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Purdue has created part of a new cubesat thruster which electromagnetically accelerates plasma to produce thrust. They have successfully tested the ignition system for more than 1.5 million pulses....

Maxwell Technologies has breakthrough dry battery electrode technology and ultracapacitors. Tesla has announced the purchase of Maxwell Technologies for $218 million in an all-stock deal. The Maxwell dry battery electrode technology could increase battery energy density by 50% and eventually could nearly triple energy density from current levels. The technology can also lower the cost of batteries by 10 to 20% and double the life of batteries. Currently, the Tesla Model 3 battery pack has an energy density of 272 Watt-hours per liter and at the battery cell level this is 207 watt-hours per kilogram. The dry battery electrode can The post Tesla Buys Maxwell to Eventually Nearly Triple Battery Energy Density appeared first on NextBigFuture.com.

There will be around 100 million cars, light vehicles truck and buses sold in 2019, which will bring the total vehicles in use in the world to around 1.5 billion. SUVs are over one-third of the car sales. Here is the breakdown of cars and other vehicles sales with figures from 2017 and 2018. Worldwide car registrations were slightly down in 2018 compared to 2017. This is information reported by Car sales in China down about 4% from 24.2 million in 2017 to 23.3 million in 2018. One-third of the 900,000 drop car sales in 2018 in China was due The post Around 100 Million Vehicles Will be Sold in 2019 and Bring Vehicles in Use to About 1.5 Billion appeared first on NextBigFuture.com.

India’s 2019-2020 budget for the Ministry of Defense will be 8% higher at $60.9 billion. $42.7 billion is for the conventional defense budget. This is from an Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) report. The post India Boosts Military Spending by 8% in 2019-2020 appeared first on NextBigFuture.com.

Self-driving cars should be able to solve traffic and parking problems. However, this requires that most self-driving cars are used with ride-sharing to maximize the useful rides per car and to...

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is working with many companies and researchers to provide security for financial information and privacy when there are quantum computers powerful...

Buckminsterfullerene, C60, is now the largest molecule that has ever been analyzed for quantum vibrations. Fully understanding and controlling the quantum details of buckyballs could lead to quantum...

Spacex placed a photo of the Starship raptor engine test on Instagram. SpaceX reported that they completed a two-second test fire of the Starship Raptor engine that hit 170 bar and ~116 metric tons...

Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) made public a revised national energy policy to continue a nuclear energy phaseout despite a vote by the people of Taiwan to continue using nuclear...

1. China has approved four nuclear power reactors after a three-year pause in nuclear reactor approvals. Four Hualong One units were approved after completing a safety review. The four units can pour...

China ran a simulated strike mission using a Dongfeng-41 (DF-41) intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and has released video showing improvements to the medium range Dongfeng-26 (DF-26)...

Elon Musk tweeted out the test firings of the new raptor engines. pic.twitter.com/ChEGbjTGKZ — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 4, 2019 pic.twitter.com/yFhNx3fiOD — Elon Musk (@elonmusk)...

Elon Musk is in Texas for the test firing of the Raptor Engine that will be used on the Starhopper test vehicle. There has been over 1200 seconds of testing over two years on previous versions of the...

In August, 2018, Elon Musk revealed the astronaut walkway that was added the LC-39A launch tower. Recent photos from Tom McCool on twitter show the cladding that was installed on LC-39A. Launch...

A NASA JPL researcher has calculated that Oumuamua was probably a cloud of debris and not an interstellar space sail fragment. There was a Harvard research theory that Oumuamua was an interstellar space sail fragment. The new JPL analysis is simpler and explains other observations and is consistent with the way other dwarf comets break apart. Oumuamua had a lot of anomalies in its orbit and path through the solar system. It had to be an interstellar object because it was moving a speed that is beyond the solar system escape velocity. This means it could not have had an The post Oumuamua as a Cloud of Debris Explains Anomalies appeared first on NextBigFuture.com.

OneSpace is currently working toward a launch of its OS-M rocket as early as late March, 2019. They have recently performed engine and fairing separation tests. One Space is developing smart small...

Elon Musk and SpaceX have simplified the Raptor engine and the Starship engine design. Every decision that is being made from the use of stainless steel metal, reduced payload and lower powered...

Low-cost batteries are critical to Tesla’s main products of electric cars and battery storage systems. Tesla has patented a new battery system. The patent describes a new battery cell chemistry...

Tesla plans to go to multiples of Model 3 with the Model Y, Tesla Pickup truck and self-driving cars. They project the Model Y production and demand will be 50% more than Model 3 and could end up...

Elon Musk has tweeted pictures of the completed raptor engines that will be installed on the Starhopper. SpaceX is preparing to fire the Starship Raptor engines in Texas. They have made a 200-ton...

Tesla cars and other electric vehicles are having trouble with the cold weather hitting much of the United States. However, Canadians deal with cold weather every winter and Canadian Tesla owners did...

Sensors were repurposed on the Curiosity rover and turned them into gravimeters, which measure changes in gravitational pull. That enabled them to measure the subtle tug from rock layers on lower...

Researchers have built a sheet of nickel with nanoscale pores that make it as strong as titanium but four to five times lighter. Titanium is as strong as steel but about twice as light. This new...

David Sinclair is working on various anti-aging molecules. He was famous for discovering the anti-aging effect of resveratrol and sirtuins. David Sinclair was interviewed on the Joe Rogan show about...

Vivienne Ming is a theoretical neuroscientist, technologist, and entrepreneur. She co-founded Socos, where machine learning and cognitive neuroscience are combined to maximize students’ life...

A Norwegian distributor of CAT heavy machinery has converted a CAT excavator to electric power using 3.4 tons of batteries. This was 300 kWh of batteries. A Tesla 85 kWh battery pack weighs 1,200 lb...

Elon Musk is projecting volume production of the Tesla Model 3 in China by the end of 2019. Elon Musk believes that they will reach a combined production of 10,000 Model 3 cars per week from the...

SpaceX is building walls around its Starhopper construction area. Here are some pictures from BocaChicagal at the Nasa Space Forum, Austin Barnard and Maria Pointer via Cowboy Dan’s twitter....

The post First 1 Terabyte Embedded Universal Flash Storage for Smartphones appeared first on NextBigFuture.com.

SpaceX has applied for a launch date of March 7, 2019 or later for the next Falcon Heavy launch. The first Falcon Heavy launch of 2019 will place Arabsat-6A spacecraft for Saudi Arabia into...

Dongguk University and other Korean researchers have made wafer scale hexagonal boron nitride films with a nearly perfect single-crystalline structure. The film self-assembles on top of liquid gold....

Boeing will soon decide whether to spend $15 billion to develop a new 797 mid-range passenger jet. The proposed 797 would have an oval-shaped body that saves weight and fuel. 797 trip costs would be...

Aridor, chairman of the board of AEBi and CEO Dr. Ilan Morad, say the AEBi anti-cancer treatment, which they call MuTaTo (multi-target toxin) is essentially on the scale of a cancer antibiotic – a...

Uber is trying to commercialize ride-sharing electric flying taxis within 5 years. Uber wants to have two demonstrator flights by 2020. Uber wants to begin commercial flights in 2023. Uber needs to...

When particular areas are automated then what is provided from automation becomes the competitive ante. The work and the activity will be to add more. This could mean creating more locations or...

Blue Origin has successfully launched a first commercial payload. It was a sub-orbital launch with the New Shepard rocket. The New Shepard system took 8 NASA-sponsored research and technology...

Blue Origin has started building a BE-4 rocket-engine production facility in Huntsville, Alabama. It will cost more than $200 million and employ about 300 when it opens in March 2020. This was...

Brazil’s mining company Vale has had its second iron tailings dam collapse in the last four years. An iron tailing dam burst on Friday. There are forty confirmed dead and about 200 people are...

Germany has announced that they will close down all coal power plants by 2038 according to Clean Energy Wire. Germany plans to close 25% of existing coal-burning plants (12.5 gigawatts) by 2022. This...

The Wall Street Journal featured Tesla’s Gigafactory in China. China is already Tesla’s second largest market. Tesla sold 14,000 cars in China in 2018, but China plans is for the new...

China will not approve wind and solar power projects unless they can compete with coal power prices. China stopped subsidizing large scale solar projects in May, 2018. This was reported by John...

One of the problems preventing the Multi-billion dollar ITER nuclear fusion project from scaling to provide commercial energy are disruptions of the plasma. Disruptions are sudden events that can...