A CubeSat Mission Will Detect X-rays from GRBs and Black-Hole Mergers

The long-awaited detection of gravitational waves has opened up a whole new world of astronomy. One of the key efforts is now to tie signals across multiple domains – for example, a gravitational wave and the associated electromagnetic radiation created by that same event, such as a black hole merger or a gamma-ray burst. We’ll need new equipment to detect such “multimodal” signals, especially electromagnetic ones. One such project is the Black Hole Coded Aperture Telescope (BlackCAT), which will be launched early this year by a team led by researchers at Penn State. 

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Pushing A Probe To Alpha Centauri Using A Relativistic Electron Beam

Getting a spacecraft to another star is a monumental challenge. However, that doesn’t stop people from working on it. The most visible groups currently doing so are Breakthrough Starshot and the Tau Zero Foundation, both of whom focus on a very particular type of propulsion-beamed power. A paper from the Chairman of Tau Zero’s board, Jeffrey Greason, and Gerrit Bruhaug, a physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory who specializes in laser physics, takes a look at the physics of one such beaming technology – a relativistic electron beam – how it might be used to push a spacecraft to another star.

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Student Team Designs 2U CubeSat with Big Ambitions

CubeSats can be used in many different scenarios, and one of their most important uses is providing an easy path to understanding how to design, plan, and launch a mission. That was the idea behind AlbaSat, a 2U CubeSat currently under development by a team at the University of Padova with an impressive four different functional sensors packed into its tiny frame.

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A Long-Term Lunar Infrastructure Hub Named After the Object That Created the Moon

Getting back to the Moon is the primary goal of NASA’s Artemis program, but what do we do once we get there? That is the challenge tackled by a group of students at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who wrote a proposal for a lunar infrastructure module they call the Trans-lunar Hub for Exploration, ISRU, and Advancement – or THEIA, after the proposed object that crashed into the Earth that created the Moon as we know it today. Their submission was part of the NASA Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts – Academic Linkage project, where teams from various academic institutions submitted papers focusing on the theme of Sustained Lunar Evolution for 2024.

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A New Mission Watches Meteoroids Hit the Far Side of the Moon

Sometimes, it’s hard to remember that Earth is constantly being bombarded by literally tons of space debris daily. The larger bits form what we know as shooting stars, and most burn up in the atmosphere. Still, throughout our planet’s history, giant versions have caused devastation unlike anything else seen on this planet. Tracking these types of objects is typically done from the Earth, but a new mission set out by researchers in Italy has a novel idea – why not try to learn more about potential impactors by watching them hit the far side of the Moon?

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Covering an Asteroid With Balls Could Characterize Its Interior

Exploring asteroids and other small bodies throughout the solar system has gotten increasingly popular, as their small gravity wells make them ideal candidates for resource extraction, enabling the expansion of life into the solar system. However, the technical challenges facing a mission to explore one are fraught – since they’re so small and variable, understanding how to land on one is even more so. A team from the University of Trieste in Italy has proposed a mission idea that could help solve that problem by using an ability most humans have but never think about.

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Need to Accurately Measure Time in Space? Use a COMPASSO

Telling time in space is difficult, but it is absolutely critical for applications ranging from testing relativity to navigating down the road. Atomic clocks, such as those used on the Global Navigation Satellite System network, are accurate, but only up to a point. Moving to even more precise navigation tools would require even more accurate clocks. There are several solutions at various stages of technical development, and one from Germany’s DLR, COMPASSO, plans to prove quantum optical clocks in space as a potential successor.

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Antimatter Propulsion Is Still Far Away, But It Could Change Everything

Artist's concept of Antimatter propulsion system. Credit: NASA/MFSC

Getting places in space quickly has been the goal of propulsion research for a long time. Rockets, our most common means of doing so, are great for providing lots of force but extraordinarily inefficient. Other options like electric propulsion and solar sailing are efficient but offer measly amounts of force, albeit for a long time. So scientists have long dreamed of a third method of propulsion – one that could provide enough force over a long enough time to power a crewed mission to another star in a single human lifetime. And that could theoretically happen using one of the rarest substances in the universe – antimatter.

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A Commercial Tie-Up Bring High-Energy Nuclear Electric Propulsion Closer to Reality

Rendering of a 40 MW VASIMR® Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP) human mission to Mars (Credit, Ad Astra Rocket Company)

Propulsion technologies are the key to exploring the outer solar system, and many organizations have been working on novel ones. One with a long track record is the Ad Astra Rocket Company, which has been developing its Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) system for decades. However, this type of electric propulsion system requires a lot of energy, so the company has opted for a unique tie-up for a power plant that could solve that problem – a nuclear reactor. Ad Astra has recently entered into a strategic alliance with the Space Nuclear Power Corporation, or SpaceNukes, responsible for developing the Kilopower reactor, a 1kW nuclear reactor for use in space missions.

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A Cheap Satellite with Large Fuel Tank Could Scout For Interplanetary Missions

A spacecraft that can provide the propulsion necessary to reach other planets while also being reproducible, relatively light, and inexpensive would be a great boon to larger missions in the inner solar system. Micocosm, Inc., based in Hawthorne, California, proposed just such a system via a NASA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant. Its Hummingbird spacecraft would have provided a platform to visit nearby planets and asteroids and a payload to do some basic scouting of them.

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