USC engineering student Maddie Koldos interned at Blue Origin this summer as a Brooke Owens Fellow. (Brooke Owens Fellowship Photo)
The online application window has just opened for the Brooke Owens Fellowship program, which offers paid internships for undergraduate women at 30 aerospace concerns, including Amazon Prime Air, Blue Origin and Stratolaunch in the Seattle area. Other host institutions range from NASA and SpaceX to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. This will be the third year for the “Brookies,” honoring the memory of Brooke Owens, who worked at NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration and died of cancer in 2016.
An artist’s conception shows a planet-hunting space telescope accompanied by an umbrella-like starshade that blocks the glare of the planet’s parent star. (NASA / JPL Illustration)
NASA should add a large, technologically advanced space telescope to its lineup to capture direct images of Earthlike planets beyond our solar system, astronomers say in a congressionally mandated report issued today.
The report, published under the aegis of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, also calls on the National Science Foundation to invest in the next-generation Giant Magellan Telescope and the Thirty Meter Telescope.
The GMT is being built in Chile, with completion set for 2025. The TMT is also due to go into service in the mid-2020s, although the current plan to build it on the top of Hawaii’s Mauna Kea volcano has run into controversy.
But the report makes clear that the search for alien planets will have to focus down on direct images of planets, as well as detailed analysis of exoplanet atmospheres, in order to address questions about the existence of life beyond our solar system.
A funerary mask from ancient Egypt is among the artifacts from the now-destroyed Museu documented in digital 3-D models. (UFRJ National Museum via Sketchfab)
One of the greatest tragedies in the museum world transpired over the weekend when fire broke out at Brazil’s Museu Nacional do Rio de Janeiro, touching off a mad scramble to save physical and virtual treasures.
Many of the 200-year-old natural history museum’s 20 million artifacts have been destroyed, including irreplaceable fossils and specimens. One heartbreaking videosweeps around a ruined gallery where only a monumental meteorite survived unscathed.
Museum workers managed to save some artifacts from the blaze, and other items survived because they were on loan to institutions elsewhere. But for many of the pieces, the only hope is to build a digital archive containing videos and photos of the museum’s collection.
Sensors are built into the shelves at Amazon Go stores. (GeekWire Photo / Nat Levy)
Amazon has just opened a third Seattle location that makes use of its cashierless Amazon Go grocery shopping concept — and it’s just received the latest patent for technologies that make the concept work.
“Smart shelves” have been the subject of other Amazon patent applications, including a patent granted in June that’s similar to the one published today. Both applications were filed three years ago.
The patents suggest that when the applications were written, the system was designed for inventory control in storage facilities such as Amazon’s fulfillment centers. The applications also cover use of the technology in consumer retail facilities, however.
This picture of a tiny hole implicated in a Soyuz air leak was included in an initial version of a NASA video but later removed. The larger hole in the picture is part of the Soyuz spacecraft’s structure and did not play a role in the leak. (Roscosmos / NASA via NASASpaceFlight / Twitter)
Dmitry Rogozin, the head of the Russian Space Agency, told reporters today that the leak was traced to what appears to be a drill hole piercing the Soyuz’ hull, and that in-space sabotage couldn’t be ruled out.
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is known for his philanthropic contributions to causes such as the University of Washington – and now he’s in the spotlight for political contributions as well. (GeekWire Photo)
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has made his largest-ever contribution to congressional candidates in the form of a $100,000 donation to the Republicans’ “Protect the House” political action committee.
Allen’s contribution, which was made in June and came to light today in a Seattle Times report, could bring further attention to the role of tech leaders in the crucial midterm congressional campaign.
Space Adventures facilitated two trips to the International Space Station for Seattle billionaire Charles Simonyi, in 2007 and 2009. (NASA Photo via Space Adventures)
More than 17 years after Space Adventures put its first millionaire client in orbit, and nearly nine years after getting its last one launched, the company is raising its profile in the commercial space game once more.
And this time, it’s aiming to be more than just a travel agent for the final frontier.
Astronauts rehearse crew egress procedures using an Orion test model in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Texas in July 2017. (NASA Photo)
Systima Technologies says it’s been awarded a contract from Lockheed Martin Space Systems to provide pyrotechnically actuated hatch mechanisms for NASA’s Orion deep-space crew capsule.
The mechanisms will be part of a side hatch latch release system that would come into play in the event of an emergency landing condition after splashdown, the Kirkland, Wash.-based company said in a news release.
The Orion is currently in the midst of development, leading up to Exploration Mission-1, an uncrewed test flight beyond the moon and back that’s planned for the 2020 time frame. That would be followed by the first crewed flight, known as Exploration Mission-2, currently scheduled for as early as 2022. Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor for the multibillion-dollar Orion development program.
The mechanism that Systima is working on would be used on the EM-2 flight.
As a joke, NASA spacewalker Dale Gardner holds up a “For Sale” sign during a shuttle mission in 1984, in an era when the space shuttle fleet took on commercial satellite servicing tasks. (NASA Photo)
Why can’t commercials be filmed on the International Space Station? How about astronaut endorsements of energy drinks or tennis shoes? And instead of saying “The Eagle has landed,” why not get paid for saying “Here’s your orbital Pizza Hut delivery”?
The final frontier is edging farther into the commercial frontier: That’s one of the top takeaways from this week’s meetings of the NASA Advisory Council at Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine and other officials and advisers provided a preview of the trends we’re likely to be seeing in the months and years to come. Here’s a quick rundown on five places NASA is going toward.
Boeing’s MQ-25 unmanned aerial refueler, known as T1, is currently being tested at Boeing’s St. Louis site. T1 has completed engine runs and deck handling demonstrations designed to prove the agility and ability of the aircraft to move around within the tight confines of a carrier deck. (Boeing Photo / Eric Shindelbower)
After a months-long competition with the likes of Lockheed Martin, Boeing has won a $805.3 million contract from the Pentagon to build the first four MQ-25A autonomous refueling planes for the Navy.
The MQ-25 Stingray is meant to refuel Navy fighter jets such as the Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet and the Lockheed Martin F-35C Lightning II in midair to extend their range. It will be tasked with delivering about 15,000 pounds of fuel, 500 nautical miles out from an aircraft carrier. That should give fighters an additional 300 to 400 miles of flight range over what they have now.
The drones will launch and land on aircraft carriers, so they’ll have to integrate with the Navy’s catapult launch and recovery systems.
Boeing was in competition for the contract with two teams that were led by Lockheed Martin and General Atomics. Northrop Grumman was invited to submit a bid, but dropped out of the competition last October.
