GoKawiil
Tech News
NASA is set to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, a $4 billion observatory built to survey vast swaths of the cosmos with high speed and precision. The mission aims to capture wide-field images that reveal cosmic phenomena previously undetectable by existing instruments.
NASA astronaut Christina Koch revealed she spent her first week back from the 10-day Artemis II lunar mission journaling about the experience while deliberately avoiding any mission photos. She wanted to capture her memories as they actually felt before the widely shared images could reshape them. Koch, along with commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and specialist Jeremy Hansen, completed the farthest human trip around the moon in over 50 years in early April.
NASA and industry engineers have outlined a synchronal bimodal nuclear rocket concept that pairs nuclear thermal propulsion with electric power generation using a single reactor and two separate fluid loops. The design avoids the complicated mode-switching valves of earlier bimodal reactor concepts while still delivering high thrust and steady electric power for spacecraft systems. Researchers say the approach could cut crewed Mars transit time from roughly 620 days down to 335 days or fewer.
Scientists are exploring methods to repurpose radioactive waste material as fuel for radioisotope power systems used in deep-space missions. The approach would recycle byproducts from nuclear reactors instead of relying solely on scarce isotopes like plutonium-238 that are currently used to power spacecraft.
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled to launch atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center no earlier than 7:26AM Eastern on August 30, with live coverage starting at 6:20AM. If weather or technical issues delay the flight, a backup attempt is planned for August 31 at 7:22AM Eastern. NASA will also host a science briefing and prelaunch news conference on August 29.
The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii has produced the most detailed video and simulations ever recorded of swirling plasma on the sun's surface. The footage shows turbulent motion resembling hurricanes or mixing ocean currents, offering visual support for a long-theorized process occurring where plasma of differing densities interacts.
NASA plans to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope as early as August 30 from Kennedy Space Center. The observatory matches Hubble's resolution but offers a field of view about 100 times larger, enabling it to map vast regions of sky to study dark matter and dark energy over a five-year primary mission. Scientists also expect it to detect as many as 200,000 new exoplanets, far surpassing the roughly 6,300 confirmed so far.
A commentary argues that government contracts, grants and procurement rules for frontier technologies—space, AI and quantum computing—are quietly locking in dominant suppliers rather than fostering open competition. The authors point to the space sector, where repeated launch contracts to the same firms like SpaceX build data and performance advantages that make it harder for rivals to break in, and warn similar patterns are emerging in AI and quantum funding decisions.
China's space agency announced it has scrubbed the planned 2025 launch of its Chang'e 7 lunar south pole mission from the Wenchang Space Launch Site, citing that conditions for launch had not been met. The mission, comprising an orbiter, lander, rover and hopper probe atop a Long March 5 rocket, was likely delayed due to Typhoon Narra churning near Hainan island, though officials gave no official cause.