Lifeboat Foundation

How much photons are there in the universe?

NASA has selected the first batch of U.S. companies to join the agency on its journey to its next destination, the moon, which NASA wants to explore in order to prepare to go on to Mars.

During a public event held today (Nov. 29), the agency unveiled nine new partners that will be designing and building lunar landers aimed at facilitating scientific exploration of the moon. In addition to the specific companies chosen, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine also announced that the program running those contracts — the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program — is now part of the science section of NASA’s bureaucracy, not the human exploration section.

The general idea is that these companies will be able to compete for contracts to deliver NASA science experiments to the surface of the moon by flying lunar landers on rocket launches purchased from other commercial space companies. Those individual contracts would substitute for NASA needing to build those capacities itself. [Building Apollo: Photos from Moonshot History].

Continue reading “9 US Companies Are Going to the Moon! Here Are NASA’s New Partners” »

DARPA says its new drone technology can collaborate and adapt with minimal human commands, even when its communications are challenged.

50 years of discovery — and he’s not done yet.

An accidental discovery is giving new hope for coral reefs.

BBC Earth

WASHINGTON — The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has awarded satellite operator Telesat a contract to study the use of commercial buses in the agency’s experimental low-Earth-orbit constellation program known as Blackjack.

Telesat of Ottawa, Canada, is the third company to receive a study contract for Blackjack, a DARPA demonstration mission that envisions deploying 20 satellites — each carrying one or more payloads. DARPA’s goal is to find lower cost alternatives to traditional military satellites. DARPA aims to pay no more than $6 million per satellite, including launch. European satellite manufacturer Airbus Defence and Space and small satellite manufacturer Blue Canyon Technologies of Boulder, Colorado, received similar contracts over the past four weeks.

Telesat’s contract, which the company announced Nov. 27, is a 12-month study to assess the utility of Telesat buses as the company refines its plans for a constellation of roughly 300 small, broadband satellites. Telesat has yet to select a manufacturer for its satellites. Two contenders, Airbus Defence and Space and a team formed by Thales Alenia Space and Maxar Technologies, are competing to build an unspecified number of satellites. Michael Schwartz, Telesat’s senior vice president of corporate and business development said the company still plans to down select a manufacturer in the spring.

Continue reading “Telesat wins study contract for DARPA’s experimental constellation” »

Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that the automaker is soon going to release new software updates with an upgraded rain-sensing neural net and several Easter Eggs.

With the Autopilot 2.0 system, Tesla decided not to go with a normal rain sensor to activate its automatic windshield wiper system and instead relies on a neural net system to detect rain with its camera.

They started releasing a beta version earlier this year.

Continue reading “Elon Musk announces Tesla software update with new rain sensing neural net and Easter eggs” »

Following the unveiling of the Rivian R1T all-electric pickup truck, we took a closer look at what is becoming one of the most anticipated EVs scheduled to come out in the next two years.

Here’s a ton of pictures, videos, and GIFs of the Rivian R1T, and why I ordered one.

Continue reading “Closer look at Rivian’s R1T all-electric pickup truck and why I ordered it” »