Satellites

Split screen: Left: nanosatellite thrusters next to U.S. dimes (they are about twice as big as a dime); Right: electron micrograph close-up images of spikes on the nanothrusters, with further enlargements showing individual nanowires

Nanosatellite thruster emits pure ions

Study is first demonstration of a fully 3D-printed thruster using pure ion emission for propulsion.

January 21, 2021

An illustration of a Japanese satellite and the payload that Lincoln Laboratory has built

Lincoln Laboratory is designing a payload to integrate on Japanese satellites

The US will provide sensors to be hosted on board regional navigation satellites that Japan is developing.

December 3, 2020

Mini-satellite maker

With her students, aerospace engineer Kerri Cahoy is developing small, affordable “CubeSats” to monitor weather and search for exoplanets.

November 17, 2020

Four maps showing locations of power outages in Florida after Hurricane Matthew

Eight Lincoln Laboratory technologies named 2020 R&D 100 Award winners

Several of the winning innovations apply artificial intelligence to solutions for challenges to national security.

October 20, 2020

Astronomers at MIT and elsewhere watched a black hole’s corona disappear, then reappear, for first time. A colliding star may have triggered the drastic transformation.

In a first, astronomers watch a black hole’s corona disappear, then reappear

A colliding star may have triggered the drastic transformation.

July 15, 2020

In our solar system, the “ice giants” Neptune and Uranus are far less dense than rocky Venus and Earth. But astrophysicists on NASA’s TESS mission have now found an exoplanet, TOI-849b, that appears to be 40 times more massive than Earth, yet just as dense. This illustration depicts the exoplanet, UCF-1.01. Like TOI-849b, this exoplanet also orbits close to a star and is like “hot Neptune....

TESS mission discovers massive ice giant

Neptune-sized planet may be remnant core of a much larger planet.

July 1, 2020

Artist's depiction of LES-9. The LES-9 vehicle was launched in 1976 along with a “sister” satellite, LES-8.

Lincoln Laboratory decommissions Lincoln Experimental Satellite–9

After more than 44 years of providing satellite communications, the LES-9 workhorse retires from service with a record of groundbreaking technical achievement.

May 27, 2020

To ensure the best coverage of our solar system, MIT Assistant Professor Richard Linares envisions a constellation of "statites" that communicate and work together, only activating the statite in the optimum position to fly by or rendezvous with an interstellar object successfully. Other statites in the constellation can continue to wait for the next ISO to appear.

To catch an interstellar visitor, use a solar-powered space slingshot

MIT research proposal for rendezvous missions with interstellar objects selected for NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Program.

May 6, 2020

MIT researchers have devised a framework for deciding which type of mission would be most successful in deflecting an incoming asteroid, taking into account an asteroid’s mass and momentum, its proximity to a gravitational keyhole, and the amount of warning time that scientists have of an impending collision.

How to deflect an asteroid

MIT engineers devise a decision map to identify the best mission type to deflect an incoming asteroid.

February 18, 2020

Researchers have for the first time used a massive cluster of galaxies as a huge magnifying lens to detect a small, star-forming dwarf galaxy.

Astronomers use giant galaxy cluster as X-ray magnifying lens

New lens technique spots tiny dwarf galaxy in the first, super-energetic stages of star formation.

October 14, 2019

Worlds orbiting stars other than our sun are “exoplanets,” and they come in many sizes, from gas giants larger than Jupiter to small, rocky planets. This illustration of a "super-Earth" represents the type of planet that the TESS mission aims to find outside our solar system.

Computing and the search for new planets

MIT planetary scientists partner with computer scientists to find exoplanets.

September 23, 2019

The asteroid 6478 Gault is seen with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, showing two narrow, comet-like tails of debris that tell us that the asteroid is slowly undergoing self-destruction. The bright streaks surrounding the asteroid are background stars. The Gault asteroid is located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

For first time, astronomers catch asteroid in the act of changing color

Asteroid is likely shedding reddish dust, revealing a fresh, blue surface beneath.

August 29, 2019

Artist’s rendering of the surface of LHS 3844b, a planet that has been found to have no atmosphere.

Rocky, Earth-sized exoplanet is missing an atmosphere

Study reports on search for an atmosphere around a planet somewhat similar to ours.

August 19, 2019

The Lorelei Ensemble performs in "Songs from Extrasolar Spaces: Music Inspired by TESS" on July 30 in MIT's Kresge Auditorium.

The music of the spheres

MIT hosts "Songs from Extrasolar Spaces," a musical melding of art and science inspired by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).

August 9, 2019

This infographic illustrates key features of the TOI 270 system, located about 73 light-years away in the southern constellation Pictor.

TESS discovers three new planets nearby, including temperate “sub-Neptune”

Planetary system orbiting an unusually quiet star is ideal for future habitability searches.

July 29, 2019

MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Browse By

Topics

Departments

Centers, Labs, & Programs

Schools

Topic