The idea of solar energy being transmitted from space is not a new one. In 1968, a NASA engineer named Peter Glaser produced the first concept design for a solar-powered satellite. But only now, 55 years later, does it appear scientists have actually carried out a successful experiment. A team of researchers from Caltech announced on Thursday that their space-borne prototype, called the Space Solar Power Demonstrator (SSPD-1), had collected sunlight, converted it into electricity and beamed it to microwave receivers installed on a rooftop on Caltech's Pasadena campus. The experiment also proves that the setup, which launched on January 3, is capable of surviving the trip to space, along with the harsh environment of space itself. 

"To the best of our knowledge, no one has ever demonstrated wireless energy transfer in space even with expensive rigid structures. We are doing it with flexible lightweight structures and with our own integrated circuits. This is a first," said Ali Hajimiri, professor of electrical engineering and medical engineering and co-director of Caltech's Space Solar Power Project (SSPP), in a press release published on Thursday. 

The experiment — known in full as Microwave Array for Power-transfer Low-orbit Experiment (or MAPLE for short) — is one of three research projects being carried out aboard the SSPD-1. The effort involved two separate receiver arrays and lightweight microwave transmitters with custom chips, according to Caltech. In its press release, the team added that the transmission setup was designed to minimize the amount of fuel needed to send them to space, and that the design also needed to be flexible enough so that the transmitters could be folded up onto a rocket.

Space-based solar power has long been something of a holy grail in the scientific community. Although expensive in its current form, the technology carries the promise of potentially unlimited renewable energy, with solar panels in space able to collect sunlight regardless of the time of day. The use of microwaves to transmit power would also mean that cloud cover wouldn't pose an interference, as Nikkeinotes.

Caltech's Space Solar Power Project (SSSP) is hardly the only team that has been attempting to make space-based solar power a reality. Late last month, a few days before Caltech's announcement, Japan's space agency, JAXA, announced a public-private partnership that aims to send solar power from space by 2025. The leader of that project, a Kyoto University professor, has been working on space-based solar power since 2009. Japan also had a breakthrough of its own nearly a decade ago in 2015, when JAXA scientists transmitted 1.8 kilowatts of power — about enough energy to power an electric kettle — more than 50 meters to a wireless receiver. 

The Space Solar Power Project was founded back in 2011. In addition to MAPLE, the SSPD-1 is being used to assess what types of cells are the most effective in surviving the conditions of space. The third experiment is known as DOLCE (Deployable on-Orbit ultraLight Composite Experiment), a structure measuring six-by-six feet that "demonstrates the architecture, packaging scheme, and deployment mechanisms of the modular spacecraft," according to Caltech. It has not yet been deployed.

Boeing's Starliner was supposed to fly its first crewed mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on July 21st, but a couple of technical issues has kept the company from pushing through with its plan. Together with NASA, the aerospace corporation has announced that it's delaying the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft's Crew Flight Test date yet again to address the risks presented by two new problems Boeing engineers have detected. 

The first issue lies with the spacecraft's parachute system. Boeing designed the Starliner capsule to float back down to Earth with the help of three parachutes. According to The New York Times, the company discovered that parts of the lines connecting the system to the capsule don't have the ability to tolerate the spacecraft's load in case only two of the three parachutes are deployed correctly. Since the capsule will be carrying human passengers back to our planet, the company has to look at every aspect of its spacecraft to ensure their safety as much as possible. Boeing expects to do another parachute testing before it schedules another launch attempt.

In addition to its parachute problem, Boeing is also reassessing the use of a certain tape adhesive to wrap hundreds of feet of wiring. Apparently, the tape could be flammable, so engineers are looking to use another kind of wrapping for areas of the spacecraft with the greatest fire risk. 

The Crew Flight Test is the last hurdle the company has to overcome to regularly start ferrying astronauts to the ISS. NASA chose Boeing as one of its commercial crew partners along with SpaceX, but it has fallen behind its peer over the years. The Starliner has completed uncrewed flights in the past as part of the tests it has to go through for crewed missions. But SpaceX already has 10 crewed flights under its belt, with the first one taking place way back in 2020. In addition to taking astronauts to the ISS and bringing human spaceflight back to American soil since the last space shuttle launch in 2011, SpaceX has also flown civilians to space.

That said, NASA and Boeing remain optimistic about Starliner's future. In a statement, NASA Commercial Crew Program manager Steve Stich said:

"Crew safety remains the highest priority for NASA and its industry providers, and emerging issues are not uncommon in human spaceflight especially during development. If you look back two months ago at the work we had ahead of us, it’s almost all complete. The combined team is resilient and resolute in their goal of flying crew on Starliner as soon as it is safe to do so. If a schedule adjustment needs to be made in the future, then we will certainly do that as we have done before. We will only fly when we are ready."

Last year, Rocket Lab announced that it would embark on an ambitious mission to send a small probe to Venus to hunt for organic molecules in its atmosphere. The launch was supposed to happen in May 2023, but now Rocket Lab has confirmed that it's "not imminent," TechCrunch has reported. While company didn't provide a new date, a research paper published in July 2022 states that a "backup launch window is available in January 2025." 

News of the mission flew under the radar, as it were, but it's rather ambitious. Rocket Lab plans to use its Electron booster and Photon spacecraft, sending a small probe into Venus's cloud layer about 30-37 miles up, where temperatures are Earth-like. (Thanks to the planet's greenhouse effect, temperatures on the surface are greater than 900 degrees F and pressure more than 75 Earth atmospheres.)

Rocket Lab

Once there, the tiny 40 centimeter diameter probe will search for organic molecules or other clues that the atmosphere could support life. Venus came into the news back in 2020 after researchers claimed to spot signs of phosphine, a chemical that's typically produced by living organisms. While controversial, the findings sparked a new interest in the Venus atmosphere as a possible source for life, and Rocket Lab's mission is centered around just that. 

At the same time, it's a way for the company to show off its Photon spacecraft designed to go beyond Earth orbit to the Moon and Mars. Last year, Rocket Lab successfully launched Photon on NASA's CAPSTONE mission, designed to verify the orbital stability of the planned Lunar Gateway space station. The lunar satellite spent nearly six months in orbit and flew within 1,000 miles of the Moon's North Pole in a so-called near-rectilinear halo orbit. 

NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket designed to take astronauts to the moon is over budget and far behind it's original schedule, according to a scathing new audit from NASA's Inspector General. Furthermore, the report foresees "additional cost and schedule increases" that could potentially jeopardize the entire Artemis mission if problems aren't handled. 

NASA's spending on the Artemis Moon Program is expected to reach $93 billion by 2025, including $23.8 billion already spent on the SLS system through 2022. That sum represents "$6 billion in cost increases and over six years in schedule delays above NASA’s original projections," the report states. 

The SLS, which finally launched for the first time in November 2022, uses four RS-25 engines per launch, including 16 salvaged from retired Space Shuttles. Once those run out (all engines on SLS are expendable), NASA will switch to RS-25E engines being built by Aerojet Rocketdyne, which are supposed to be 30 percent cheaper and 11 percent more powerful. It also uses solid rocket boosters provided by Northrop Grumman. 

The older technology isn't helping with the budget as NASA expected, though. "These increases are caused by interrelated issues such as assumptions that the use of heritage technologies from the Space Shuttle and Constellation Programs were expected to result in significant cost and schedule savings compared to developing new systems for the SLS," the audit states. "However, the complexity of developing, updating, and integrating new systems along with heritage components proved to be much greater than anticipated." 

For instance, only 5 of the 16 engine adaptations have been completed, and scope and cost increases have hit the booster contract as well. The latter has been the biggest issue, increasing from $2.5 billion to $4.4 billion since Artemis was announced, and delaying the schedule by five years. 

The Inspector General also blames the use of "cost-plus" contracts that allow suppliers to inflate budgets more easily, instead of fixed-priced contracts. The report recommends that upcoming work be shifted to a fixed-price regime and that procurement issues be resolved, among others. NASA management has agreed to all eight recommendations. 

The Artemis moon mission project was based on the Constellation program, originally launched in 2005 with the goal of returning to the moon by 2020 and eventually, Mars. Cancellation of that project by the Obama administration was met with widespread criticism, largely because the program guaranteed jobs around the US. 

However, the NASA Authorization Act of 2010, introduced the same year, mandated construction of the SLS and requiring the repurposing of existing technology, contracts and workforce from Constellation. It also required partnerships with private space companies. SpaceX, for one, is developing its own Starship rocket system, also capable of carrying astronauts to the Moon and Mars. However, Starship exploded on its first orbital launch mission, and may not fly again soon due to issues with the self-destruct command and the considerable damage it did to local ecosystems. 

ispace is done analyzing data from its failed Hakuto-R lunar landing, and it sounds like tricky terrain and a late change in the landing site are to blame. Apparently, Hakuto-R was able to complete the whole deceleration process in preparation of touching down on lunar soil. The spacecraft activated its descent sequence when it reached an altitude of around 100 kilometers (62 miles) and was able to slow down until it was only moving at a speed of less than 1 m/s. 

However, its software had mistakenly estimated its altitude to be zero when it was still hovering around 5 kilometers (3 miles) above the ground. In other words, it thought it had already landed when it hasn't yet, and it continued descending at a very slow speed near the surface until its propulsion system ran out of fuel. ispace wasn't able to establish contact with the spacecraft again, but it believes it went on a free fall and ultimately crashed on the moon.

That's the how, but what about the why? Well, the company thinks the most likely reason why Hakuto-R's software suffered from an altitude estimation issue was because it got confused. While it was flying to its landing site, it passed over a large cliff that was determined to be the rim of a crater. The spacecraft's onboard sensor got an altitude reading of 3 kilometers when it passed by the elevated terrain, and that was apparently larger than the estimated altitude value the Hakuto-R team set in advance. 

The spacecraft's software erroneously thought that the sensor reported an abnormal value, and it kept filtering out its altitude measurements afterward. ispace built the ability to reject abnormal altitude measurements into the lander as a safety measure in the event of a hardware issue with the sensor. However, it backfired for Mission 1 because simulations of the landing sequence failed to incorporate the lunar environment on the spacecraft's route. ispace made the decision to change Hakuto-R's landing site after its critical design review was already completed in 2021. 

The Hakuto-R Mission 1 was poised to become the first successful moon landing by a private company and the first Japanese lunar landing overall. While it didn't get to land on the moon, ispace will use the data from the mission to design preparatory landing sequences for Mission 2 and 3, which are scheduled for launch in 2024 and 2025, respectively. 

In less than two hours, private space firm Axiom Space is set to launch its second all-civilian flight. At approximately 5:37PM ET, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will attempt to carry the four-person crew, including former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, to the International Space Station. You can watch the mission as it unfolds from the Kennedy Space Center starting at 5PM ET. NASA will stream the launch on its website and YouTube channel. You can also watch the flight on Axiom Space’s website and right here.

Ax-2 is the follow up to Axiom Space’s first private space flight, which successfully carried a crew of civilian astronauts to the ISS last year. In addition to Whitson, the crew of Axiom Mission 2 is made up of entrepreneur John Shoffner and Saudi astronauts Ali AlQarni and Rayyanah Barnawi. After the Ax-2 team arrives at the ISS early Monday morning, they will spend the next eight days assisting the space station's crew with a handful of experiments. Axiom Space plans to fly another mission to the ISS later this year.

NASA has picked the company that will handle the third crewed Artemis Moon landing. Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin will build the landing system for Artemis V, which is currently set to launch in September 2029. While they didn't mention the choice of vehicle, the company is already working on a Blue Moon lander. Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Draper are among those involved in the NASA project.

An Orion capsule flight will take four astronauts to the Moon, where two of the crew members will use a Blue Origin lander docked to the Gateway space station to touch down at the lunar south pole. They'll spend a week conducting moonwalks, rover operations and science experiments while the other astronauts expand and take care of the Gateway.

NASA has already chosen SpaceX's Starship for the first (Artemis III) and second (Artemis IV) human landings. The agency said it would accept proposals for a second lander last year to both provide a backup and foster competition. Blue Origin made its bid for another lunar contract last December. The company objected to SpaceX's win and sued NASA for allegedly ignoring safety concerns when awarding the contract, but a federal court dismissed the claims.

The decision is a coup for Blue Origin. While it already has a NASA contract for a Mars science mission and financial support for its Orbital Reef space station, it hasn't had success scoring a crewed trip to the Moon. This also highlights NASA's increasing reliance on privately developed technology for its missions beyond Earth orbit, such as Axiom Space's Artemis suits. Like it or not, public-private alliances like these will define American space exploration for a while.

Astronomers have found a planet they believe is blanketed by active volcanoes. In a study published Tuesday in the journal Nature, a multi-national team of scientists said they discovered an Earth-sized exoplanet they believe may have water on part of its surface. The boringly named LP 791-18 d (sadly, no one thought to call it Mustafar) is located about 90 light-years from Earth in the Crater constellation. LP 791-18 d orbits a red dwarf it is tidally locked to, meaning the planet doesn’t have a day and night cycle like Earth. Instead, one part of LP 791-18 d is constantly scorched by sunlight, while the other is always in darkness.

“The day side would probably be too hot for liquid water to exist on the surface. But the amount of volcanic activity we suspect occurs all over the planet could sustain an atmosphere, which may allow water to condense on the night side,” Björn Benneke, one of the astronomers who studied the planet, told NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The LP 791-18 system contains at least two other planets, called LP 791-18 b and c. The latter is two-and-a-half times larger than Earth and more than seven times its mass. It also affects the orbit of LP 791-18 d, making it travel along an elliptical path around the system’s sun. That path means LP 791-18 d is deformed every time it completes an orbit. “These deformations can create enough internal friction to substantially heat the planet’s interior and produce volcanic activity at its surface,” according to NASA.

“A big question in astrobiology, the field that broadly studies the origins of life on Earth and beyond, is if tectonic or volcanic activity is necessary for life,” study co-author Jessie Christiansen said. “In addition to potentially providing an atmosphere, these processes could churn up materials that would otherwise sink down and get trapped in the crust, including those we think are important for life, like carbon.”

NASA, ESA and CSA already plan to turn the James Webb Space Telescope’s infrared imaging instruments on LP 791-18 c. The team that discovered LP 791-18 d thinks the exoplanet would make for an “exceptional candidate for atmospheric studies by the mission.” Notably, the retired Spitzer Space Telescope helped spot LP 791-18 d before NASA decommissioned it in 2020. This week, the US Space Force awarded a $250,000 grant to explore the feasibility of bringing the telescope out of retirement.

NASA has pulled the plug on its Lunar Flashlight project, which was designed to look for sources of ice on our nearest neighbor. The agency spent the last few months trying, and failing, to get the craft to generate the necessary amount of thrust to get the small satellite to its intended destination. Officials say that the issue was likely caused by debris buildup in the fuel lines, which prevented the CubeSat from working to its full potential. 

The “briefcase sized” Lunar Flashlight first launched in December, and was developed by students at Georgia Tech. Once deployed, it was expected to start a four-month journey to the moon, after which point it would look for surface water ice at the moon’s perpetually-dark south pole. Unfortunately, despite a months-long effort to remedy the issue, the craft will proceed past Earth and then fly into the orbit, but hopefully not too close to, the sun.

NASA is choosing to take a glass half-full approach to the failure, pointing to the success of many of the project’s components. Barbara Cohen, principal investigator at the Goddard Space Flight Center, said that while it’s disappointing, the mission proved the efficacy of several tools first used on the satellite. And that researchers "collected a lot of in-flight performance data on the instrument that will be incredibly valuable to future iterations."

About 25 light years away from Earth lies Fomalhaut, one of the brightest stars in the night sky. The Fomalhaut system has captivated astronomers for decades, but it’s only now that we’re developing a better understanding of it thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope. In a study published in the journal Nature Astronomy on Monday, a group of scientists made up primarily of astronomers from the University of Arizona and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory say the Fomalhaut system is far more complex than previously thought.

Since 1983, astronomers have known the 440 million-year-old Fomalhaut is surrounded by dust and debris, but what they didn’t expect to find was three different debris fields surrounding the star. One of those, the closest to Fomalhaut, is similar to our solar system’s asteroid belt but far more expansive than expected. As the New Scientist explains, Fomalhaut’s inner asteroid belt stretches from about seven astronomical units from the star to about 80 astronomical units out. To put those numbers in perspective, that’s about 10 times broader of an inner asteroid belt than astronomers expected to find.

NASA, ESA, CSA

However, that’s not even the most interesting feature of the Fomalhaut system. Outside of Fomalhaut’s inner asteroid belt, there is a second debris belt that is tilted at 23 degrees from everything else in orbit of the star. “This is a truly unique aspect of the system,” András Gáspár, lead author on the study, told Science News. He added that the tilted belt could be the result of planets in orbit of Fomalhaut astronomers haven’t discovered yet.

“The belts around Fomalhaut are kind of a mystery novel: Where are the planets?” said George Rieke, one of the astronomers involved in the study. "I think it's not a very big leap to say there's probably a really interesting planetary system around the star.”

Yet out further out from Fomalhaut is an outer debris ring similar to our solar system’s Kuiper belt. It includes a feature Gáspár and his colleagues have named the Great Dust Cloud. It’s unclear if this feature is part of the Fomalhaut system or something shining from beyond it, but they suspect it was formed when two space rocks more than 400 miles wide collided with one another. According to Gáspár and company, there may be three or more planets about the size of Uranus and Neptune orbiting Fomalhaut. They’re now analyzing JWST images that may reveal the existence of those planetoids.