Light to moderate cold wave has been blowing through north-western parts of the country. Today the lowest temperature of the season was recorded at Tentulia 6.2 degree Celsius. Meteorologist Dr. Abdul Mannan said, light to moderate cold wave may blow through north, north-east and middle parts of the country from Friday. He said, tomorrow the sky will be cloudy and drizzle may occur. Then the night temperature may increase and day temperature may decrease. Southern districts Faridpur, Madaripur, Gopalganj, Barishal, Khulna and Jashore, northern districts Chuadanga and Rajshahi experienced severe cold in last week. The first cold wave blew overt these districts. The situation began to improve from Sunday. According to the met office, today’s lowest temperature 6.2 degree Celsius was recorded at Tentulia under Panchagarh district, in Dinajpur the lowest temperature was 6.8 degree Celsius, at Badalgachhi 7.4 degree Celsius, at Dimla 7.5 degree Celsius, at Rajarhat 7.7 degree Celsius and at Tarash 8 degree Celsius. Today the lowest temperature 13 degree Celsius was recorded in Dhaka and the highest was 22.2 degree Celsius. In the next 24 hours weather forecast starting from 9 am it was said, moderate to dense fog may come down from midnight to the morning. Sky may be slight cloudy and the weather may remain dry. Met office said that night temperature may be unchanged and day temperature may increase. The humidity in the wind at 9 am was 99 percent. AH        

Rising space power China on Monday attacked the newly created U.S. Space Force as a "direct threat to outer space peace and security." Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters that China is "deeply concerned about it and resolutely opposed to it." "The relevant U.S. actions are a serious violation of the international consensus on the peaceful use of outer space, undermine global strategic balance and stability, and pose a direct threat to outer space peace and security," Geng said at a regular briefing. China's space program has advanced rapidly since its first crewed mission in 2003. In a report last February, the Pentagon asserted that China and Russia have embarked on major efforts to develop technologies that could allow them to disrupt or destroy American and allied satellites in a crisis or conflict. China in 2007 conducted an unannounced missile strike against one of its own defunct satellites, creating an enormous amount of space debris. Geng dismissed such concerns, calling them "unfounded counter charges" that merely provided the U.S. with a justification for its own actions. China, he said, has consistently opposed the weaponization of space and believes international treaties on arms control in outer space need to be negotiated. "We hope that the international community, especially the major powers concerned, will adopt a cautious and responsible attitude to prevent outer space from becoming a new battlefield and work together to maintain lasting peace and tranquility in outer space," he said. The establishment of the Space Force is seen by the U.S. military as a recognition of the need to more effectively organize for the defense of U.S. interests in space — especially satellites used for navigation and communication. The Space Force is not designed or intended to put combat troops in space. Space has "evolved into a war-fighting domain of its own," Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters Friday. Space has become increasingly important to the U.S. economy and to everyday life. The Global Positioning System, for example, provides navigation services to the military as well as civilians. Its constellation of about two dozen orbiting satellites is operated by the 50th Space Wing from an operations center at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado. China has established a similar, independent network, the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, assembled from 42 separate satellite launches. Source: AP/UNB AH

Boeing's new Starliner capsule went off course Friday during its first test flight, spoiling a crucial dress rehearsal for launching astronauts next year. The capsule will stay in orbit for a few days but won't dock with the International Space Station as planned. It will return to Earth as early as Sunday, landing in the New Mexico dessert, NASA and company officials said. They said the capsule was stable and safe. Friday's blastoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida, went flawlessly as the Atlas V rocket lifted off with the Starliner capsule just before sunrise. But a half-hour into the flight, Boeing reported that the capsule didn't get into the right orbit. Officials said the spacecraft's timer didn't work properly and it burned up too much fuel to safely make the trip to the space station. This was Boeing's chance to catch up with SpaceX, NASA's other commercial crew provider that successfully completed a similar demonstration last March. SpaceX has one last hurdle — a launch abort test — before carrying two NASA astronauts in its Dragon capsule, possibly by spring. A successful Starliner demo could have seen Boeing launching astronauts by summer. But that might not be possible now. At a briefing, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said it was too early to know if another test flight would be needed before flying astronauts. "I'm not ruling it out," Bridenstine said on whether the next Starliner might carry crew or go empty. Had astronauts been on board, they may have been able to take over, correct the problem, and get the capsule to the space station, he said. It's been nearly nine years since NASA astronauts have launched from the U.S. The last time was July 8, 2011, when Atlantis — now on display at Kennedy Space Center — made the final space shuttle flight. Since then, NASA astronauts have traveled to and from the space station via Kazakhstan, courtesy of the Russian Space Agency. The Soyuz rides have cost NASA up to $86 million apiece. The space agency handed over station deliveries to private businesses, first cargo and then crews, in order to focus on getting astronauts back to the moon and on to Mars. Commercial cargo ships took flight in 2012, starting with SpaceX. Crew capsules were more complicated to design and build, and parachute and other technical problems pushed the first launches from 2017 to now next year. Last April, a SpaceX crew capsule exploded during a ground test. The U.S. needs companies competing like this, Bridenstine said Thursday, to drive down launch costs, boost innovation and open space up to more people. He stressed the need for more than one company in case of problems that kept one grounded. Thousands of spectators jammed the launch area Friday, eager to witness Starliner's premiere flight. The United Launch Alliance rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and was visible for at least five minutes, its white contrail a brilliant contrast against the dark sky. The mood quickly turned somber as news of the setback trickled out. All three astronauts assigned to the first Starliner crew were at control centers to watch the launch: NASA's Mike Fincke and Nicole Mann and Boeing's Chris Ferguson. Ferguson commanded the last shuttle mission. He's now a test pilot astronaut for Boeing and one of the Starliner's key developers.  "This is why we flight test, right?. We're trying to get all of the bugs removed out of the system," said Fincke at the briefing. "There's always something." Built to accommodate seven, the white capsule with black and blue trim will typically carry four or five people. It's 16.5 feet (5 meters) tall with its attached service module and 15 feet (4.5 meters) in diameter. For the test flight, the Starliner carried Christmas treats and presents for the six space station residents, hundreds of tree seeds similar to those that flew to the moon on Apollo 14, the original air travel ID card belonging to Boeing's founder and a mannequin named Rosie in the commander's seat. The test dummy — named after the bicep-flexing riveter of World War II — wore a red polka dot hair bandanna just like the original Rosie and Boeing's custom royal blue spacesuit. The flight was designed to test all systems, from the vibrations and stresses of liftoff to the touchdown at the Army's White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, with parachutes and air bags to soften the landing. Even the test dummy is packed with sensors. On the eve of the flight, Bridenstine said he's "very comfortable" with Boeing, despite the prolonged grounding of the company's 737 Max jets. The spacecraft and aircraft sides of the company are different, he noted. Boeing has long been involved in NASA's human spacecraft program, from Project Mercury to the shuttle and station programs. Boeing began preliminary work on the Starliner in 2010, a year before Atlantis soared for the last time. In 2014, Boeing and SpaceX made the final cut. Boeing got more than $4 billion to develop and fly the Starliner, while SpaceX got $2.6 billion for a crew-version of its Dragon cargo ship. NASA wants to make sure every reasonable precaution is taken with the capsules, designed to be safer than NASA's old shuttles. "We're talking about human spaceflight," Bridenstine cautioned. "It's not for the faint of heart. It never has been, and it's never going to be." Source: AP/UNB AH

The meteorological directorate has said that light cold wave is blowing over the regions of Rajshahi, Pabna, Naogaon, Kurigram, Nilfamari, Jashore and Chuadanga and it may extend for three more days. The information was delivered by the directorate through a notice. In the weather forecast it said, with cloudy sky in the country the weather mainly may remain dry. Moderate to dense fog may come down in some parts of the country from the midnight to the morning. The night’s temperature may decrease slightly and the day’s temperature may remain unchanged. The sky was partially cloudy throughout the day and wind speed was highest 15 kilometers per hour from north and north-west direction. Today’s lowest temperature was recorded 8 degree Celsius in Chuadanga and Meherpur districts and it was 13 degree Celsius in the capital. AH      

NASA's Mars 2020 rover has successfully passed its first driving test, according to a release of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, on Wednesday. A preliminary assessment of the rover's activities on Tuesday showed that it checked all the necessary boxes as it rolled forward and backward and pirouetted in a clean room at JPL. The next time the Mars 2020 rover drives, it will be rolling over Martian soil, according to JPL. "Mars 2020 has earned its driver's license," said Rich Rieber, the lead mobility systems engineer for Mars 2020. "The test unambiguously proved that the rover can operate under its own weight and demonstrated many of the autonomous-navigation functions for the first time. This is a major milestone for Mars 2020." Scheduled to launch in July or August 2020, the Mars 2020 mission will search for signs of past microbial life, characterize Mars' climate and geology, collect samples for future return to Earth, and pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet. It is scheduled to land in an area of Mars known as Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021. "To fulfill the mission's ambitious science goals, we need the Mars 2020 rover to cover a lot of ground," said Katie Stack Morgan, Mars 2020 deputy project scientist. According to JPL, Mars 2020 is designed to make more driving decisions for itself than any previous rover. It is equipped with higher-resolution, wide-field-of-view color navigation cameras, an extra computer "brain" for processing images and making maps, and more sophisticated auto-navigation software. It also has wheels that have been redesigned for added durability. Mars 2020 is part of a larger program that includes missions to Moon as a way to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet, according to JPL. Source: Xinhua/UNB AH