Purdue has created part of a new cubesat thruster which electromagnetically accelerates plasma to produce thrust. They have successfully tested the ignition system for more than 1.5 million pulses. This is a giant leap for extending the lifetime of electric propulsion systems for CubeSats. With an on-board propulsion system, CubeSats are able to achieve orbital …
A new chemical conversion process could change the world’s polyolefin waste, a form of plastic, into useful products, such as clean fuels and other items. Once the plastic is converted into naphtha, it can be used as a feedstock for other chemicals or further separated into specialty solvents or other products. The clean fuels derived …
The Mayor of San Jose, California, Sam Liccardo, is in talks with Elon Musk’s Boring Company for a tunnel from the airport to Diridon Station. Mayor Sam Liccardo told reporters at City Hall that this represents a chance for the station “to grow with the city. Google is expected to build a massive campus near …
India’s 2019-2020 budget for the Ministry of Defense will be 8% higher at $60.9 billion. $42.7 billion is for the conventional defense budget. This is from an Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) report.
Maxwell Technologies has breakthrough dry battery electrode technology and ultracapacitors. Tesla has announced the purchase of Maxwell Technologies for $218 million in an all-stock deal. The Maxwell dry battery electrode technology could increase battery energy density by 50% and eventually could nearly triple energy density from current levels. The technology can also lower the cost …
Spacex placed a photo of the Starship raptor engine test on Instagram. SpaceX reported that they completed a two-second test fire of the Starship Raptor engine that hit 170 bar and ~116 metric tons of force – the highest thrust ever from a SpaceX engine and Raptor was at ~60% power. There will be three …
The National Institute of Standards and Technology is working with many companies and researchers to provide security for financial information and privacy when there are quantum computers powerful enough to break current encryption. They have selected 26 post-quantum algorithms after one year of testing in the second round of a massive selection process. The goal …
Saule Technologies is a leading company working on to commercialize perovskites solar cells. They launched a pilot commercial production line for inkjet printing of perovskites solar cells. They plan to reach 40,000 square meters of panels by the end of 2019 and 180,000 square meters by the end of 2020. The world’ first, large-scale prototype …
Elon Musk is in Texas for the test firing of the Raptor Engine that will be used on the Starhopper test vehicle. There has been over 1200 seconds of testing over two years on previous versions of the Raptor engine. The new raptor engine has been radically redesigned. Raptor is a staged combustion, methane-fueled rocket …
SpaceX has completed a static firing for a Falcon 9 rocket with the crew Dragon capsule. They are targeting a February launch. If this flight is successful then there will be a flight abort test in May and then the crewed flight in June, 2019. Static fire test complete—targeting February launch from historic Launch Complex …
Isotropic Systems is developing breakthrough satellite and satellite receiving technology. They recently received $14.4 million dollars in series A funding in a round led by Boeing HorizonX Ventures. Isotropic Systems now has received a total of $25.4 million in funding. An isotropic antenna is a hypothetical antenna radiating the same intensity of radio waves in …