Maxar executive Susanne Hake pressed the case that commercial firms can deliver faster and for less cost than bespoke government satellites, but need predictable funding and contracts to keep investing
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China conducted a rocket stage hot fire test Friday in the latest step in the country’s plans to land astronauts on the moon.
The post China completes second hot-fire test for new moon rocket, including engine restarts appeared first on SpaceNews.
The idea of a human mission to explore Mars has been studied repeatedly over the past 75 years. More than 1,000 piloted Mars mission studies were conducted inside and outside NASA between about 1950 and 2000. Many were the product of NASA and industry study teams, while others were the work of committed individuals or […]
The post How carrying enough water to make return-trip propellant simplifies a Starship mission to Mars appeared first on SpaceNews.
Satellite manufacturer Apex has raised $200 million in a new funding round that values the company at more than $1 billion.
The post Apex reaches billion-dollar valuation with Series D funding round appeared first on SpaceNews.
Cailabs, a French company that manufactures optical ground stations for satellite communications, has raised 57 million euros ($67 million) to scale up production.
The post Cailabs raises $67 million to scale up production of optical ground stations appeared first on SpaceNews.
A new high-speed multifocus microscope could facilitate discoveries in developmental biology and neuroscience thanks to its ability to image rapid biological processes over the entire volume of tiny living organisms in real time.
The pictures from many 3D microscopes are obtained sequentially by scanning through different depths, making them too slow for accurate live imaging of fast-moving natural functions in individual cells and microscopic animals. Even current multifocus microscopes that capture 3D images simultaneously have either relatively poor image resolution or can only image to shallow depths.
In contrast, the new 25-camera “M25” microscope – developed during his doctorate by Eduardo Hirata-Miyasaki and his supervisor Sara Abrahamsson, both then at the University of California Santa Cruz, together with collaborators at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts and the New Jersey Institute of Technology – enables high-resolution 3D imaging over a large field-of-view, with each camera capturing 180 × 180 × 50 µm volumes at a rate of 100 per second.
“Because the M25 microscope is geared towards advancing biomedical imaging we wanted to push the boundaries for speed, high resolution and looking at large volumes with a high signal-to-noise ratio,” says Hirata-Miyasaki, who is now based in the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub in San Francisco.
The M25, detailed in Optica, builds on previous diffractive-based multifocus microscopy work by Abrahamsson, explains Hirata-Miyasaki. In order to capture multiple focal planes simultaneously, the researchers devised a multifocus grating (MFG) for the M25. This diffraction grating splits the image beam coming from the microscope into a 5 × 5 grid of evenly illuminated 2D focal planes, each of which is recorded on one of the 25 synchronized machine vision cameras, such that every camera in the array captures a 3D volume focused on a different depth. To avoid blurred images, a custom-designed blazed grating in front of each camera lens corrects for the chromatic dispersion (which spreads out light of different wavelengths) introduced by the MFG.
The team used computer simulations to reveal the optimal designs for the diffractive optics, before creating them at the University of California Santa Barbara nanofabrication facility by etching nanometre-scale patterns into glass. To encourage widespread use of the M25, the researchers have published the fabrication recipes for their diffraction gratings and made the bespoke software for acquiring the microscope images open source. In addition, the M25 mounts to the side port of a standard microscope, and uses off-the-shelf cameras and camera lenses.
The M25 can image a range of biological systems, since it can be used for fluorescence microscopy – in which fluorescent dyes or proteins are used to tag structures or processes within cells – and can also work in transmission mode, in which light is shone through transparent samples. The latter allows small organisms like C. elegans larvae, which are commonly used for biological research, to be studied without disrupting them.
The researchers performed various imaging tests using the prototype M25, including observations of the natural swimming motion of entire C. elegans larvae. This ability to study cellular-level behaviour in microscopic organisms over their whole volume may pave the way for more detailed investigations into how the nervous system of C. elegans controls its movement, and how genetic mutations, diseases or medicinal drugs affect that behaviour, Hirata-Miyasaki tells Physics World. He adds that such studies could further our understanding of human neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases.
“We live in a 3D world that is also very dynamic. So with this microscope I really hope that we can keep pushing the boundaries of acquiring live volumetric information from small biological organisms, so that we can capture interactions between them and also [see] what is happening inside cells to help us understand the biology,” he continues.
As part of his work at the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, Hirata-Miyasaki is now developing deep-learning models for analysing dynamic cell and organism multichannel dynamic live datasets, like those acquired by the M25, “so that we can extract as much information as possible and learn from their dynamics”.
Meanwhile Abrahamsson, who is currently working in industry, hopes that other microscopy development labs will make their own M25 systems. She is also considering commercializing the instrument to help ensure its widespread use.
The post High-speed 3D microscope improves live imaging of fast biological processes appeared first on Physics World.
CEO Jason Kim said the company’s Alpha vehicle could launch test targets while the Elytra platform could host interceptors for the Golden Dome missile-defense shield
The post Firefly pitches rockets, satellites for Golden Dome appeared first on SpaceNews.
PARIS – Mobile edge computing specialist Armada and Sophia Space are working together to establish integrated, scalable compute infrastructure extending from Earth to space. By connecting terrestrial and orbital edge processors, the partners intend to “create a seamless edge-computing network that connects remote locations on Earth with computing resources in space,” according to the Sept. […]
The post Sophia and Armada link terrestrial and orbital edge processors appeared first on SpaceNews.
In this week’s episode of Space Minds, host Mike Gruss is joined by SpaceNews senior writer Jeff Foust to break down the surprising appointment of Sean Duffy as NASA’s Acting Administrator.
The post NASA’s Sean Duffy surprising leadership appeared first on SpaceNews.
This episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast features Scott Bolton, who is principal investigator on NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter. Launched in 2011, the mission has delivered important insights into the nature of the gas-giant planet. In this conversation with Physics World’s Margaret Harris, Bolton explains how Juno continues to change our understanding of Jupiter and other gas giants.
Bolton and Harris chat about the mission’s JunoCam, which has produced some gorgeous images of Jupiter and it moons.
Although the Juno mission was expected to last only a few years, the spacecraft is still going strong despite operating in Jupiter’s intense radiation belts. Bolton explains how the Juno team has rejuvenated radiation-damaged components, which has provided important insights for those designing future missions to space.
However Juno’s future is uncertain. Despite its great success, the mission is currently scheduled to end at the end of September, which is something that Bolton also addresses in the conversation.
The post Juno: the spacecraft that is revolutionizing our understanding of Jupiter appeared first on Physics World.
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