Free-space optical communications (FSOC), which use lasers for high-speed data links between aircraft, spacecraft, and ground stations, are limited by size and power constraints. To overcome this, researchers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany, proposed and experimentally validated a fiber-bundle-based architecture that could enable compact, multi-directional FSOC.

 Faraway planet PSR J2322-2650b defies our understanding of planet formation, say UChicago scientists 

Fraunhofer IAF and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy have provided 145 high-performance low-noise amplifiers for the ALMA radio telescope array in Chile’s Atacama Desert. The amplifiers are based on InGaAs mHEMT MMICs and are essential components of the high-frequency receivers for the wavelength range between 2.6 and 4.5 mm (frequency range: 67–116 GHz, known as Band 2). They will enable ALMA to perform more precise measurements of objects and galaxies in the universe in order to gain new information about the formation of stars, planets and life. The amplifiers delivered complete ALMA, which began scientific operations in 2011 and has been gradually expanded since then.

SAN ANTONIO — December 16, 2025 —Southwest Research Institute’s novel Compact Dual Ion Composition Experiment (CoDICE) instrument aboard NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) spacecraft has successfully collected first-light data. IMAP launched in September to help researchers better understand the boundary of the heliosphere, the magnetic bubble that surrounds and protects our solar system.

Helium leaks are hard to detect, since it is odorless, colorless, tasteless, and does not react with other chemical substances. In Applied Physics Letters, by AIP Publishing, researchers from Nanjing University developed a device that utilizes sound waves to detect helium. The researchers built a device inspired by a traditional Japanese bamboo weaving technique called “Kagome-biki.” The triangular device also allows the researchers to determine the location of helium leaks in a 2D space and the researchers hopes to expand the device to locate leakage points in 3D space and develop the system into a portable device.

SAN ANTONIO — December 16, 2025 — After less than a year in orbit, the Southwest Research Institute-built PUNCH spacecraft have made major accomplishments, imaging the Sun in context while tracking comets and enormous space weather events as they traveled through the inner solar system. SwRI’s Dr. Craig DeForest discussed the achievements of NASA’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission during a media roundtable at the AGU25 conference on Dec. 16.

Space manipulators play an important role in the on-orbit services and planetary surface operation whose reliability is a key issue. In the extreme environment of space, space manipulators are susceptible to a variety of unknown disturbances. Since it is difficult for the manipulator to be repaired immediately, once it fails, it will mean that it cannot complete the mission as expected, which may cause serious losses and dangers. How to have a resilient guarantee, i.e., the manipulator’s ability to resiliently recover and continue to complete tasks, in failure or disturbance is the core capability of its future development. The motion planning unit is used as the computing terminal of the manipulator’s joint motion trajectory. Compared with traditional motion planning, learning-based motion planning has gradually become a hot spot in current research. However, no matter what kind of research ideas, the single robotic manipulator is studied as an independent agent, making it unable to provide sufficient flexibility under conditions such as external force disturbance, observation noise, and mechanical failure.