Science

Virgin Galactic is set to send its billionaire founder Richard Branson, along with a crew of five others, aboard VSS Unity to the edge of space today, July 11. Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity SpaceShipTwo vehicle will lift off from Spaceport America near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, US. Now, the question many have been asking

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is getting back into launch activity fully at Sriharikota spaceport with the planned orbiting of geo imaging satellite GISAT-1 on board GSLV-F10 rocket on August 12. It’s going to be only the second launch of the Bengaluru-headquartered space agency in the COVID-19-hit 2021.  ISRO successfully launched PSLV-C51 mission on

NASA will launch its Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, in 2023 to get a closer view of the Moon’s South Pole and evaluate the concentration of water as well as other potential resources on its surface. The space agency is undertaking the mission to understand if it is possible for human life to

Decades after burnishing his reputation as a wealthy daredevil mogul in a series of boating and hot-air balloon expeditions, Richard Branson is poised to promote his burgeoning astro-tourism venture by launching himself to the final frontier. Branson’s Virgin Galactic is due on Sunday to send the company’s passenger rocket plane, the VSS Unity, on its first

NASA on a regular basis shares pictures on its social media handles of missions currently underway. But occasionally, it takes us down the memory lane too. On Thursday, July 8, the American space agency shared images of a mission from a decade ago on its Twitter and Instagram handles. It was on this day back

Singapore researchers have developed a smart foam material that allows robots to sense nearby objects, and repairs itself when damaged, just like human skin. Artificially innervated foam, or AiFoam, is a highly elastic polymer created by mixing fluoropolymer with a compound that lowers surface tension. This allows the spongy material to fuse easily into one

Three billionaire entrepreneurs – Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson – are each vying to usher in a new era of private commercial space travel. Here is how their rival ventures compare in the race to open up space travel. Tickets Bezos, Branson, and Musk have been investing billions of dollars in their space

As Virgin Galactic finalises plans for founder Richard Branson to join five others on a test flight to the edge of space on July 11, the British billionaire said his wife may be nervous about the launch but he himself wasn’t the least bit afraid. “I’ve been looking forward to this for 17 years,” Branson

The Hubble Space Telescope, which has been peering into the universe for more than 30 years, has been down for the past few days, NASA said Friday. The problem is a payload computer that stopped working last Sunday, the US space agency said. NASA continues to work to resolve an issue with the payload computer

NASA has shared a stunning image of the Lagoon Nebula, a giant blue cloud of gas and dust where stars are currently forming. The image had thousands of stars, or giant flares, twinkling like dots on a massive black canvas. The Lagoon Nebula, also known as NGC 6523 or Messier 8, is located some 4,400

Jim Mellon, the billionaire investor-author, has said the food production industry will transform as early as 2030 and that 50 percent of all meat eaten by humans on the planet will either be plant-based or cell ag (cellular agriculture) produced within the next 10 years. He said that half of the seafood will also be produced using

An Arizona beta user of Starlink internet service from SpaceX, a company headed by Elon Musk, was recently forced to resort to an unconventional method to get back online after his satellite dish overheated and went into a thermal shutdown. Following the service disruption, the Starlink app displayed an error message, that read, “Offline: Thermal shutdown.

NASA has launched a contest for space enthusiasts to name the manikin, a spacesuit-donned dummy, that will fly around the Moon during an upcoming mission. The dummy, which the space agency affectionately calls “moonikin”, will fly around the lunar surface and help gather data during the uncrewed Artemis I test mission expected later this year before

Over the next few weeks, a company called Kernel will begin sending dozens of customers across the US a $50,000 (roughly Rs. 37 lakhs) helmet that can, crudely speaking, read their mind. Weighing a couple of pounds each, the helmets contain nests of sensors and other electronics that measure and analyse a brain’s electrical impulses and

The first astronauts arrived at China’s new space station on Thursday in the country’s longest crewed mission to date, a landmark step in establishing Beijing as a major space power. The trio blasted off on a Long March-2F rocket from the Jiuquan launch centre in northwest China’s Gobi desert, and their craft docked at the

Researchers in Australia have developed a new technology that uses infrared imaging to allow people to see clearly in the dark. These ultra-thin films could one day turn regular spectacles into night-vision goggles and also revolutionise several sectors, such as autonomous vehicle navigation, optical tomography, and food quality control. The film is thinner than human

Under bright-blue morning skies, China launched its first crewed space mission in five years Thursday, sending three science-minded military pilots rocketing to a new orbiting station they’re expected to reach around midafternoon. The astronauts, already wearing their spacesuits, were seen off by space officials, other uniformed military personnel and a crowd of children waving flowers

Elon Musk on Tuesday shared a stunning video on Twitter of Starbase High Bay, the launch site of SpaceX rockets in South Texas, US. Also known as the Boca Chica launch site, the spaceport Starbase was primarily constructed by SpaceX to provide an exclusive launch site to accommodate its launch manifest and meet tight launch

Researchers in Singapore say they have found a way to charge gadgets worn by a person by tapping the human body as a medium for wireless power transmission. They say their technique draws power from one source, say a mobile phone kept in the person’s pocket and transfers it to other gadgets worn by the

NASA has shared a fascinating photograph featuring three different galaxies. And with that, the space agency has also explained how these galaxies don’t let any “labels define them”. Confused? Let’s unpack. On June 13, NASA posted a photograph of three galaxies — one right in the centre and the other two spotted on the extreme