TYB
Vodafone claims first space-based 5G phone call – no modifications needed
Thu 21 Sep 2023 // 12:34 UTC
Vodafone is claiming to have made the world's first space-based 5G call placed using an unmodified handset, thanks to a test satellite operated by AST SpaceMobile.
Interest in delivering services to mobile phones from orbiting satellites has been growing since Apple unveiled its Emergency SOS feature for the iPhone that allows users to text for help even when there is no terrestrial network coverage.
However, the BlueWalker 3 satellite operated by AST SpaceMobile is specifically designed to provide 4G and 5G connectivity, allowing for data services and internet voice calls, which is what happened in this case.
According to Vodafone, the 5G call was made on September 8 from Maui, Hawaii, to a Vodafone engineer in Madrid, Spain, from an unmodified Samsung Galaxy S22 smartphone, using the WhatsApp voice and messaging app.
A cynic might therefore argue that it was AST SpaceMobile that made this first space-based 5G call possible rather than Vodafone. We couldn't possibly comment. Vodafone is, however, an investor in AST SpaceMobile, along with Rakuten Mobile in Japan and AT&T in the US.
But that didn't stop Vodafone Group Chief Executive Margherita Della Valle from hailing it as an important step in delivering connectivity to more users.
"Vodafone is striving to close the mobile usage gap for millions of people across Europe and Africa. By making the world's first space-based 5G call to Europe, we have taken another important step in realizing that ambition," she said in a statement.
The move follows on from AST SpaceMobile claiming the first two-way voice call directly to everyday unmodified smartphones via the BlueWalker 3 in April. The call in that instance was made from Midland in Texas to Rakuten in Japan using 4G.
In a separate test, AST Space Mobile said it achieved a download rate of nearly 14Mbps in a broadband data session using the BlueWalker 3 satellite. This demonstrates the potential of the technology to connect people in remote regions to the internet for the first time using existing mobile phones, the company claimed.
BlueWalker 3 is still just a test vehicle, however, and is paving the way for AST SpaceMobile's plans to launch five commercial BlueBird satellites in the first quarter of 2024.
Vodafone said that AST SpaceMobile's terrestrial infrastructure in Spain will play a key role, including a control center for the management of customer traffic, which will cover remote land-based areas within Europe and the Mediterranean.
A Vodafone spokesperson told us that it intends to offer commercial services using AST SpaceMobile satellites in future, but said it is too early to name any definitive date for when this will be available as the timing is dependent on AST SpaceMobile successfully deploying its satellite constellation – something that is not without risk, as Viasat knows full well.
These services should allow broadband connections using any standard 5G smartphone, Vodafone told us. The telecoms giant also said it has an exclusivity arrangement with AST SpaceMobile for services covering Europe and Africa.
Vodafone is backing more than one horse in the race. It is also involved with Amazon's Project Kuiper to extend 4G and 5G services to more regions in Europe and Africa via satellites, although it has yet to launch any.
In the US, T-Mobile has hooked up with Elon Musk's SpaceX to link its terrestrial wireless network with the Starlink low Earth orbit satellite constellation. The pair aim to initially support text messaging covering the US, with a plan to extend support to voice and data coverage afterwards.
However, AST SpaceMobile may have a technical advantage here, as Gartner VP Analyst Bill Ray previously explained to us.
"SpaceMobile's point of differentiation is its huge antenna, which makes it capable of putting down a small spot beam which limits interference. Starlink's v2 satellites have a tiny antenna, by comparison, which means bigger spot footprints and more potential for interference," Ray said.
Concerns over potential interference with existing terrestrial wireless services led to AT&T filing a petition with the US Federal Communications Commission earlier this year to block T-Mobile US from operating its satellite-based service
https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/21/vodafone_first_space_5g_call/
RNA has been recovered from an extinct species for the first time
SEPTEMBER 19, 2023
A new study shows the isolation and sequencing of more than a century-old RNA molecules from a Tasmanian tiger specimen preserved at room temperature in a museum collection. This resulted in the reconstruction of skin and skeletal muscle transcriptomes from an extinct species for the first time.
The researchers note that their findings have relevant implications for international efforts to resurrect extinct species, including both the Tasmanian tiger and the wooly mammoth, as well as for studying pandemic RNA viruses.
The Tasmanian tiger, also known as the thylacine, was a remarkable apex carnivorous marsupial that was once distributed all across the Australian continent and the island of Tasmania. This extraordinary species found its final demise after European colonization, when it was declared as an agricultural pest and a bounty of £1 per each full-grown animal killed was set by 1888. The last known living Tasmanian tiger died in captivity in 1936 at the Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart, Tasmania.
Recent efforts in de-extinction have focused on the Tasmanian tiger, as its natural habitat in Tasmania is still mostly preserved, and its reintroduction could help recovering past ecosystem equilibriums lost after its final disappearance. However, reconstructing a functional living Tasmanian tiger not only requires a comprehensive knowledge of its genome (DNA) but also of tissue-specific gene expression dynamics and how gene regulation worked, which are only attainable by studying its transcriptome (RNA).
"Resurrecting the Tasmanian tiger or the wooly mammoth is not a trivial task, and will require a deep knowledge of both the genome and transcriptome regulation of such renowned species, something that only now is starting to be revealed," says Emilio Mármol, the lead author of a study recently published in the Genome Research journal by researchers at SciLifeLab in collaboration with the Centre for Paleogenetics, a joint venture between the Swedish Museum of Natural History and Stockholm University.
The researchers behind this study have sequenced, for the first time, the transcriptome of the skin and skeletal muscle tissues from a 130-year-old desiccated Tasmanian tiger specimen preserved at room temperature in the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm. This led to the identification of tissue-specific gene expression signatures that resemble those from living extant marsupial and placental mammals.
The recovered transcriptomes were of such good quality that it was possible to identify muscle- and skin-specific protein coding RNAs, and led to the annotation of missing ribosomal RNA and microRNA genes, the later following MirGeneDB recommendations.
"This is the first time that we have had a glimpse into the existence of thylacine-specific regulatory genes, such as microRNAs, that got extinct more than one century ago," says Marc R. Friedländer, Associate Professor at the Department of Molecular Biosciences, The Wenner-Gren Institute at Stockholm University and SciLifeLab.
This pioneering study opens up new exciting opportunities and implications for exploring the vast collections of specimens and tissues stored at museums across the globe, where RNA molecules might await to be uncovered and sequenced.
"In the future, we may be able to recover RNA not only from extinct animals, but also RNA virus genomes such as SARS-CoV2 and their evolutionary precursors from the skins of bats and other host organisms held in museum collections," says Love Dalén, Professor of evolutionary genomics at Stockholm University and the Centre for Paleogenetics.
The authors of the study say they are excited for future holistic research developments integrating both genomics and transcriptomics towards a new era in paleogenetics beyond DNA.
https://phys.org/news/2023-09-rna-recovered-extinct-species.html
NASA Seeks Proposals from US Industry for Station Deorbit Spacecraft
September 20, 2023
NASA has released a request for proposal from U.S. industry for the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle (USDV), a spacecraft meant to safely deorbit the International Space Station as part of its planned retirement.
To maximize value to the government and enhance competition, the acquisition will allow offerors flexibility in proposing Firm Fixed Price or Cost Plus Incentive Fee for the Design, Development, Test and Evaluation phase. The remainder of the contract will be Firm Fixed Price.
Since 1998, five space agencies (the Canadian Space Agency, the European Space Agency, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the State Space Corporation “Roscosmos”) have operated the International Space Station, with each responsible for managing and controlling the hardware it provides. The station was designed to be interdependent and relies on contributions from across the partnership to function. The United States, Japan, Canada, and the participating countries of ESA (European Space Agency) have committed to operating the station through 2030, and Russia through at least 2028.
At the conclusion of the International Space Station program, the station will be deorbited in a controlled manner to avoid populated areas. The safe deorbit of the International Space Station is a shared responsibility of all five space agencies through partner contributions based on mass percent ownership by agency. In the future, the United States plans to transition its operations in low Earth orbit to commercially-owned and -operated platforms to ensure continued access and presence in space for research, technology development, and international collaboration.
In a years-long effort, NASA and its partners studied deorbit requirements and previously developed a preliminary strategy and action plan that evaluated the use of multiple Roscosmos Progress spacecraft to support deorbit operations. These efforts now indicate a new spacecraft solution would provide more robust capabilities for responsible deorbit. To initiate development of this new spacecraft, NASA released the request for proposal.
The USDV is focused on the final deorbit activity. It will be a new spacecraft design or modification to an existing spacecraft that must function on its first flight and have sufficient redundancy and anomaly recovery capability to continue the critical deorbit burn. As with any development effort of this size, the USDV will take years to develop, test, and certify.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2023/09/20/nasa-seeks-proposals-from-us-industry-for-station-deorbit-spacecraft/