Science & Technology
NASA to Develop Lunar Time Standard for Exploration Initiatives

NASA Space Technology

NASA will coordinate with U.S. government stakeholders, partners, and international standards organizations to establish a Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC) following a policy directive from the White House in April. The agency’s Space Communication and Navigation (SCaN) program is leading efforts on creating a coordinated time, which will enable a future lunar ecosystem that could be scalable to other locations in our solar system.

The lunar time will be determined by a weighted average of atomic clocks at the Moon, similar to how scientists calculate Earth’s globally recognized Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Exactly where at the Moon is still to be determined, since current analysis indicates that atomic clocks placed at the Moon’s surface will appear to ‘tick’ faster by microseconds per day. A microsecond is one millionth of a second. NASA and its partners are currently researching which mathematical models will be best for establishing a lunar time.

To put these numbers into perspective, a hummingbird’s wings flap about 50 times per second. Each flap is about .02 seconds, or 20,000 microseconds. So, while 56 microseconds may seem miniscule, when discussing distances in space, tiny bits of time add up.

“For something traveling at the speed of light, 56 microseconds is enough time to travel the distance of approximately 168 football fields,” said Cheryl Gramling, lead on lunar position, navigation, timing, and standards at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “If someone is orbiting the Moon, an observer on Earth who isn’t compensating for the effects of relativity over a day would think that the orbiting astronaut is approximately 168 football fields away from where the astronaut really is.”

As the agency’s Artemis campaign prepares to establish a sustained presence on and around the Moon, NASA’s SCaN team will establish a time standard at the Moon to ensure the critical time difference does not affect the safety of future explorers. The approach to time systems will also be scalable for Mars and other celestial bodies throughout our solar system, enabling long-duration exploration.

As the commercial space industry grows and more nations are active at the Moon, there is a greater need for time standardization. A shared definition of time is an important part of safe, resilient, and sustainable operations,” said Dr. Ben Ashman, navigation lead for lunar relay development, part of NASA’s SCaN program.

NASA’s SCaN program serves as the office for the agency’s space communications operations and navigation. More than 100 NASA and non-NASA missions rely on SCaN’s two networks, the Near Space Network and the Deep Space Network, to support astronauts aboard the International Space Station and future Artemis missions, monitor Earth’s weather and the effects of climate change, support lunar exploration, and uncover the solar system and beyond.

Learn more about NASA’s plan to return to the Moon at:

https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/artemis

Science & Technology
Researchers develop fastest-of-its-kind carbon storage technology

Technology tamfitronics

Researchers from theUniversity of Texas at Austinhave devised a faster method for storing captured carbon from the atmosphere. This method eliminates the need for harmful chemical accelerants usually required by current storage methods.

The team developed a technique for ultrafast formation of carbon dioxide hydrates. These distinctive ice-like substances can sequester carbon dioxide in the ocean, effectively preventing its release into the atmosphere.

“We’re staring at a huge challenge – finding a way to safely remove gigatons of carbon from our atmosphere – and hydrates offer a universal solution for carbon storage. For them to be a major piece of the carbon storage pie, we need the technology to grow them rapidly and at scale,” said Vaibhav Bahadur, a professor in the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering who led the research. “We’ve shown that we can quickly grow hydrates without using any chemicals that offset the environmental benefits of carbon capture.”

Carbon dioxide stands as the prevalent greenhouse gas and plays a significant role in driving climate change. The process of carbon capture and sequestration works to remove carbon from the atmosphere and maintain its storage indefinitely. It is considered an essential element in the effort to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate the impact of climate change.

Technology tamfitronics   Credit:
CO2-hydrates. Credit: University of Texas

Currently, the predominant method for storing carbon involves the injection of carbon dioxide into underground reservoirs. This approach offers the dual advantages of carbon containment and the stimulation of oil production.

However, this technique faces significant challenges, such as the escape and movement of carbon dioxide, contamination of groundwater, and the potential for seismic activity linked to injection. Additionally, many regions around the world do not have suitable geological characteristics for reservoir injection.

According to Bahadur, hydrates are viewed as a secondary option for large-scale carbon storage, but they could become the primary option if key challenges are addressed. Up to this point, the process of creating these hydrates that trap carbon has been sluggish and requires a lot of energy, which has hindered its adoption as a widespread method of carbon storage.

In a recent study, researchers have achieved a sixfold increase in the rate of hydrate formation compared to previous techniques. The rapid speed, in combination with the chemical-free process, simplifies the utilization of these hydrates for large-scale carbon storage.

Technology tamfitronics Carbon Capture foam compact.
Carbon Capture foam compact. Credit: University of Texas

Magnesium plays a crucial role in this research, serving as a catalyst that eliminates the requirement for chemical promoters. This is supported by the high flow rate of CO2 bubbling in a specific reactor setup. The technology is compatible with seawater, making it easier to deploy as it does not depend on complex desalination processes to produce fresh water.

“Hydrates are attractive carbon storage options since the seabed offers stable thermodynamic conditions, which protects them from decomposing,” Brave said. “We are essentially making carbon storage available to every country on the planet that has a coastline; this makes storage more accessible and feasible on a global scale and brings us closer to achieving a sustainable future.”

This breakthrough has implications that go beyond just carbon sequestration. The rapid formation of hydrates could be used in desalination, gas separation, and gas storage, providing a flexible solution for different industries. The University of Texas researchers have applied for two patents related to the technology, and they are exploring the possibility of launching a startup to bring it to market.

Journal reference:

  1. Awan Bhati, Mark Hamalian, Palash V. Acharya, and Vaibhav Bahadur. Ultrafast Formation of Carbon Dioxide Hydrate Foam for Carbon Sequestration. ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering2024; DOI: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.4c03809
Top Stories
X-Bow to develop solid rocket motors for U.S. Navy Standard missiles

Top Stories Tamfitronics

The USS Savannah (LCS 28) launches a Standard missile from a containerized launching system during a live-fire demonstration in the eastern Pacific Ocean, Oct. 24, 2023. Credit: U.S. Navy photo

WASHINGTON X-Bow Systems announced it will develop solid rocket motors for the Standard missile, the U.S. Navy’s primary surface-to-air weapon for anti-air warfare and ballistic missile defense.

The company received two contracts, one for $3.3 million to develop solid rocket motors for the Standard missiles Mk 72 booster, and $4 million for solid rocket motors for the Mk 104 second stage.

X-Bow Systems will develop new designs for the Mk 72 and Mk 104 solid rocket motors, Jason Hundley, X-Bow CEO, said in a statement.

The company specializes in solid rocket motors and small launch vehicles for orbital and suborbital launch services. Headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, X-Bow has locations in California, Arizona, Alabama, Colorado, Texas, Maryland, Utah and Washington, D.C.

Hundley said X-Bow is supplying both strategic and tactical size solid rocket motors to multiple armed services and commercial customers.

Top Stories Tamfitronics Diversifying supplier base

The U.S. Navy in recent months also announced contracts with Ursa Major and On the sensor for solid rocket motor development in an effort to diversify its supplier base of solid rocket motors for different variants of the Standard missile made by the defense contractor RTX.

The Pentagon said its concerned about overreliance on a shrinking pool of domestic suppliers for solid rocket motors. The ongoing conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East have strained existing production capacity, particularly for tactical solid rocket motors. DoD said it wants to work with commercial startups that are bringing new technologies and manufacturing processes to the table.

Sandra Erwin writes about military space programs, policy, technology and the industry that supports this sector. She has covered the military, the Pentagon, Congress and the defense industry for nearly two decades as editor of NDIAs National Defense…

Science & Technology
Researchers make nanotechnology for rising wafer-scale nanoparticle monolayers in seconds

Technology tamfitronics

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by Gwangju Institute of Science and Know-how

Credit rating: Evolved Materials (2024). DOI: 10.1002/adma.202313299

Nanoscale materials most up-to-date us with astonishing chemical and bodily properties that wait on materialize functions reminiscent of single molecular sensing and minimally invasive photothermal therapy—which were as soon as pretty theories—into truth.

The weird abilities of hold them lucrative materials for a huge assortment of functions each for study and industrial functions. Nonetheless, reaching the latter becomes refined as a result of the dearth of a design for swiftly and uniform switch of a monolayer of nanoparticles, which is necessary for scheme fabrication.

A imaginable device out of this jam is adopting electrostatic assembly processes the build the nanoparticles set themselves to an oppositely charged floor, and as soon as a monolayer is formed, the nanoparticles then self-restrict extra assembly by repelling other equally charged nanoparticles away from the floor. Unfortunately, this process also can merely also be very time-difficult.

Whereas artificial systems battle with these drawbacks, underwater adhesion processes figured out in nature include developed into weird suggestions to conquer this diagram back.

In this regard, a crew of researchers from Gwangju Institute of Science and Know-how, led by Ph.D. pupil Doeun Kim (first author) and Assistant Professor Hyeon-Ho Jeong (corresponding author), include developed a “mussel-impressed” one-shot nanoparticle assembly methodology that transports materials from water in cramped volumes to 2-lunge wafers in 10 seconds, while enabling 2D mono-layered assembly with nice floor protection of spherical 40%.

Their work became revealed in Evolved Materials and highlighted as a frontispiece.

The electrostatic nanoparticle assembly on a 2-lunge Au substrate coated with HfO2 for 10 seconds. Credit rating: Evolved Materials (2024). DOI: 10.1002/adma.202313299

“Our key device to conquer the existing bid got here from an commentary about how mussels attain the target floor towards water. We noticed that mussels simultaneously radiate amino acids to dissociate on the floor, enabling swift attachment of the chemical adhesive on the target floor,” explains Ms. Kim, speaking about regarding the incentive in the motivate of the weird nature-impressed device.

“We realized that the same diagram back the build we introduce extra protons to take away hydroxyl groups from the target floor, thus rising the electrostatic enchantment force between the nanoparticles and the floor and accelerating the assembly process.”

The researchers engineered the electrostatic floor seemingly for every the target floor and the nanoparticles, pushed by proton dynamics. This led the nanoparticles to catch arrested onto the target floor uniformly within seconds.

To ascertain the efficacy of introducing proton engineering into the electrostatic assembly process, the crew when put next the monolayer assembly time with conventionally stale ways. The outcomes indicated that the coating elope of the original methodology became 100 to 1,000 times sooner than previously reported systems. The motive in the motivate of this accelerated diffusion and assembly of nanoparticles became linked to protons’ skill to take away unwanted on the target home.

The researchers extra figured out that the value-sensitive nature of the underlying process enables deterministic “therapeutic” of monolayer movies and “choose-and-state” nanopatterning on the wafer scale. Furthermore, the proposed methodology additionally enables the fabrication of wafer-level plump-coloration reflective metasurface through plasmonic structure, thus opening original avenues for the manufacturing of plump-coloration art work and optical encryption units.

This original nature-impressed proof-of-opinion is a prime step towards a broad acceptance of purposeful nanomaterial monolayer materials.

“We envision that this study will urge the impact of purposeful nanomaterials on our lives and approach the mass manufacturing of mono-layered movies, thus facilitating a huge assortment of functions, starting from photonic and to contemporary purposeful materials for vitality and environmental functions,” concludes Prof. Jeong.

More data:Doeun Kim et al, Proton‐Assisted Assembly of Colloidal Nanoparticles into Wafer‐Scale Monolayers in Seconds, Evolved Materials (2024). DOI: 10.1002/adma.202313299

Citation:Researchers make nanotechnology for rising wafer-scale nanoparticle monolayers in seconds (2024, Could well additionally merely 7)retrieved 8 Could well additionally merely 2024from https://phys.org/news/2024-05-nanotechnology-wafer-scale-nanoparticle-monolayers.html

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