Space Cryogenics

Space cryogenics is, somewhat obviously, the application of cryogenics to space exploration and science. The use of cryogenics in space optimizes the launching of vehicles, provides power and life support to spacecraft and is critical for many scientific observations.Space cryogenics has a number of challenges and has driven both pure and applied research and development … Continue reading Space Cryogenics

APS Joins SCOAP3 Consortium

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, and the American Physical Society (APS) have entered into an agreement through SCOAP3 to provide open access to high-energy physics articles published in APS journals. The partnership, which begins in January 2018, covers articles from Physical Review C, Physical Review D and Physical Review Letters, extending the number of SCOAP3 journals to 11.

NCIS Bungles Investigation, Conflates Cryogenics and Cryonics

A recent episode NCIS, a popular CBS police procedural, featured a villain who killed his victims with liquid nitrogen, interring them alive inside a homemade cryonics chamber. During the big reveal, the NCIS writers conflate cryonics with cryogenics, using one of the show's trope scientific experts to present the latter as the low temperature preservation of bodies and to cast aspersions of quackery. In a letter to NCIS producers, CSA addressed its concerns with the show's vilification of cryogenics, explaining both its distinction from cryonics and the serious and respected place that low temperature study has in the scientific and industrial communities.

CSA Board Member Joins Superconductivity Center at FSU

Florida State University has hired Lance Cooley, CSA board member and a scientist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (CSA CSM), to join the Applied Superconductivity Center (ASC) at the FSU-based National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. He will also have a faculty appointment in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Florida A&M University-Florida State University College of Engineering.

Physicists Observe Negative Mass in Bose-Einstein Condensate

Washington State University physicists have created a fluid with negative mass. Push it, and unlike every physical object in the known world, it doesn’t accelerate in the direction it was pushed. It accelerates backward. Led by Peter Engels, WSU professor of physics and astronomy, the researchers generated the conditions for negative mass by cooling rubidium atoms to near absolute zero, creating a Bose-Einstein condensate.

O”H” What a Feeling, Toyota Introduces Hydrogen Powered Semi

Toyota has announced a new zero-emission hydrogen fuel cell system designed for semi-truck use at the Port of Los Angeles. Dubbed "Project Portal," the proof of concept vehicle was unveiled at a press conference with port officials and representatives from the California Air Resources Board and the California Energy Commission. The vehicle will take part in a feasibility study this summer that will examine its potential in heavy-duty drayage applications.

European XFEL Commissions Its Particle Accelerator

The European XFEL has successfully commissioned the particle accelerator that will drive its X-ray laser. When fully operational, the research facility will produce up to 27,000 X-ray laser flashes per second, each so short and intense that researchers can make pictures of structures and processes at the atomic level. The accelerator’s superconducting technology, developed by an international collaboration led by DESY, is the basis for the facility's high rate of X-ray laser flashes.

ICHEP Publishes 2016 Proceedings

Professor Young-Kee Kim, chair of ICHEP 2016 and professor of physics at the University of Chicago, has announced that proceedings from the high energy physics conference have been published online. The proceedings are organized by session topic and include full PDFs from presenters and research teams.

GOES-S Undergoes Thermal Vacuum Testing

In March, engineers at Lockheed Martin Space Systems lifted NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-S (GOES-S) into a thermal vacuum chamber to begin testing its ability to function in the cold void of space at its orbit 22,300 miles above the Earth. To simulate the environment of space, researchers removed air from the chamber and cooled it below -100°C.

Hybrid Airships to Transfer Helium from Tanzania

Helium One, a company that holds a prospecting license for recently discovered helium deposits in Tanzania, intends to use Lockheed Martin's LMH-1 hybrid airships to transport the gas out of the country. The company's license includes three project areas in Tanzania, encompassing more than 4,500 km² of land with helium concentrations up to 10.5 percent.

LArIAT Upgrade Tests DUNE Design

Scientists from the LArIAT experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory have begun a proof-of-concept test for the planned Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). The researchers studying what will happen if the space between detection wires inside the future DUNE detectors is increased from three millimeters to five, a design that could help reduce cost.

GE Healthcare Acquires Cryogenic Cold Chain Specialists

GE Healthcare has acquired Asymptote Limited, a company specializing in cryochain technology for sensitive cellular therapies. The acquisition fills a critical gap in GE Healthcare’s end-to-end ecosystem of products and services for cell therapy production, according to GE, and will be an important piece of a portfolio enabling the industrialization of these life-saving therapies.

A Silver Snoopy for Valcor Top Dog

In a March ceremony, NASA presented Valcor's Yuri Gerasimov with its Silver Snoopy, an award given to candidates who have significantly contributed to the human space flight program. Less than one percent of the aerospace program workforce receives the Silver Snoopy annually, making the award a special honor. Gerasimov played a key role in developing the oxygen tank pressurization assembly, a main propulsion system component within the core state oxygen pressurization system.