AlphaRocketry

SpaceX just secured its first deal to provide inflight internet service on airplanes using its Starlink constellation of broadband satellites. The service will be available later this year to customers of JSX, a charter airline company that plans to equip 100 planes with Starlink-provided inflight Wi-Fi. "The service will be offered to all JSX customers at no charge, and will not require logging in or other complexities associated with legacy systems," JSX representatives said in an emailed statement on Thursday (April 21) that announced the new deal. A JSX spokesperson declined to disclose the value of the contract when asked by Reuters. SpaceX has been in discussions with several airlines in recent months, the Reuters report added Delta Airlines told the Wall Street Journal, however, that it recently conducted "exploratory tests" of Starlink's internet technology in a bid to potentially reach business users., but it's unclear who else might be willing to t...

NASA announced April 20 the Communications Services Project (CSP) awards, totaling $278.5 million, to test how commercial satellites in both low Earth orbit and geostationary orbit could support missions that currently use the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) constellation of NASA-owned spacecraft that have provided service since the 1980s. Two of the winners, Amazon’s Kuiper Government Solutions and SpaceX, won $67 million and $69.95 million respectively to demonstrate how their LEO constellations, using optical links, can provide communications services for satellites and launches. Inmarsat Government Inc. and Viasat won $28.6 million and $53.3 million respectively to demonstrate services using GEO satellites. SES Government Solutions and Telesat U.S. Services won $28.96 million and $30.65 million respectively to demonstrate services using a mix of GEO satellites and constellations in LEO and medium Earth orbits. The awards are in the form of Space Act Agreements with the c...

Redshift and blueshift are used by astronomers to work out how far an object is from Earth. Redshift and blueshift describe the change in the frequency of a light wave depending on whether an object is moving towards or away from us. When an object is moving away from us, the light from the object is known as redshift, and when an object is moving towards us, the light from the object is known as blueshift.  Astronomers use redshift and blueshift to deduce how far an object is away from Earth, the concept is key to charting the universe's expansion.  To understand redshift and blueshift, first, you need to remember that visible light is a spectrum of color each with a different wavelength. According to NASA, violet has the shortest wavelength at around 380 nanometers, and red has the longest at around 700 nanometers. When an object (e.g. a galaxy) moves away from us it is 'red-shifted' as the wavelength of light is 'stretched' so the light is seen as ...

Scientists have for the first time determined the mass of W bosons, which are responsible for the nuclear processes that make the Sun shine. They have found them to have more mass than what was theorised. After working on it for a decade, conducting careful analysis and scrutiny, physicists at the Fermilab Collider Detector (CDF) have come across a new observation, that, if confirmed could have a tectonic shift in the world of physics. They have found a fundamental particle to have more mass (weight) than what was initially thought. This subatomic particle, known as the W boson, is responsible for a fundamental force at the center of atoms, and they exist for only a fraction of a second before they decay into other particles. These particles have been used to explain the workings of the universe, and a new observation of them having a different mass could have a major impact on the equations that govern the workings of our world. Scientists have for the first time determined the mass o...

Astronomers have discovered an identical twin of Jupiter, which has a similar mass and is at a similar location from its star as Jupiter is from our Sun. Known for its bright colours and dominated by a massive swirl of storm, Jupiter is a unique world in our Solar System. Astronomers have now found it's not alone and has a near-identical twin which is located at a similar distance from its star as Jupiter is from our Sun. Dubbed K2-2016-BLG-0005Lb, the exoplanet has been detected by an international team of astrophysicists using data obtained in 2016 by NASA's Kepler space telescope. The telescope has so far detected nearly 2700 planets in the Milky Way galaxy, but this Jupiter-like planet is twice as distant as any seen previously. Located 17,000 light-years from Earth, scientists used Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity and a method known as gravitational microlensing to spot this unique world as it temporarily bent and magnified the light from a background...

  The company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos has joined the Orbital Reef commercial space station project to provide supply-chain logistics and Amazon Web Services for the private orbital outpost, which is slated to launch by the late 2020s. The Orbital Reef project is led by Blue Origin (another company founded by Bezos) and Sierra Space, and is a partnership with Boeing, Redwire Space, Genesis Engineering and Arizona State University.  Amazon's role in Orbital Reef, which the company announced Tuesday (April 5) at the 37th National Space Symposium here, includes overseeing logistics using its Distribution and Fulfillment Solutions arm. And Amazon Web Services will offer networking, cloud computing and communications solutions for the station's fight operations, development and design teams. "We are excited to collaborate with the Orbital Reef team to reimagine logistics for space," Brett McMillen, director of strategic partners for Amazon Distri...

A crew of three paying passengers and one former NASA astronaut will launch to the International Space Station on Wednesday (April 6) at 12:05 p.m. EDT (1605 GMT). The flight marks Texas-based aerospace company Axiom Space's Ax-1 mission, set to launch the crew aboard a SpaceX Dragon atop a Falcon 9 rocket. The 10-day mission will see the crew spend eight days aboard the orbiting lab, living and working on the station. "This is opening a new era in human spaceflight," mission commander and retired NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría said during a news conference today (April 1). "We are taking the first step in a next generation platform initiative that's going to bring working, living and research in space to a much broader and more international audience." "It's been a real privilege to work and train alongside these three remarkable gentlemen," López-Alegría said. "We have spent countless hours in simulations, in technical training a...