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Space & Physics

Odyssey’s touch down confirmed as America returns to the Moon

Odyssey is just the first of many robotic missions to set the stage for the first American man and woman to set foot on the Moon since the Apollo.

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Odyssey snapshots the moon from orbit, prior to landing. Credit: Intuitive Machines

In a historic first, Intuitive Machines have become the first private company to ever soft-land on the Moon ever. It’s also the first American soft-landing on the Moon, since Apollo 17 in 1972.

The world watched with baited breath, as the US-based company’s Odyssey lander (also designated as IM-1) made a soft-landing at or 6:23 p.m. ET on Thursday (or 4:53 a.m. IST, Friday) near the lunar south pole.

Intuitive Machines tweeted on X quoting their mission director, Tim Crain, confirming the touchdown – “Odyssey has a new home.”

It wasn’t all smooth for Odyssey though, since the lander apparently stopped communications right after landing. It took some careful troubleshooting from ground teams at Intuitive Machines before confirming that the lander was ‘upright’. Intuitive Machines said they were working to downlink the first images of the lunar surface.

The landing marks the second, since India’s Chandrayaan-3 became the first to successfully soft-land at the lunar south pole – which is thought to have frozen water underneath the surface.

A previous attempt by Astrobotics’ Peregrine mission to soft-land similarly failed after a faulty booster, abandoning the mission and ended up burning away on re-entry in the earth’s atmosphere.

“What a triumph! Odysseus has taken the moon,” said Bill Nelson, the NASA Administrator in a video message aired right after confirmation of touchdown. “This feat is a giant leap forward for all of humanity. Stay tuned!”

Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus lent his congratulations to the engineers. “I know this was a nail-biter, but we are on the surface and we are transmitting,” he said. “Welcome to the moon.”

It was launched aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 on February 15th last week, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, US.

Odyssey launched aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 from NASA’s Cape Canaveral at Florida, US. Credit: Kim Shiflett / NASA

Odyssey landed at a cratered terrain close to a 5 km-high mountain complex known as Malapert.

The Odyssey mission will be the first of a series of robotic exploration missions, contracted under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.

The buildup towards Artemis

The Odyssey carries 12 instruments – 6 each from NASA and Intuitive Machine’s other clients.

Other clients include a telescope sent by the International Lunar Observatory Association that will snap pictures of the Milky Way galaxy, using clear night skies for astronomy.

Also, a box attached to the lander carries some 125 small stainless steel balls, made by the American artist Jeff Koons, depicting the various phases of the moon.

Moreover, finally, there’s an on-board camera that will snap pictures of the lander’s descent to the surface, built by students from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, US.

NASA instrumentation include: a laser retro-reflector, a camera to analyze lunar dust plumes generated as the lunar soft-lands, a communication device, a low-frequency radio receiver to detect radio emissions from the Sun, Earth, Jupiter and the lunar regolith, and finally two sensors to gauge fuel levels and speed of descent during soft-landing.

All of this cost NASA some $118 million, aimed at gathering data about soft-landing in advance for future landings.

Gene Cernan driving the Lunar Roving Vehicle during Apollo 17, Credit: NASA / Unsplash

The CLPS missions build towards the Artemis missions that the new US lunar program is designed for. It would mark the ultimate return to the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. Artemis-3 will see the first man and woman to walk on the Moon – tentatively in 2026.

Regarding the Artemis missions, NASA stated that they have far-reaching ambition even to explore our solar system with in-situ resources. This means, excavating water ice from underneath the lunar south pole surface and generating fuel.

In fact, that feat may be demonstrated far earlier than you might think. Intuitive Machines is set to g to the Moon again in March this year, with a drill to dig out that water ice.

Until then, all eyes and ears will be to know what Odyssey finally managed to learn about this new unexplored terrain.

Space & Physics

MIT unveils an ultra-efficient 5G receiver that may supercharge future smart devices

A key innovation lies in the chip’s clever use of a phenomenon called the Miller effect, which allows small capacitors to perform like larger ones

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Image credit: Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

A team of MIT researchers has developed a groundbreaking wireless receiver that could transform the future of Internet of Things (IoT) devices by dramatically improving energy efficiency and resilience to signal interference.

Designed for use in compact, battery-powered smart gadgets—like health monitors, environmental sensors, and industrial trackers—the new chip consumes less than a milliwatt of power and is roughly 30 times more resistant to certain types of interference than conventional receivers.

“This receiver could help expand the capabilities of IoT gadgets,” said Soroush Araei, an electrical engineering graduate student at MIT and lead author of the study, in a media statement. “Devices could become smaller, last longer on a battery, and work more reliably in crowded wireless environments like factory floors or smart cities.”

The chip, recently unveiled at the IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium, stands out for its novel use of passive filtering and ultra-small capacitors controlled by tiny switches. These switches require far less power than those typically found in existing IoT receivers.

A key innovation lies in the chip’s clever use of a phenomenon called the Miller effect, which allows small capacitors to perform like larger ones. This means the receiver achieves necessary filtering without relying on bulky components, keeping the circuit size under 0.05 square millimeters.

Credit: Courtesy of the researchers/MIT News

Traditional IoT receivers rely on fixed-frequency filters to block interference, but next-generation 5G-compatible devices need to operate across wider frequency ranges. The MIT design meets this demand using an innovative on-chip switch-capacitor network that blocks unwanted harmonic interference early in the signal chain—before it gets amplified and digitized.

Another critical breakthrough is a technique called bootstrap clocking, which ensures the miniature switches operate correctly even at a low power supply of just 0.6 volts. This helps maintain reliability without adding complex circuitry or draining battery life.

The chip’s minimalist design—using fewer and smaller components—also reduces signal leakage and manufacturing costs, making it well-suited for mass production.

Looking ahead, the MIT team is exploring ways to run the receiver without any dedicated power source—possibly by harvesting ambient energy from nearby Wi-Fi or Bluetooth signals.

The research was conducted by Araei alongside Mohammad Barzgari, Haibo Yang, and senior author Professor Negar Reiskarimian of MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratories.

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Society

Ahmedabad Plane Crash: The Science Behind Aircraft Take-Off -Understanding the Physics of Flight

Take-off is one of the most critical phases of flight, relying on the precise orchestration of aerodynamics, propulsion, and control systems. Here’s how it works:

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On June 12, 2025, a tragic aviation accident struck Ahmedabad, India when a regional passenger aircraft, Air India flight A1-171, crashed during take-off at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport. According to preliminary reports, the incident resulted in over 200 confirmed casualties, including both passengers and crew members, and several others are critically injured. The aviation community and scientific world now turn their eyes not just toward the cause but also toward understanding the complex science behind what should have been a routine take-off.

How Do Aircraft Take Off?

Take-off is one of the most critical phases of flight, relying on the precise orchestration of aerodynamics, propulsion, and control systems. Here’s how it works:

1. Lift and Thrust

To leave the ground, an aircraft must generate lift, a force that counters gravity. This is achieved through the unique shape of the wing, called an airfoil, which creates a pressure difference — higher pressure under the wing and lower pressure above — according to Bernoulli’s Principle and Newton’s Third Law.

Simultaneously, engines provide thrust, propelling the aircraft forward. Most commercial jets use turbofan engines, which accelerate air through turbines to generate power.

2. Critical Speeds

Before takeoff, pilots calculate critical speeds:

  • V1 (Decision Speed): The last moment a takeoff can be safely aborted.
  • Vr (Rotation Speed): The speed at which the pilot begins to lift the nose.
  • V2 (Takeoff Safety Speed): The speed needed to climb safely even if one engine fails.

If anything disrupts this process — like bird strikes, engine failure, or runway obstructions — the results can be catastrophic.

Environmental and Mechanical Challenges

Factors like wind shear, runway surface condition, mechanical integrity, or pilot error can interfere with safe take-off. Investigators will be analyzing these very aspects in the Ahmedabad case.

The Bigger Picture

Take-off accounts for a small fraction of total flight time but is disproportionately associated with accidents — approximately 14% of all aviation accidents occur during take-off or initial climb.

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Space & Physics

MIT claims breakthrough in simulating physics of squishy, elastic materials

In a series of experiments, the new solver demonstrated its ability to simulate a diverse array of elastic behaviors, ranging from bouncing geometric shapes to soft, squishy characters

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Image credit: Courtesy of researchers

Researchers at MIT claim to have unveiled a novel physics-based simulation method that significantly improves stability and accuracy when modeling elastic materials — a key development for industries spanning animation, engineering, and digital fabrication.

In a series of experiments, the new solver demonstrated its ability to simulate a diverse array of elastic behaviors, ranging from bouncing geometric shapes to soft, squishy characters. Crucially, it maintained important physical properties and remained stable over long periods of time — an area where many existing methods falter.

Other simulation techniques frequently struggled in tests: some became unstable and caused erratic behavior, while others introduced excessive damping that distorted the motion. In contrast, the new method preserved elasticity without compromising reliability.

“Because our method demonstrates more stability, it can give animators more reliability and confidence when simulating anything elastic, whether it’s something from the real world or even something completely imaginary,” Leticia Mattos Da Silva, a graduate student at MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, said in a media statement.

Their study, though not yet peer-reviewed or published, will be presented at the August proceedings of the SIGGRAPH conference in Vancouver, Canada.

While the solver does not prioritize speed as aggressively as some tools, it avoids the accuracy and robustness trade-offs often associated with faster methods. It also sidesteps the complexity of nonlinear solvers, which are commonly used in physics-based approaches but are often sensitive and prone to failure.

Looking ahead, the research team aims to reduce computational costs and broaden the solver’s applications. One promising direction is in engineering and fabrication, where accurate elastic simulations could enhance the design of real-world products such as garments, medical devices, and toys.

“We were able to revive an old class of integrators in our work. My guess is there are other examples where researchers can revisit a problem to find a hidden convexity structure that could offer a lot of advantages,” Mattos Da Silva added.

The study opens new possibilities not only for digital content creation but also for practical design fields that rely on predictive simulations of flexible materials.

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