Free Republic

"It's the only launch vehicle that can meet the orbit, the schedule and the cost to achieve something unprecedented with emerging technology."A history-making robotic rescue mission scheduled to launch next year will fly on a rocket dropped from a plane.In September, NASA announced that it has chosen Arizona company Katalyst Space Technologies to boost the altitude of its Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, a space telescope whose orbit has gotten dangerously low since its November 2004 launch...The $500 million Swift observatory was built by Orbital Sciences, a company that in 2014 became Orbital ATK, which was then acquired by Northrop Grumman...

Artist’s impression of GRB 211211A. Scientists have linked this unusual gamma-ray burst from a nearby galaxy to a neutron star merger. Credit: Soheb Mandhai @TheAstroPhoenix An unusually powerful gamma-ray burst (GRB 211211A), detected from a nearby galaxy, has been linked to a neutron star merger by an international team of scientists. This burst, notable for its excess of infrared light, was shown to originate from a kilonova, an event thought to occur when neutron stars collide. Scientists have linked a highly unusual blast of high-energy light from a nearby galaxy to a neutron star merger. The event, detected in December...