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Aerospace

The latest developments in aviation, satellites, astrophysics, space flight, and space exploration
Aerospace Topic Type Feature

Fly the Hybrid Skies

NASA, GE Aerospace, and Boeing are collaborating on a hybrid-electric airliner

11 min read
Fly the Hybrid Skies
3 Challenges to Solve Before We Can Commute by Air Taxi
Aerospace Topic Type Feature Transportation

3 Challenges to Solve Before We Can Commute by Air Taxi

A Texas consortium is working out a traffic system for eVTOLs

9 min read
pink and purple illustration of different shapes placed together to look like a satellite and world against a black background
Aerospace Topic Type News Telecommunications

Satellite-Sharing Enables Low-Cost Earth Observation

Tiny constellations of satellites team up to mine and sell big data

3 min read
A digital textile printing machine consisting of multiple cabinets attached to a large roll of fabric stands on a gray and white warehouse.
Energy Topic Type Sponsored Article

U.K. Startup’s Digital Dyeing Printers Save Energy, Water

Alchemie Technology aims to revolutionise textile dyeing, one of the world’s most polluting industries

Fixing the Future

On IEEE Spectrum ’s Fixing the Future podcast, our editors talk with the brightest minds in technology about concrete solutions to big challenges
All Fixing the Future episodes →
Consumer Electronics Topic Type Podcasts Podcast Fixing the Future

A Watch That Runs For Over A Decade On A Single Battery

New MEMS tech from Silmach is the first major upgrade to quartz movements since the 1970s

A Watch That Runs For Over A Decade On A Single Battery
Computing Topic Type Podcasts Podcast Fixing the Future

A New Enterprise Linux Alliance

SUSE, Oracle, and CIQ team up after Red Hat's strategic changes

Fixing the Future podcast logo
Artificial Intelligence Topic Type Podcasts Podcast Fixing the Future

Justine Bateman's Fight Against Generative AI In Hollywood

SAG-Aftra’s AI advisor warns about the destructive potential of taking actors out of the loop

Justine Bateman's Fight Against Generative AI In Hollywood
A photo showing a humanoid robot wearing boxing gloves facing a human wearing hand pads.
Robotics Topic Aerospace Type News Humanoid Robots

Video Friday: Punch-Out

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos

4 min read
A landscape with flowing sections colored green.
Aerospace Topic News Type

For NASA, Iceland’s Lava Fields Mimic Venus’s Hellscape

Active volcanoes make ample testbeds for radar imaging tech

6 min read

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a cloud made of lines connecting with sparkle lines below it
Artificial Intelligence Topic Aerospace Type News Climate Tech

AI Sharpens Rainfall Estimates from Satellites

Better precipitation data can improve climate change models

3 min read
a pink cloud looking structure against a black background
Aerospace Topic Type News Telecommunications

Dark Matter Data Saved Via Parachute

A new data-recovery system successfully retrieved balloon-based telescope images

5 min read

Journal Watch

The latest engineering and computer science advances in context from IEEE Spectrum and the Xplore Digital Library
Telecommunications Topic Type News

A Simpler Means for Visible Light Communication

2 min read
a black panel with different colored lights sitting on top of it with a computer monitor in the background
Artificial Intelligence Topic Type News Consumer Electronics

Creating Virtual Objects With the Flick of a Finger

3 min read
Four virtual images showing hands making gestures towards objects.
Climate Tech Topic Type News Transportation

Smart Emergency Responses to Severe Weather

2 min read
An red and white ambulance on a leafy city street.
Artificial Intelligence Topic Type News Climate Tech

Machine Learning Could Be Used to Better Predict Floods

3 min read
a man standing in water up to his calves, in front of a white building with green doors and shutters.

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A giant white airship in a hangar, with many people below it to show its large scale.
Aerospace Topic News Type

EXCLUSIVE: Google Founder’s Airship Gets FAA Clearance

Sergey Brin’s Pathfinder 1 can now take to the skies

3 min read
A rendering of a gold and grey object in space.
Aerospace Topic Biomedical Type News

The Space-Based Drug Factory That Can’t Come Home

Orbiting lab pioneers space-made medicines—and the red tape needed to land

6 min read
multiple red and blue arrows around purple clocks in a line formation against and red and blue background
Aerospace Topic Type News Transportation

Entangled Atoms Lead to Ultraprecise Quantum Sensors

Atomic clocks with multiple entangled ions could improve GPS tech

4 min read

James Webb Telescope

IEEE Spectrum explores the Webb Telescope’s groundbreaking engineering
See the full collection →
NASA's James Webb space telescople
Two men fix metal rods to a gold-foiled satellite component in a warehouse/clean room environment
Aerospace Topic Magazine Type Feature Spectrum Collections September 2022 Telecommunications

The Webb Space Telescope’s Profound Data Challenges

Rendering of James Webb Space Telescope including its 18-segmented primary mirrors and its five-layered sun shade
Aerospace Topic Magazine Type Feature Spectrum Collections September 2022

Inside the Universe Machine: The Webb Space Telescope’s Chilly Sun Shield

Fourteen technicians in clean-room suits guide the hoisting of a honeycombed, hexagon-mirrored telescope inside a giant cleanroom construction space
Aerospace Topic Magazine Type Feature Spectrum Collections September 2022

Inside the Universe Machine: The Webb Space Telescope’s Staggering Vision

Telecommunications Topic Aerospace Type News

Space 5G Changes Course

Cellular industry predictions for 2023 fell short, as satellite technology branched into IoT

3 min read
overhead view of earth and lines above earth with red and blue dots
A colored SEM shows three prongs in material, colored yellow, green and blue in different sections.
Semiconductors Topic Aerospace Type Computing News

2D Transistors, 3D Chips, and More Mad Stuff

What to expect from IEDM 2023 this December

5 min read
a flat map of the earth with red green and blue wavy lines on it
Aerospace Topic Type News Transportation

U.S. Agency Seeks Better Maps of Earth’s Magnetic Field

Three teams will compete in the final phase of the multiyear contest

4 min read
Teledyne logo
Telecommunications Topic Type Computing Webinar

High-Performance Data Acquisition for Swept-Source OCT

Exploring the latest in digitizers for Swept-Source Optical Coherence Tomography (SS-OCT)

an aerial view of a full battery in bottom left, an airplane in top left, and a empty battery in middle right with blue lines connecting all three
Energy Topic Aerospace Type News

DARPA Hopes to Beam Power Across 200 Kilometers

Lasers could one day relay power to remote areas, or even from orbital arrays

4 min read
Conical spacecraft passing moon, sending red beam toward Earth
Telecommunications Topic Aerospace Type News

Space Lasers: NASA Technology 100 Times More Powerful Than Radio

Radio isn’t the only way to link ground stations with distant space probes

4 min read
Gold-colored, leaf sized origami surround a microflier
Aerospace Topic Type Robotics Sensors News

Solar-Powered Microfliers for Swarm-Based Surveying

These drone-deployed, batteryless aerial motes change shape in midair

4 min read
Artist's rendering of spacecraft with four legs shaped like flower petals
Robotics Topic Aerospace Type News

Happy Landings: A Soft Robot to Probe Asteroids

“Softbots” could touch down without bouncing away or breaking fragile rocks

4 min read
WIPL-D Logo
Telecommunications Topic Type Computing Whitepaper

Radomes: Efficient 3D EM Simulation

Learn about Method-of-Moments (MoM) for radome simulations in WIPL-D suite

a group of people in all white suits standing at the bottom of a large hill covered in red mud
Artificial Intelligence Topic Aerospace Type News Climate Tech

Watch Out, That Hill Might Collapse!

AI can analyze satellite data to predict which areas might be most vulnerable to landslides

2 min read
Three fighter jets fly in the air. The one in the foreground does not have a cockpit like the other two, and is labelled XQ-58A.
Aerospace Topic Type News

The USAF Pairs Piloted Jets With AI Drones

Has AI spawned the ultimate “loyal wingman”—or just the next smart weapon?

4 min read
Aerospace Topic August 2023 Magazine Type Feature

How to Build a Power Grid on the Moon

To supply outposts sunk in the lunar night, solar power must come from the south pole regions

7 min read
a gold-colored cube mounted on four wheels and bearing on its top a four-panel vertical structure is shown moving up a crater-pocked lunar hill, trailing a cable that connects to three tall vertical panels in the background