DAEJEON, SOUTH KOREA – A joint research team from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the Unmanned Exploration Laboratory (UEL) has developed a transformative wheel capable of navigating the Moon’s most extreme terrains, including steep lunar pits and lava tubes.DAEJEON, SOUTH KOREA – A joint research team from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the Unmanned Exploration Laboratory (UEL) has developed a transformative wheel capable of navigating the Moon’s most extreme terrains, including steep lunar pits and lava tubes.

The gravitational wave is a prediction of the general theory of relativity that can be detected by measuring the relative distance between two test masses (TM) along the geodesics. The TM is fixed by the cage and vent mechanism to avoid collision with the spacecraft cavity during launch. Once the drag-free spacecraft reaches its target orbit, the TM must be released by the grabbing positioning and release mechanism (GPRM) to the cage center of the inertial sensor in a limited amount of time. The capture of the TM by means of the electrostatic suspensions is crucial for the mission. However, the GPRM inevitably generates large release errors and the low electrostatic force makes the TM capture control a difficult task. Moreover, the experimental results of the LISA Pathfinder mission have shown that the TM release velocities were well higher than the ones expected. The previous robust sliding mode controller needs to be optimized.

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.