LAB REPORT

NASA has awarded Advanced Space a contract for its Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, or CAPSTONE, 02 mission, the agency said Friday.

Targeted for launch in 2027, CAPSTONE 02 will utilize two identical spacecraft, developed by Terran Orbital Systems, to showcase autonomous navigation, rendezvous and proximity operations and cislunar communications for future Artemis and lunar infrastructure missions. The CAPSTONE 02 spacecraft, each weighing about 400 kilograms, will also continue to assess radiation conditions around the Moon.

The space vehicles will rely on ground tracking data, optical sensors and celestial bodies so one craft can locate and rendezvous with the other. Each one will be able to play the role of “chaser” and “target” to test different operational scenarios.

The mission will carry an optical imaging payload from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to support navigation testing and capture lunar imagery.

The National Nuclear Security Administration is upgrading sensors on GPS satellites that will better monitor nuclear blasts around the world, according to the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons agency.

The NNSA sent the fifth, next-generation Global Burst Detector sensor system to the U.S. Space Force earlier this month for future launch on new Global Positioning System satellites, the administration said in a statement.

Nuclear explosions release a massive burst of X-rays that can be detected by satellites. Groups of the satellites receive the signals and triangulate to locate their origin.

Technicians from Sandia National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory worked on the next-generation Global Burst Detector system for more than 12 years, according to the Sandia website.

Sandia designed and produced the optical sensors and electronic management subsystems, and LLNL developed the electromagnetic pulse, X-ray and charged-particle sensors.

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has delivered the first 220 line-replaceable units (LRUs) for the Integrated Test Stand at Nevada National Security Sites, along with the first 100 units planned for the underground Principal Underground Laboratory for Subcritical Experimentation (PULSE) facility.

The deliveries represent a major milestone for Scorpius, a next-gen U.S. accelerator designed to support advanced nuclear research and improve scientists’ ability to study subcritical experiments.

The newly delivered hardware will enable full-scale system testing at the Integrated Test Stand before the accelerator is installed and commissioned underground, marking the completion of the first production sets of LRUs and moving the multi-laboratory Scorpius program closer to its integrated testing phase.

Developed by a team of U.S. national laboratories, Scorpius is designed to expand the capabilities used in the country’s nuclear stockpile stewardship and modernization efforts.

Researchers led by scientists at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB, have identified the source of a puzzling abundance of low-energy gamma rays released by the zinc-70 nucleus. Their results show that magnetic transitions occurring inside the nucleus produce the unexpected signal.

The findings, published in Nature in the study “Magnetic Character of the Low-Energy Enhancement in 70Zn,” resolve a long-standing question in nuclear physics and could improve scientific models of how heavy elements are created in space.

The experiment included staff scientists from several national laboratories, including Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Los Alamos National Laboratory (both National Nuclear Security Administration, or NNSA, laboratories); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

The work also reflects FRIB's larger partnership with national laboratories, which encourages the exchange of knowledge between fundamental research and national security applications. At the same time, the program gives students and early-career scientists practical training that supports the future nuclear workforce.

Pacific Fusion and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California have demonstrated the long-term operation of a next-generation pulsed-power technology, with a prototype system surpassing 3,000 electrical pulses, or “shots,” under a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA).

The achievement advances the laboratory’s prototype, named Sirius, beyond proof-of-concept and toward Technology Readiness Level 5 by providing data on lifetime and reliability needed to evaluate larger pulsed-power systems, according to local publication The Independent.

Sirius is a four-stage impedance-matched Marx generator, or IMG, developed at LLNL as a potential successor to conventional pulsed-power architectures, according to the Independent. Unlike traditional Marx generators, the system generates a fast electrical pulse in a single stage, reducing complexity while delivering 60 gigawatts in a 100-nanosecond pulse with 95% energy efficiency. These “shots” are individual firings of the pulsed-power system used to evaluate the durability of its components after multiple tries.