- Of the countless technologies invented over the past half century, high-temperature superconductors are among the most promising and yet also the most frustrating. Decades of research has yielded an assortment of materials that...
- More and more satellites are being added to low Earth orbit (LEO) every month. As that number continues to increase, so do the risks of that critical area surrounding Earth becoming impassable , trapping us on the planet for the...
- Night is falling on Cerro Pachón. A view of NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory beneath the Milky Way galaxy. NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/H. Stockebrand Stray clouds reflect the last few rays of golden light as the sun dips below the...
- In August 2001, an anonymous guest posted on the forum at Airliners.net, a popular aviation website. “How Long Will Pilots Be Needed?” they wondered, observing that “20 years or so down the road” technology could be so advanced that...
- Getting to Mars takes a really long time, about nine months using today’s rocket technology. This is because regular rocket engines burn fuel and oxygen together (like a car engine), but they’re not very efficient. The fundamental...
- Take a look around the airport during your travels this summer and you might spot a string of new technologies at every touchpoint: from pre-arrival, bag drop, and security to the moment you board the plane. In this new world, your face...
- Ukraine’s 1 June attack on multiple Russian military bases destroyed or damaged as many as 41 Russian aircraft, including some of the country’s most advanced bombers. Estimates of the sum total of the damage range from US $2 billion to...
- As a mere earthling, I remember watching in fascination as Sojourner sent back photos of the Martian surface during the summer of 1997. I was not alone. The servers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab slowed to a crawl when they got more than...
- The age of the airship is back, kind of. On 15 May, startup LTA Research flew its Pathfinder 1 airship outside Silicon Valley’s Moffett Federal Airfield for the first time. The 124-meter-long helium airship took two loops over the waters...
- Few explorers have reached the heights, literally and figuratively, that Bertrand Piccard has. He is the quintessential modern explorer, for whom every big mission has a purpose, which generally boils down to environmental and...
- This is part 2 of a two-part series on Ukraine’s efforts to remake its aerial defenses during its war with Russia. For part 1, click here . As a defensive contrivance, walls are about as old as warfare itself. Think of Hadrian’s Wall,...
- The sound of the air raid sirens splits the air. My knees wobble. This is the final night of my four-day stay in Kyiv. After three nights, I have, more or less, gotten used to the nightly routine of air-raid alarms. I spent most of my...
- A commercial Chinese firm has demonstrated ultrafast data laser transmission between two satellites, marking a step forward for the country’s communications megaconstellation plans. Laser Starcom , a commercial aerospace firm established...
- In the coming years, fleets of orbit-policing spacecraft could zip around the planet, keeping an eye on space-tech ventures by China, Russia, and ill-intentioned actors elsewhere in the world. The mobile spacecraft concept presents a...
- This white paper highlights Industrial Computed Tomography (CT) as a transformative solution for precision inspection, overcoming the limitations of traditional methods like destructive testing or surface scans. By providing...
- Some time in next 10 years, a Chinese mission aims to do what’s never been done before: collect cloud particles from Venus and bring them home. But achieving that goal will mean overcoming one of the most hostile environments in the...
- Helium-filled aerostats anchored along the frontlines of eastern Ukraine have become an indispensable component of the country’s defense infrastructure. They enable reconnaissance and kamikaze drones to reach more distant targets and...
- Elon Musk may have called dibs on Mars. But with an eye toward life on the moon, Honda will test a new regenerative fuel-cell system aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The test will build upon research from Honda’s earthbound...
- One of the greatest climate -related engineering challenges right now is the design and construction of a large, zero-emission, passenger airliner. And in this massive undertaking, no airplane maker is as invested as Airbus . At the...
- Meteors regularly blaze through Earth’s atmosphere with potentially devastating effects. Now scientists reveal that they used kilometers of fiber optics to analyze shockwaves from a NASA spacecraft returning to Earth, suggesting that...
- 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...
- 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...
- To help build aircraft that can better handle violent turbulence, researchers developed a new model that allows engineers to incorporate the physics of an entire vortex collision into their design codes.