Imaging is one of the key markets in the emerging space tech industry, and for good reason – there’s a proven and robust demand for imaging and Earth observation data among government, private and other clients. Orbital satellites satisfy some of this demand, and companies like Planet have grown sizeable businesses on building satellites that…
Boeing and launch partner United Launch Alliance (ULA) completed a key step today in pursuit of launching U.S. astronauts aboard their commercial spacecraft. The Boeing CST-100 Starliner crew capsule was atop the ULA Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Launch Complext 41 in Florida, with the rocket fully fuelled while the combined…
Rocket Lab launched its 10th Electron spacecraft on Friday morning, successfully delivering payloads for clients Spaceflight and Alba Orbital. The launch company also had an important secondary mission for this launch: Testing out the guidance, control and navigation systems of their first stage rocket recovery system. Rocket Lab announced earlier this year that it would…
The Crew Interactive Mobile Companion (or CIMON for short) recorded a number of firsts on its initial mission to the International Space Station, which took place last November, including becoming the first ever autonomous free-floating robot to operate aboard the station, and the first ever smart astronaut assistant. But CIMON is much more than an…
SpaceX has launched its nineteenth resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on behalf of NASA. The launch took place at 12:29 PM EST (9:29 AM PST) from Cape Canaveral in Florida, with a Falcon 9 blasting off with a Dragon cargo capsule on top carrying around 5,200 lbs of payload destined for the…
[embedded content] It’s take two for SpaceX’s CRS-19 mission, the 19th Commercial Resupply Mission (see how that works?) it’s flying under contract with NASA. The goal of these missions is to ferry supplies, experimental materials and other equipment to the International Space Station, where it’ll be unloaded by the astronauts living and working aboard the…
Figuring out just what an AI is good at is one of the hardest thing about understanding them. To help determine this, OpenAI has designed a set of games that can help researchers tell whether their machine learning agent is actually learning basic skills or, what is equally likely, has figured out how to rig…
NASA is going to be sending something it calls a ‘robot hotel’ to the International Space Station aboard the next commercial resupply mission, which is set to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket this week. The robot hotel is more formally known as the “Robotic Tool Stowage” unit, or the RiTS for short because…
India’s Vikram lander was very near making its proud creators the fourth country in history to touch down on the moon — but it was not to be, and the craft was lost. Now India has a bit of closure: The remains of the lander have been located on the Moon’s surface. After the accident,…
Even to an experienced carpenter, it may not be obvious what the best way is to build a structure they’ve designed. A new digital tool, Carpentry Compiler, provides a way forward, converting the shapes of the structure to a step-by-step guide on how to produce them. It could help your next carpentry project get off…
