Rwanda has opened Africa's first smartphone manufacturing plant in the capital, Kigali, in an event attended by President Paul Kagame.
Manufactured by technology company Mara Group - the Mara X and Mara Z smartphones - will use Google's Android operating system and cost 175,750 Rwandan francs ($190; £155) and 120,250 Rwandan francs ($130;£106) respectively.
Oct 08, 2019
Astronauts Complete First Spacewalk In Series To Upgrade Station Batteries
Two NASA astronauts worked to replace batteries outside of the International Space Station, completing the first in a series of five planned spacewalks devoted to upgrading the orbiting laboratory's power system.
Continuing a process that began with an initial set of battery replacements in January 2017, Koch and Morgan ventured to the far left, or port, side of the space station's backbone truss to work on some of the outpost's older power storage units.
Oct 07, 2019
ISRO To Celebrate World Space Week In Seven Academic Institutions In Karnataka
As a part of World Space Week program, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has joined hands with seven academic institutions across Karnataka to spread information and knowledge about the benefits of space science and technologies to the student community.
The programme will start on 4 October and will continue till 10 October, 2019.
The seven institutions include Poornaprajna PU College at Adamar, SJM Institute of Technology at Chitradurga, Konkan Education Trust High School at Kumta, RV College of Engineering at Bengaluru, Tontadarya College of Engineering at Gadag, Sri Sai Vidyaniketan Residential School at Shahpur and Siddaganga Institute of Technology at Tumkur.
Oct 06, 2019
Researchers See Individual Virus Formation For The First Time
In a first, researchers have captured images of the formation of individual viruses, providing a detailed view of the mechanism with which particles self-assemble into the parasite -- an advance that may help us find new treatment approaches for viral diseases.
The study, published in the journal PNAS, looked at the formation of single-stranded RNA viruses -- the most abundant type of virus on the planet that is responsible for diseases like the West Nile fever, gastroenteritis, hand, foot, and mouth disease, polio, and the common cold.
The researchers, including those from Harvard University in the US, studied an RNA virus that infected the bacterium E. coli.
ISRO To Conduct Space Docking Trial In 2020 For Own Space Station
ISRO Chairman K Sivan has said that ISRO is planning to carry out a space docking experiment in 2020.
Two experimental modules will be sent into space (onboard a PSLV rocket) and two will be docked (or latched) with each other.
This comes months after he had announced plans to set up India's own space station by 2030.
NASA Takes Delivery of First All-Electric Experimental Aircraft
The first all-electric configuration of NASA's X-57 Maxwell now is at the agency's Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.
The X-57, NASA's first all-electric experimental aircraft, or X-plane – and the first crewed X-plane in two decades – was delivered by Empirical Systems Aerospace (ESAero) of San Luis Obispo, California in the first of three configurations as an all-electric aircraft, known as Modification II, or Mod II.
China Launches New Gaofen Earth-Imaging Satellite
A Chinese Long March 4C rocket delivered into orbit the Gaofen 10 Earth-imaging satellite, a likely replacement for a spacecraft lost in an August 2016 launch failure.
The Long March 4C booster lifted off with the Gaofen 10 satellite from the Taiyuan space center in northern China's Shanxi province.
The launch was China's 21st orbital launch attempt in 2019, and the 19th successful Chinese space launch so far.
Oct 05, 2019
Say Goodbye to This Ocean-Monitoring Satellite
The Jason-2/Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM), the third in a U.S.-European series of satellite missions designed to measure sea surface height, successfully ended its science mission on Oct. 1, 2019.
NASA and its mission partners made the decision to end the mission after detecting deterioration in the spacecraft's power system.
Jason-2/OSTM, a joint NASA mission with the French space agency Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) was launched in June 2008.
The mission extended the long-term record of sea surface height measurements started by the NASA-CNES TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason-1 missions. Jason-2/OSTM's 11-year lifetime well exceeded its three-year design life.
These measurements are being continued by its successor, Jason-3, launched in 2016.
Jason-2/OSTM provided unique insight into ocean currents and sea-level rise with tangible benefits to marine forecasting, meteorology and our understanding of climate change.