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Space debris, also known as "space junk," presents a significant challenge for all space exploration activities, including those involving human-onboard spacecraft such as SpaceX's Crew Dragon and the International Space Station. The amount…
Society needs to prepare for more severe space weather than it has experienced in the modern technological era. To enable that, we must both quantify extreme-event characteristics and analyze impacts of lesser events that are frequent yet…
Laboratory astrophysics and complementary theoretical calculations are the foundations of astronomy and astrophysics and will remain so into the foreseeable future. The mission enabling impact of laboratory astrophysics ranges from the…
All sciences, including astronomy, are now entering the era of information abundance. The exponentially increasing volume and complexity of modern data sets promises to transform the scientific practice, but also poses a number of common…
The impact of exoplanet science on both the scientific community and on the general public is presented through various indicators and examples. It is estimated that about 3-4% of all refereed astronomy articles focus on exoplanets, and…
Advanced space technology systems often face high fixed costs, can serve limited non-government demand, and are significantly driven by non-market motivations. While increased entrepreneurial activity and national ambitions in space have…
Commercial cloud platforms are a powerful technology for astronomical research. Despite the benefits of cloud computing -- such as on-demand scalability and reduction of systems management overhead -- confusion over how to manage costs…
Most major discoveries in astronomy are unplanned, and result from surveying the Universe in a new way, rather than by testing a hypothesis or conducting an investigation with planned outcomes. For example, of the 10 greatest discoveries…
Started approximately in the late 1980s, exoplanetology has up to now unveiled the main gross bulk characteristics of planets and planetary systems. In the future it will benefit from more and more large telescopes and advanced space…
WFIRST is the highest priority space mission of the Decadal review, however, it is unlikely to begin in this decade primarily due to a anticipated NASA budget that is unlikely to have sufficient resources to fund such a mission. For this…
Astrophysics and cosmology are rich with data. The advent of wide-area digital cameras on large aperture telescopes has led to ever more ambitious surveys of the sky. Data volumes of entire surveys a decade ago can now be acquired in a…
I argue that there is a crisis in optical Astronomy due to a paucity of telescopes and thus the need for a paradigm shift in telescope technology. Large increases in collecting areas and observing time/astronomer are only possible if we…
Although the sun is really far away from us, some solar activities could still influence the performance and reliability of space-borne and ground-based technological systems on Earth. Those time-varying conditions in space caused by the…
The Russian invasion of Ukraine damaged or compromised astronomical facilities and has prompted the displacement of researchers. A plan to restore Ukrainian astronomy, rooted in a deeper integration with the international community, is now…
X-ray astronomy is our gateway to the hot universe. More than half of the baryons in the cosmos are too hot to be visible at shorter wavelengths. Studying the extreme environments of black hole and neutron star vicinities also requires…
The concept of a space elevator dates back to Tsilokovsky, but they are not commonly considered in near-term plans for space exploration, perhaps because a terrestrial elevator would not be possible without considerable improvements in…
CubeSats have the potential to expand astrophysical discovery space, complementing ground-based electromagnetic and gravitational-wave observatories. The CubeSat design specifications help streamline delivery of instrument payloads to…
Over the past decade, astronomers have been using an increasingly larger number of web-based applications and archives to conduct their research. However, despite the early success in creating links across projects and data centers, the…
When the first CubeSats were launched nearly two decades ago, few people believed that the miniature satellites would likely prove to be a useful scientific tool. Skeptics abounded. However, the last decade has seen the highly successful…
Advances in robotics and additive manufacturing have become game-changing for the prospects of space industry. It has become feasible to bootstrap a self-sustaining, self-expanding industry at reasonably low cost. Simple modeling was…