Science

The Ariane 6 vehicle was supposed to begin service in 2020, but then... some things happened.

At about 3PM ET, it finally took off from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana and successfully reignited its Vinci engine in orbit, beginning the journey’s second of three planned stages that you can continue to follow live.

Emissions from nearly 6 million of its vehicles were about 10 percent higher on average than GM said they were on its greenhouse gas emission compliance reports, an EPA investigation found. GM will retire 50 million metric tons of carbon credits to make up for the excess tailpipe pollution. It’ll also pay $145.8 million in penalties.

Their simulated mission to Mars tested “how future astronauts may react to isolation and confinement during deep-space journeys,” according to NASA. The crew of four went through 18 health studies during their stint at a 650-square-foot habitat at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Outside of each other’s company, the crew kept four pet triops shrimp: Buzz, Alvin, Simon, and Theodore. 

The Environmental Protection Agency updated its climate change indicators, a comprehensive report on extreme weather, shifting seasons, ocean impacts, and greenhouse gas emissions in the US.

Heatwave season is 46 days longer for Americans now than it was in the 1960s, for instance.

“The climate crisis is affecting every American right now and with increasing intensity,” EPA administrator Michael Regan said in a press release.

He says he had the best. He tried to roll back more than 100 environmental protections while in office. Is that what he’s bragging about in the debate?

The contract granted by NASA — worth up to $843 million — will see SpaceX develop a vehicle to safely deorbit the space station “in a controlled manner after the end of its operational life in 2030.”

NASA says the station will remain in use until then, and expects both the station and deorbit vehicle to break apart upon re-entry to avoid risk to populated areas.

The GOES-U satellite launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday.

It’s one of four National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites equipped with powerful new tools to monitor weather in space and on Earth. They’ll provide advanced imagery to inform forecasts, map lightning activity in real time, and detect solar flares.

Closing a loop that began with this 2016 launch, NASA is about to send the fourth and final satellite in the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) – R Series into space as part of a system for much better real-time weather forecasting.

Until now, patients with Medicare — a government-funded insurance program mostly for older adults — haven’t been eligible to enroll in the RxPass program Amazon debuted last year. The RxPass offers Medicare patients “unlimited access” to 60 different prescription medications for $5 a month and a prime membership. For now, patients with Medicaid — state-funded insurance for lower-income Americans — are still ineligible for the program.

NASA has pushed back the capsule’s return to Earth from the ISS to examine helium leaks and a valve issue. The Starliner ran into multiple delays before finally launching earlier this month.

The agency is targeting a return “no earlier than” June 22nd, and plans to hold a teleconference at 12PM ET on June 18th to talk over details of the delayed departure.

NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick, who’s been on the International Space Station since March, seems to enjoy sharing his camera settings. For the picture of the Boeing Starliner below, he followed up:

For the photography nerds: 1 second exposure, f 1.4, ISO 2000, 24 mm lens.

The NHS has now revealed the scope of the damage following the June 3rd cyberattack. In addition to the operations, over 800 outpatient appointments were canceled, and 18 organ transplants were diverted.

“The cyber-attack has had a significant impact on our services, and this is likely to remain the case for some time yet,” say hospital execs.

It includes images of cloud vortices (white), an aurora (pink), a solar flare (light blue), Jupiter’s North Temperate Belt (brown), Jupiter’s moon Io (yellow), Mars (orange), the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (black), a red sprite cluster (red), an algal bloom (green), Neptune (blue), and crab nebula (purple).

Happy Pride!