Space / Astronomy

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Sandia and UNM collaborate to build more efficient rocket
January 25, 2024 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sal Rodriguez, a nuclear engineer at Sandia National Laboratories, is forging a rocket revolution with the help of the University of New Mexico and student Graham Monroe. Their cutting-edge research is propelling the future of aerospace by infusing rocket science with a touch of golf ball magic....
Categories: Energy / Environment / Water, Materials Science, Military / Defense, Nuclear Weapons, Renewable energy, Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy, Technology transfer / Economic Impact
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Two researchers elected associate fellows for aerospace contributions
November 15, 2023 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Two Sandia National Laboratories employees will soon join the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics class of 2024 as associate fellows. “This distinguished group of professionals has made significant and lasting contributions to the aerospace profession,” said AIAA President and Sandia Deputy Laboratories Director Laura McGill. “They...
Categories: Awards, Computing, Military / Defense, Renewable energy, Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy
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Increasing national security with satellites that team together
September 14, 2023 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Imagine a satellite observing ships on the ocean. As it takes pictures of each ship, an algorithm decides what kind of vessel it is. But one sneaky sailor paints a pattern on the deck that confuses the satellite, so it can’t decide what it’s looking at. How...
Categories: Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy
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Testing new technology and research on orbit
August 28, 2023 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Industry can develop new computer chips and other potential satellite payload components more quickly than national labs can test and integrate them into satellites that must meet strict security and space-readiness standards. This can create a lag in using the latest technology for national security space systems....
Categories: Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy, Technology transfer / Economic Impact
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Sandia researchers receive two EO Lawrence Awards
July 14, 2022 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories pulsed-power physicist Daniel Sinars and quantum information scientist Andrew Landahl have each received 2021 Ernest Orlando Lawrence Awards, the U.S. Department of Energy’s highest scientific mid-career honor. Sinars won in the category “National Security and Nonproliferation;” Landahl in “Computer, Information and Knowledge Sciences.” Susan...
Categories: Computing, Cybersecurity, Military / Defense, Nuclear Weapons, Physics, Space / Astronomy
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Build-a-satellite program could fast track national security space missions
June 8, 2022 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Satellites equipped with remote sensing technology execute many critical national security missions, from detecting explosions to tracking sea ice, but until now it could take a team years to move from a concept to a deployable space system. Valhalla, a Python-based performance modeling framework developed at Sandia...
Categories: Computing, Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy
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Thomas Bradshaw inspects a computer board

Powering the moon: Sandia researchers design microgrid for future lunar base
May 11, 2022 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories is well-known for designing reliable and resilient microgrids for military bases and vital city services. Now, Sandia researchers are working with NASA to design one for the moon. This is not the first time Sandia has partnered with NASA to power equipment on the...
Categories: Energy / Environment / Water, Renewable energy, Space / Astronomy
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An illustration with solar panels and a dome on the moon with another base further away and the Earth in the sky.

Seashell-inspired Sandia shield protects materials in hostile environments
May 3, 2022 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Word of an extraordinarily inexpensive material, lightweight enough to protect satellites against debris in the cold of outer space, cohesive enough to strengthen the walls of pressurized vessels experiencing average conditions on Earth and yet heat-res…
Categories: Chemistry, Energy / Environment / Water, Materials Science, Nanotechnology, Nuclear Weapons, Physics, Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy
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Black engineer awards distinguish Sandia Labs
February 28, 2022 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Ten Sandia National Laboratories engineers received Black Engineer of the Year Awards this year, including Most Promising Scientist in Government, Research Leadership, Science Spectrum Trailblazers and Modern-Day Technology Leaders. Honorees include Sandia mechanical, electrical, civil, aerospace and aeronautical engineers who excel in their respective fields. From the...
Categories: Awards, Computing, Cybersecurity, Energy / Environment / Water, Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy
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Sandia Labs BEYA winners

Powerful Sandia machine-learning model shows diamond melting at high pressure
January 26, 2022 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A Sandia National Laboratories supercomputer simulation model called SNAP that rapidly predicts the behavior of billions of interacting atoms has captured the melting of diamond when compressed by extreme pressures and temperatures. At several million atmospheres, the rigid carbon lattice of the hardest known substance on Earth...
Categories: Materials Science, Military / Defense, Physics, Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy
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Look who’s turning 25
September 2, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories is celebrating 25 years of research conducted at its Z Pulsed Power Facility — a gymnasium-sized accelerator commonly referred to as Z or the Z machine. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, only a limited number of former leaders of the pulsed power program at Sandia...
Categories: Materials Science, Nanotechnology, Physics, Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy
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Setting gold and platinum standards where few have gone before
June 24, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Like two superheroes finally joining forces, Sandia National Laboratories’ Z machine — generator of the world’s most powerful electrical pulses — and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility — the planet’s most energetic laser source — in a series of 10 experiments have detailed the responses...
Categories: Chemistry, Materials Science, Nuclear Weapons, Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy
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Largest aerospace society names Sandia researcher ‘Engineer of the Year’
June 1, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, NM — Humberto “Tito” Silva III, a Sandia National Laboratories researcher, has been named Engineer of the Year by the world’s largest aerospace technical society, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Selected by a committee of his peers, Silva was cited for improving failure-rate predictions of aerospace flight...
Categories: Computing, Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy
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Super-Earth atmospheres probed at Sandia’s Z machine
February 9, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The huge forces generated by the Z machine at Sandia National Laboratories are being used to replicate the gravitational pressures on so-called “super-Earths” to determine which might maintain atmospheres that could support life. Astronomers believe that super-Earths — collections of rocks up to eight times larger than...
Categories: Space / Astronomy

Record neutron numbers at Sandia Labs’ Z machine fusion experiments
October 27, 2020 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.— A relatively new method to control nuclear fusion that combines a massive jolt of electricity with strong magnetic fields and a powerful laser beam has achieved its own record output of neutrons — a key standard by which fusion efforts are judged — at Sandia National Laboratories’ Z...
Categories: Energy / Environment / Water, Military / Defense, Nuclear Weapons, Physics, Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy
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Sandia establishes collaborative research facility for low-temperature plasmas
December 20, 2019 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories is setting up a collaborative facility to help researchers worldwide study low-temperature plasmas, the most pervasive state of matter in the universe. The 5-year, $5.5 million project, called the Sandia Low Temperature Plasma Research Facility, is sponsored by the Department of Energy’s Office of...
Categories: Bioscience / Medical Research, Chemistry, Energy / Environment / Water, Materials Science, Military / Defense, Physics, Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy
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Armoring satellites to survive and operate through attacks
October 21, 2019 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Satellites do a lot of things — they help people navigate from one place to another, they deliver television programming, they search for new stars and exo-planets and they enable the U.S. nuclear deterrence strategy. But until recently, one thing they haven’t done — or needed to...
Categories: Military / Defense, Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy
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STARCS photo

Seeing infrared: Sandia’s nanoantennas help detectors see more heat, less noise
September 16, 2019 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories researchers have developed tiny, gold antennas to help cameras and sensors that “see” heat deliver clearer pictures of thermal infrared radiation for everything from stars and galaxies to people, buildings and items requiring security. In a Laboratory Directed Research and Development project, a team...
Categories: Nanotechnology, Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy
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Michael Goldflam, Sandia National Laboratories

Sandia experiments at temperature of sun offer solutions to solar model problems
September 10, 2019 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Experimenting at 4.1 million degrees Fahrenheit, physicists at Sandia National Laboratories’ Z machine have found that an astronomical model — used for 40 years to predict the sun’s behavior as well as the life and death of stars — underestimates the energy blockage caused by free-floating iron...
Categories: Energy / Environment / Water, Physics, Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy
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HOT SHOT findings could save defense tech developers time and money
August 30, 2019 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — An early milestone for developing missile technologies is to show they can work in computer-simulations or large-scale field tests that shake and spin components without falling to pieces. “Screws can back out; things can break,” said Greg Tipton, a structural dynamics engineer at Sandia National Laboratories. Similar...
Categories: Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy
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HOT SHOT

New Sandia balloon-borne infrasound sensor array detects explosions
January 11, 2018 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sheets of plastic similar to that used for garbage bags, packing tape, some string, a little charcoal dust and a white shoebox-size box are more than odds and ends. These are the supplies Danny Bowman, a Sandia National Laboratories geophysicist, needs to build a solar-powered hot air...
Categories: Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy
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Danny Bowman holding a stryofoam box (left) Sarah Albert holding an infrasound sensor (right) with a bright blue sky as background

Aerospace test at Sandia goes green with alternative to explosives
August 30, 2017 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories has successfully demonstrated a new, more environmentally friendly method to test a rocket part to ensure its avionics can withstand the shock from stage separation during flight. The new method — called the Alternative Pyroshock Test — used a nitrogen-powered gas gun to shoot...
Categories: Space / Astronomy
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Black hole models contradicted by hands-on tests at Sandia’s Z machine
August 28, 2017 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A long-standing but unproven assumption about the X-ray spectra of black holes in space has been contradicted by hands-on experiments performed at Sandia National Laboratories’ Z machine. Z, the most energetic laboratory X-ray source on Earth, can duplicate the X-rays surrounding black holes that otherwise can be watched only from a...
Categories: Physics, Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy
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Results 1–25 of 40