About the Author
Nick has a love for technology, cars, and space. He currently lives in California with his girlfriend, where he enjoys watching races, taking photos, and going to air shows. The first rocket launch that he watched was a SpaceX Falcon 9 launched from Cape Canaveral back in January 2015. His first iPhone was the iPhone 3GS that he purchased back in 2010. He has used dozens of iPhones and Android phones since then. He’s currently using the iPhone 11 Pro Max with an Apple Watch Series 5.
January 25
Super Bowl 55 is just around the corner, set to take place on February 7 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida. But this year, the Super Bowl will be a bit special with a first-of-its-kind Air Force Global Strike flyover.
January 21
Yes, you read that title correctly; Biden does indeed have a moon rock in the Oval Office. As pointed out by The Washington Post, the moon rock is sitting on a bookshelf and is “intended to remind Americans of the ambition and accompaniments of earlier generations.”
Consuming food aboard the International Space Station (ISS) can be a rather tricky task, but luckily, NASA can regularly send more food up. However, when future missions begin calling for astronauts to travel farther out into space, that won’t be an option. Enter the “Deep Space Food Challenge.”
January 20
On December 15, the US Air Force used artificial intelligence (AI) to control a Lockheed U-2 spy plane’s radar and sensor systems. This marked the first time that AI was given control of any US military system.
Since October, SpaceX has been slowly rolling out public beta access to its Starlink internet service, and the latest countries to get access are the UK and Canada. People who live in those countries can now sign up for the public beta and have a Starlink user terminal shipped to them.
January 18
Vaonis is a French company that just unveiled its latest astrophotography tool, a smart telescope called Vespera. An improvement over the company’s previous smart telescope, Stellina, Vespara just won the CES 2021 Best of Innovation Award for digital imaging and photography.
In December 2019, Boeing’s Starliner crew ship failed to reach the International Space Station (ISS) during its Orbital Flight Test mission. Later it was discovered that multiple errors in Starliner’s software caused the failure. Because of this, if Boeing wanted to test Starliner again, its software would need to achieve a formal requalification.
January 14
NASA released a new analysis today that concludes that 2020 tied for the warmest year on record with 2016, continuing our planet’s trend of slowly but surely getting warmer over the past seven years.
OneWeb put out a press release on Wednesday detailing plans to reduce the size of its proposed satellite constellation substantially. Initially planned to include nearly 48,000 satellites, the updated plan now calls for only about 6,400 in an attempt to reduce the overall cost of the project.
Meyya Meyyappan, a 66-year-old senior NASA scientist in California, has just pleaded guilty before a US District Judge in Manhattan. The charges brought forth include making false statements to the FBI, NASA, and the USAO about his involvement in China’s Thousand Talents Program.
January 12
Today officially marks the 3,000th day since the Mars rover Curiosity first arrived at the Martian planet. While this may be a long time by any measure, it got us wondering, what’s the longest period that any rover has spent on Mars?
The Black Vault is a website that contains many of the US government’s declassified documents. The site was recently updated to include an archive of PDFs containing all of the CIA’s declassified UFO documents going back to the 1980s. And the best part is that anybody with an internet connection can download all of these files safely and easily now.
January 11
Space has been called the final frontier by many influential figures throughout the years, and for good reasons. The dark, cold vacuum of space is dangerously unforgiving and reminds us that humans aren’t meant to go there. But as usual, curiosity has prevailed, and humans have made their mark in space, and we continue to do so today.
January 8
NASA has selected four astrophysics mission concepts that will be in the running to join its Pioneers program. These concepts will undergo a full concept study by NASA, and if everything checks out, they will formally become part of the program.
January 7
Back in 2011, a company called Mars One was founded by a small private Dutch organization with a single bold claim — to land the first humans on Mars. Not only would it be landing humans on Mars, but it would have them “live, explore, and create a second home for humanity” there.
2020 ended on a low note for the scientific community as the Arecibo Observatory collapsed in early December. However, this event has reinvigorated the discussion around NASA’s proposed Lunar Crater Radio Telescope (LCRT). Some scientists have even suggested that an LCRT on the Moon’s far side could act as a better replacement for Arecibo.
Preparations for NASA’s Artemis program are in full swing as the first mission, Artemis I, is set to launch later this year. However, one crucial part of the program that still requires a solution is navigation architecture. With extended stays on the moon, humans and autonomous robots alike would benefit greatly from having a system similar to GPS available.
Valles Marineris, also known as Mariner Valley, is a vast, expansive canyon covering a quarter of Mars’ equator. The 2,500-mile-long canyon is so large that it has been deemed the largest canyon in our entire solar system.
January 6
NASA’s Lucy mission is primed to be the first space mission to study the Trojan asteroids around Jupiter. Today the mission moved one step closer to its launch following the successful integration of the L’TES instrument into the spacecraft.
Good spacesuits are arguably the most crucial aspect of any mission to space that involves humans. Even an uncomfortable spacesuit could impose substantial issues or limitations that you wouldn’t expect. That’s why engineers and designers at NASA have been hard at work designing a next-generation spacesuit called xEMU.
