New Horizons mission patch during a Q&A with journalists. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

LAUREL, Md. — After you’ve participated in NASA’s New Horizons mission to the edge of the solar system, and written a rock anthem for the mission as well, what is there left to do? For Brian May, the lead guitarist for the rock band Queen who went on to earn a Ph.D. in astrophysics, maybe it’s taking a trip to space.

“I’m probably too old to do that,” the 71-year-old British rocker said at first. “A little too old in the tooth to do that.”

Then, after a moment of reflection, he changed his tune.

“I probably still would like to, yeah,” he said. “I don’t really fancy the idea of going up and having a few seconds and then coming back down again. That doesn’t appeal to me. What appeals to me more is, for instance, the ISS [International Space Station], where you can go up there and you sit there and contemplate the world which you were born on, and watch it turn underneath you.”

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

OSIRIS-REx enters close orbit around asteroid

OSIRIS-REx orbital path
An artist’s conception shows the OSIRIS-REx probe circling in to enter a close-in orbit around asteroid Bennu. (Univ. of Arizona / NASA Graphic)

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft today maneuvered into an orbit that takes it within 4,000 feet of the surface of Bennu, a diamond-shaped asteroid that’s 70 million miles from Earth.

The orbit sets a record for interplanetary travel. The quarter-mile-wide asteroid is now the smallest body ever orbited by a spacecraft, and the spacecraft is tracing the closest sustained orbit around a celestial body.

Bennu beat out Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the 2.5-mile-wide comet that the European Space Agency’s Rosetta probe circled from 2014 to 2016. OSIRIS-REx orbits about a mile from Bennu’s center, while Rosetta’s orbit was 4 miles out from the comet’s center.

Today’s crucial eight-second burn of OSIRIS-REx’s thrusters, built by Aerojet Rocketdyne in Redmond, Wash., was executed perfectly, said University of Arizona planetary scientist Dante Lauretta, who serves as the mission’s principal investigator.

Get the full story on GeekWire.