- Meteors regularly blaze through Earth’s atmosphere with potentially devastating effects. Now scientists reveal they used kilometers of fiber optics to analyze shockwaves from a NASA spacecraft returning to Earth, suggesting that existing...
- This is a guest post. The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent positions of IEEE Spectrum, The Institute, or IEEE. Although it might seem as though there is intense interest right now in exploring...
- A military reconnaissance drone with a 26-meter wingspan has completed its first long-distance flight in Europe’s busy airspace. The 3-hour, 10-minute flight was designed to test how uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) and civilian aviation...
- Tomorrow, 26 February, SpaceX will launch a Falcon 9 rocket carrying an Intuitive Machines mission that will stay on the surface of the moon for approximately three weeks before returning to Earth. Among other things, the Intuitive...
- Nestled at the foot of a steep, forested hill, 16 kilometers outside Wellington, New Zealand, is a rather unassuming building; one among many on a research campus that was first established in the 1940s. From outside, there’s little to...
- If the moon were a living, thinking being, it would have learned long ago to be very patient with visitors from Earth. In the 1960s there was a stream of spacecraft—and then they stopped, almost entirely, for 50 years. Now there is a new...
- China has managed to deliver a pair of satellites into lunar orbit despite the spacecraft initially being stranded in low Earth orbit following a rocket failure, using a mix of complex calculations, precise engine burns, and astrodynamic...
- In a recent demonstration, German white hat hackers showed how to intercept text messages sent via the U.S. satellite communication system Iridium and locate users with an accuracy of about 4 kilometers. The two hackers, known publicly...
- Boom Supersonic’s prototype passenger jet, the XB-1 , has officially gone supersonic. The human-piloted demonstrator hit Mach 1.122 (or 1,385 kilometers per hour) at a 10.7-kilometer altitude over the Mojave Desert on 28 January—marking...
- In 2023, at least 20 civilian aircraft flying through the Middle East were misled by their onboard GPS units into flying near Iranian airspace without clearance—situations that could have provoked an international incident. These planes...
- It looks like a big white bullet, with a rounded nose that swings open to reveal a docking port, and a cylindrical trunk in back that can be mated to any of a number of large launch rockets. If it sounds familiar, that’s because we’re...
- On the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne is home to many roboticists. It’s also home to many birds, which spend the majority of their time doing bird things. With a few exceptions, those bird...
- Satellite-based navigation is the bedrock of most modern positioning systems, but it can’t always be relied on. Two companies are now joining forces to create a GPS-free navigation system for drones by fusing neuromorphic sensing...
- This article is part of our exclusive IEEE Journal Watch series in partnership with IEEE Xplore. As part of the ongoing search for more sustainable energy solutions , some researchers are thinking outside the box—or globe, really. One...
- Lightning is one of the most common natural hazards on Earth, and our warming planet is just beginning to feel the effects of a future with more severe thunderstorms and increased lightning strikes . But there’s a lot that atmospheric...
- This is a sponsored article brought to you by BESydney . In July 2024, Sydney woman Katherine Bennell-Pegg made history as the first astronaut to graduate under the Australian flag and the first female astronaut in Australia. Her...
- Prepare yourself for the challenges of creating cutting-edge A&D autonomous tech. Download the e-book to explore how autonomy is transforming the aerospace & defense industry. Download this free whitepaper now!
- Across industries, autonomous technology is driving innovation at a rapid pace. This is especially true in the aerospace and defense (A&D) industry, where autonomous technology can potentially be used for everything from conducting...
- Yesterday, NASA successfully launched the Europa Clipper, the largest spacecraft the agency has ever built for a planetary mission. Clipper is now successfully on its multi-year journey to Europa, bristling with equipment to study the...
- Europa is slightly smaller than Earth’s own moon and is one of the most fascinating and mysterious objects in the solar system. One of Jupiter’s four Galilean moons, Europa’s crust is a largely crater-free shell of ice, somewhere between...
- The European Space Agency’s Hera spacecraft is en route to assess how NASA’s 2022 DART mission impacted the asteroid Dimorphos. DART smashed into the asteroid at a little over 6 kilometers per second, sending out a cloud of debris and...
- Satellites with extremely low-orbits could lower launch costs and improve sensing and communication capabilities. Indian start-up Bellatrix Aerospace has unveiled plans for a spacecraft that will orbit at altitudes below 200 kilometers,...
- When NASA decided in the 1970s that the Hubble Space Telescope should be serviceable in space, the engineering challenges must have seemed nearly insurmountable. How could a machine that complex and delicate be repaired by astronauts...
- This article is part of our exclusive IEEE Journal Watch series in partnership with IEEE Xplore. In space, high-energy gamma radiation can change the properties of semiconductors, altering how they work or rendering them completely...
- In 1956 Henry Kissinger speculated in Foreign Affairs about how the nuclear stalemate between the United States and the Soviet Union could force national security officials into a terrible dilemma. His thesis was that the United States...
- After three years in orbit, Europe’s Sunstorm CubeSat re-entered Earth’s atmosphere on 4 September , completing its mission to monitor X-ray pulses from solar flares, the breeding ground of disruptive space weather phenomena. These...
- Wesley L. Harris ’s life is a testament to the power of mentorship and determination. Harris, born in 1941 in Richmond, Virginia, grew up during the tumultuous years of the Civil Rights Movement and faced an environment fraught with...
- Just how hot was that salsa? A European Space Agency (ESA) aircraft embarked on a mission on Sunday, 8 September, to answer this very question. The agency’s observational airplane—taking off from Easter Island, Chile—was geared up to...
- Kenneth Bowersox knows something about not being able to come back from orbit. In 2003 he was on the International Space Station when the space shuttle Columbia was destroyed on its return to Earth. Seven of his astronaut colleagues died...
- Another day, and another weather balloon ascends gracefully into the clear blue skies above Northern California. But this balloon isn’t headed up to the stratosphere to predict the weather—it’s going there to change it. Make Sunsets is a...
- To uncover the mystery behind the differences in motion, a team of researchers studied the aerodynamics of bird perching maneuvers and their implications for aircraft design.
- Neural-Fly technology could one day build the future of package delivery drones and flying cars.
- An experimental plant-based jet fuel could increase engine performance and efficiency, while dispensing with aromatics, the pollution-causing compounds added to conventional fuels, according to new research.
- While it had been assumed that unstable gliding was the key to agility in bird flight, a collaboration between aerospace engineers and biologists has revealed that stability plays a role.
- With the federal government planning to hold the largest sale of offshore wind farm leases in the nation's history, a new study could help inform the development of offshore wind farms by providing detailed models characterizing the...
- The effectiveness of face masks has been a hotly debated topic since the emergence of COVID-19. However, a new study offers more evidence that they work. Researchers found that face masks reduce the distance airborne pathogens could...
- An engineer is changing what we know about when water freezes as he pushes the limit and gets the best look yet at tiny drops of water as they freeze.
- The amount of stress a material can withstand before it cracks is critical information when designing aircraft, spacecraft, and other structures. Aerospace engineers used machine learning for the first time to predict stress in copper at...
- Researchers have developed an artificial material which can respond to its environment, independently make a decision, and perform an action not directed by a human being. For example, a drone making a delivery might evaluate its...
- Flying cars, drones, and other urban aerial mobility vehicles have real potential to provide efficient transportation and delivery solutions, but what happens if a drone delivering cheeseburgers breaks down over a city park or in the...
- Engineers found a way to greatly extend the life of materials used in jet engines.
- A new algorithm helps drones find the fastest route around obstacles without crashing. The system could enable fast, nimble drones for time-critical operations such as search and rescue.
- How do you control ice formation on a plane, even when it's in flight? Engineers are developing an approach using ice itself. They created a de-icing method that exploits how frost grows on pillar structures to suspend ice as it forms...
- Having a home near a busy airport certainly has its perks. It is close to many establishments and alleviates the problem of wading through endless traffic to catch flights. But it does come at a cost -- tolerating the jarring sounds of...
- An incredibly light new material can reduce aircraft engine noise and improve passenger comfort. The graphene oxide-polyvinyl alcohol aerogel weighs just 2.1kg per cubic meter, making it the lightest sound insulation ever manufactured.
- A new study suggests that masks and a good ventilation system are more important than social distancing for reducing the airborne spread of COVID-19 in classrooms. The research comes at a critical time when schools and universities are...
- Researchers have published a study revealing their successful approach to designing much quieter propellers.
- Investigators have published a global review of mammal strikes with aircraft, noting that events have been increasing by up to 68% annually. More mammals were struck during the landing phase of an aircraft's rotation than any other...
- Researchers found flights between London and New York could have used up to 16% less fuel by more accurately following jet stream tailwinds or avoiding headwinds, at a fraction of the cost of other emissions-cutting technologies.
- Design of aerial vehicles and weapon systems relies on the ability to predict aerodynamic behavior, often aided by advanced computer simulations of the flow of air over the body. High-fidelity simulations assist engineers in maximizing...