Astra traces February launch failure to issues with payload fairing, software

Astra thinks it knows what went wrong during last month’s failed flight, which was the company’s first-ever mission with operational payloads onboard. Astra’s two-stage Launch Vehicle 0008 (LV0008) lifted off on Feb. 10 from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, carrying four tiny cubesats on a mission organized by NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites initiative, … Read more

Oil giants accused of greenwashing for failure over energy transition

An analysis of BP, Shell, Chevron and ExxonMobil finds a mismatch between their rhetoric on low-carbon energy and their actions and spending Environment 16 February 2022 By Adam Vaughan Oil rigs at Cromarty Firth in Invergordon, UK Shutterstock / James Jones Jr Four of the world’s biggest oil companies have been accused of greenwashing for … Read more

NASA’s gamma-ray observatory is in safe mode after a possible wheel failure

A visualization of the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory.  (Image credit: NASA) NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has temporarily stopped its science observations while the mission team investigates an issue. On Tuesday night (Jan. 18), the observatory, a gamma-ray hunting space telescope originally called the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Explorer, went into safe mode and paused all … Read more

Ice shelf holding back keystone Antarctic glacier within years of failure | Science

An alarming crackup has begun at the foot of Antarctica’s vulnerable Thwaites Glacier, whose meltwater is already responsible for about 4% of global sea-level rise. An ice sheet the size of Florida, Thwaites ends its slide into the ocean as a floating ledge of ice 45 kilometers wide. But now this ice shelf, riven by … Read more