SAN FRANCISCO – CesiumAstro is preparing for rapid expansion thanks to an influx of cash announced Feb. 2: $270 million in equity and $200 million in debt financing. CesiumAstro raised […]
The post CesiumAstro to scale operations with $470 million in equity and debt financing appeared first on SpaceNews.
In January 2026, Iranian authorities shut down landline and mobile telecommunications infrastructure in the country to clamp down on coordinated protests. Starlink terminals, which were discreetly mounted on rooftops, helped Iranian protesters bypass this internet blackout. The role played by Starlink in the recent Iranian protests challenges the notion of digital sovereignty and promotes corporate […]
The post Starlink and the unravelling of digital sovereignty appeared first on SpaceNews.
Transcelestial, a startup developing optical communications technologies, has signed an agreement with Gilmour Space Technologies to incorporate its technology on Gilmour Space spacecraft.
The post Transcelestial to provide satellite laser communication terminals to Gilmour Space appeared first on SpaceNews.
For any company or business, it’s important to recognize and protect intellectual property (IP). In the case of novel inventions, which can include machines, processes and even medicines, a patent offers IP protection and lets firms control how those inventions are used. Patents, which in most countries can be granted for up to 20 years, give the owner exclusive rights so that others can’t directly copy the creation. A patent essentially prevents others from making, using or selling your invention.
But there are more reasons for holding a patent than IP protection alone. In particular, patents go some way to protecting the investment that may have been necessary to generate the IP in the first place, such as the cost of R&D facilities, materials, labour and expertise. Those factors need to be considered when you’re deciding if patenting is the right approach or not.
Patents are tangible assets that can be sold to other businesses or licensed for royalties to provide your compay with regular income.
Patents are in effect a form of currency. Counting as tangible assets that add to the overall value of a company, they can be sold to other businesses or licensed for royalties to provide regular income. Some companies, in fact, build up or acquire significant patent portfolios, which can be used for bargaining with competitors, potentially leading to cross-licensing agreements where both parties agree to use each other’s technology.
Patents also say something about the competitive edge of a company, by demonstrating technical expertise and market position through the control of a specific technology. Essentially, patents give credibility to a company’s claims of its technical know-how: a patent shows investors that a firm has a unique, protected asset, making the business more appealing and attractive to further investment.
However, it’s not all one-way traffic and there are obligations on the part of the patentee. Firstly, a patent holder has to reveal to the world exactly how their invention works. Governments favour this kind of public disclosure as it encourages broader participation in innovation. The downside is that whilst your competitors cannot directly copy you, they can enhance and improve upon your invention, provided those changes aren’t covered by the original patent.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that a patent holder is responsible for patent enforcement and any ensuing litigation; a patent office will not do this for you. So you’ll have to monitor what your competitors are up to and decide on what course of action to take if you suspect your patent’s been infringed. Trouble is, it can sometimes be hard to prove or disprove an infringement – and getting the lawyers in can be expensive, even if you win.
Probably the biggest consideration of all is the cost and time involved in making a patent application. Filing a patent requires a rigorous understanding of “prior art” – the existing body of relevant knowledge on which novelty is judged. You’ll therefore need to do a lot of work finding out about relevant established patents, any published research and journal articles, along with products or processes publicly disclosed before the patent’s filing date.
Before it can be filed with a patent office, a patent needs to be written as a legal description, which includes all the legwork like an abstract, background, detailed specifications, drawings and claims of the invention. Once filed, an expert in the relevant technical field will be assigned to assess the worth of the claim; this examiner must be satisfied that the application is both unique and “non-obvious” before it’s granted.
Even when the invention is judged to be technically novel, in order to be non-obvious, it must also involve an “inventive step” that would not be obvious to a person with “ordinary skill” in that technical field at the time of filing. The assessment phase can result in significant to-ing and fro-ing between the examiner and the applicant to determine exactly what is patentable. If insufficient evidence is found, the patent application will be refused.
Patents are only ever granted in a particular country or region, such as Europe, and the application process has to be repeated for each new place (although the information required is usually pretty similar). Translations may be required for some countries, there are fees for each application and, even if a patent is granted, you have to pay an additional annual bill to maintain the patent (which in the UK rises year on year).
Patents can take years to process, which is why many companies pay specialized firms to support their applications.
Patent applications, in other words, can be expensive and can take years to process. That’s why many companies pay specialized firms to support their patent applications. Those firms employ patent attorneys – legal experts with a technical background who help inventors and companies manage their IP rights by drafting patent applications, navigating patent office procedures and advising on IP strategy. Attorneys can also represent their clients in disputes or licensing deals, thereby acting as a crucial bridge between science/engineering and law.
It’s impossible to write about patents without mentioning the impact that Thomas Edison had as an inventor. During the 20th century, he became the world’s most prolific inventor with a staggering 1093 US patents granted in his lifetime. This monumental achievement remained unsurpassed until 2003, when it was overtaken by the Japanese inventor Shunpei Yamazaki and, more recently, by the Australian “patent titan” Kia Silverbrook in 2008.
Edison clearly saw there was a lot of value in patents, but how did he achieve so much? His approach was grounded in systematic problem solving, which he accomplished through his Menlo Park lab in New Jersey. Dedicated to technological development and invention, it was effectively the world’s first corporate R&D lab. And whilst Edison’s name appeared on all the patents, they were often primarily the work of his staff; he was effectively being credited for inventions made by his employees.
I have a love-hate relationship with patents or at least the process of obtaining them.
I will be honest; I have a love-hate relationship with patents or at least the process of obtaining them. As a scientist or engineer, it’s easy to think all the hard work is getting an invention over the line, slogging your guts out in the lab. But applying for a patent can be just as expensive and time-consuming, which is why you need to be clear on what and when to patent. Even Edison grew tired of being hailed a genius, stating that his success was “1% inspiration and 99% perspiration”.
Still, without the sweat of patents, your success might be all but 99% aspiration.
The post The pros and cons of patenting appeared first on Physics World.
Biogas is a renewable energy source formed when bacteria break down organic materials such as food waste, plant matter, and landfill waste in an oxygen‑free (anaerobic) process. It contains methane and carbon dioxide, along with trace amounts of impurities. Because of its high methane content, biogas can be used to generate electricity and heat, or to power vehicles. It can also be upgraded to almost pure methane, known as biomethane, which can directly replace natural fossil gas.
Strict rules apply to the amount of impurities allowed in biogas and biomethane, as these contaminants can damage engines, turbines, and catalysts during upgrading or combustion. EN 16723 is the European standard that sets maximum allowable levels of siloxanes and sulfur‑containing compounds for biomethane injected into the natural gas grid or used as vehicle fuel. These limits are extremely low, meaning highly sensitive analytical techniques are required. However, most biogas plants do not have the advanced equipment needed to measure these impurities accurately.
The researchers developed a new, simpler method to sample and analyse biogas using GC‑ICP‑MS. Gas chromatography (GC) separates chemical compounds in a gas mixture based on how quickly they travel through a column. Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP‑MS) then detects the elements within those compounds at very low concentrations. Crucially, this combined method can measure both siloxanes and sulfur compounds simultaneously. It avoids matrix effects that can limit other detectors and cause biased or ambiguous results. It also achieves the very low detection limits required by EN 16723.
The sampling approach and centralized measurement enables biogas plants to meet regulatory standards using an efficient, less complex, and more cost‑effective method with fewer errors. Overall, this research provides a practical, high‑accuracy tool that makes reliable biogas impurity monitoring accessible to plants of all sizes, strengthening biomethane quality, protecting infrastructure, and accelerating the transition to cleaner energy systems.
Ayush Agarwal et al 2026 Prog. Energy 8 015001
Household biogas technology in the cold climate of low-income countries: a review of sustainable technologies for accelerating biogas generation Sunil Prasad Lohani et al. (2024)
The post Practical impurity analysis for biogas producers appeared first on Physics World.
The Saudi Space Agency announced on Tuesday the names of the winning teams of the global “DebriSolver” competition, one of the flagship initiatives accompanying the Space Debris Conference 2026. Launched […]
The post Saudi Space Agency Announces Winners of Global ‘DebriSolver’ Competition at Space Debris Conference appeared first on SpaceNews.
One of the biggest questions in the tech sector has been if AI is the future, where does all the infrastructure go? Some space industry leaders — including Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos — believe the answer could be in orbit, via space-based data centers. That idea has gained attention in recent weeks. Musk is […]
The post With attention on orbital data centers, the focus turns to economics appeared first on SpaceNews.
Varda Space Industries completed its latest reentry mission Jan. 29, completing an end-to-end demonstration of a new in-house spacecraft design.
The post Varda’s W-5 mission lands in Australia appeared first on SpaceNews.
Physicists in Germany have created a new type of X-ray laser that uses a resonator cavity to improve the output of a conventional X-ray free electron laser (XFEL). Their proof-of-concept design delivers X-ray pulses that are more monochromatic and coherent than those from existing XFELs.
In recent decades, XFELs have delivered pulses of monochromatic and coherent X-rays for a wide range of science including physics, chemistry, biology and materials science.
Despite their name, XFELs do not work like conventional lasers. In particular, there is no gain medium or resonator cavity. Instead, XFELs rely on the fact that when a free electron is accelerated, it will emit electromagnetic radiation. In an XFEL, pulses of high-energy electrons are sent through an undulator, which deflects the electrons back and forth. These wiggling electrons radiate X-rays at a specific energy. As the X-rays and electrons travel along the undulator, they interact in such a way that the emitted X-ray pulse has a high degree of coherence.
While these XFELs have proven very useful, they do not deliver radiation that is as monochromatic or as coherent as radiation from conventional lasers. One reason why conventional lasers perform better is that the radiation is reflected back and forth many times in a mirrored cavity that is tuned to resonate at a specific frequency – whereas XFEL radiation only makes one pass through an undulator.
Practical X-ray cavities, however, are difficult to create. This is because X-rays penetrate deep into materials, where they are usually absorbed – making reflection with conventional mirrors impossible.
Now, researchers working at the European XFEL at DESY in Germany have created a proof-of-concept hybrid system that places an undulator within a mirrored resonator cavity. X-ray pulses that are created in the undulator are directed at a downstream mirror and reflected back to a mirror upstream of the undulator. The X-ray pulses are then reflected back downstream through the undulator. Crucially, a returning X-ray pulse overlaps with a subsequent electron pulse in the undulator, amplifying the X-ray pulse. As a result, the X-ray pulses circulating within the cavity quickly become more monochromatic and more coherent than pulses created by an undulator alone.
The team solved the mirror challenge by using diamond crystals that achieve the Bragg reflection of X-rays with a specific frequency. These are used at either end of the cavity in conjunction with Kirkpatrick–Baez mirrors, which help focus the reflected X-rays back into the cavity.
Some of the X-ray radiation circulating in the cavity is allowed to escape downstream, providing a beam of monochromatic and coherent X-ray pulses. They have called their system X-ray Free-Electron Laser Oscillator (XFELO). The cavity is about 66 m long.
DESY accelerator scientist Patrick Rauer explains, “With every round trip, the noise in the X-ray pulse gets less and the concentrated light more defined”. Rauer pioneered the design of the cavity in his PhD work and is now the DESY lead on its implementation. “It gets more stable and you start to see this single, clear frequency – this spike.” Indeed, the frequency width of XFELO X-ray pulses is about 1% that of pulses that are created by the undulators alone
Ensuring the overlap of electron and X-pulses within the cavity was also a significant challenge. This required a high degree of stability within the accelerator that provides electron pulses to XFELO. “It took years to bring the accelerator to that state, which is now unique in the world of high-repetition-rate accelerators”, explains Rauer.
Team member Harald Sinn says, “The successful demonstration shows that the resonator principle is practical to implement”. Sinn is head of European XFEL’s instrumentation department and he adds, “In comparison with methods used up to now, it delivers X-ray pulses with a very narrow wavelength as well as a much higher stability and coherence.”
The team will now work towards improving the stability of XFELO so that in the future it can be used to do experiments by European XFEL’s research community.
XFELO is described in Nature.
The post Cavity-based X-ray laser delivers high-quality pulses appeared first on Physics World.
SpaceX is seeking Federal Communications Commission approval for a satellite constellation of unprecedented scale intended to function as an orbital data center.
The post SpaceX files plans for million-satellite orbital data center constellation appeared first on SpaceNews.
China launched a satellite for Algeria late Friday, as signs mount that multiple missions have been delayed amid preparations for a key human spaceflight test.
The post China launches AlSat-3B for Algeria, further launches delayed ahead of key human spaceflight test appeared first on SpaceNews.
NASA has selected Axiom Space for its fifth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, scheduled for 2027.
The post Axiom wins fifth private astronaut mission to space station appeared first on SpaceNews.
The company expects more satellite orders and space work fueled by Golden Dome
The post L3Harris reaffirms commitment to space business amid missile sector expansion appeared first on SpaceNews.
Blue Origin announced Jan. 30 that it will halt flights of its New Shepard suborbital vehicle for at least two years as it shifts its focus to human lunar exploration.
The post Blue Origin halts New Shepard flights appeared first on SpaceNews.
NASA is delaying a key fueling test for the Artemis 2 mission because of weather, reducing the chances the launch can take place during its February window.
The post Weather delays Artemis 2 wet dress rehearsal appeared first on SpaceNews.
In this episode of Space Minds, SpaceNews senior staff writer Sandra Erwin sits down with Gen. Shawn Bratton, vice chair of space operations for the U.S. Space Force for a […]
The post A fireside chat with Space Force Gen. Shawn Bratton appeared first on SpaceNews.
Connexion