TYB
Fani Willis's giant panis with Kash Patel | The Roseanne Barr Podcast #31
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr9nqkoonP4
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
Jan 18, 2024
Northern Lights from the Stratosphere
Northern lights shine in this night skyview from planet Earth's stratosphere, captured on January 15. The single, 5 second exposure was made with a hand-held camera on board an aircraft above Winnipeg, Canada. During the exposure, terrestrial lights below leave colorful trails along the direction of motion of the speeding aircraft. Above the more distant horizon, energetic particles accelerated along Earth's magnetic field at the planet's polar regions excite atomic oxygen to create the shimmering display of Aurora Borealis. The aurora's characteristic greenish hue is generated at altitudes of 100-300 kilometers and red at even higher altitudes and lower atmospheric densities. The luminous glow of faint stars along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy arcs through the night, while the Andromeda galaxy extends this northern skyview to extragalactic space. A diffuse hint of Andromeda, the closest large spiral to the Milky Way, can just be seen to the upper left.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?
Ax-3 to Now Launch on Jan. 18
https://www.axiomspace.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nXlbgjIoP4
DoD seeks less space classification, more collaboration with allies and commercial partners
January 17, 2024
The Department of Defense is pushing to lower classification barriers and forge closer partnerships with the commercial space industry, John Plumb, assistant secretary of defense for space policy, said Jan. 17.
Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, Plumb shared that Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks late last year signed a memo that “removes legacy classification barriers that have inhibited our ability to collaborate across the U.S. government and also with allies on issues related to space.”
This does not mean classification is going away, Plumb clarified, but it indicates that DoD is taking a hard look at where secrecy might have gone overboard. In some areas, he said, reducing secrecy levels could actually help to enhance collaboration with allies and private industry without compromising sensitive information.
Sharing information about space threats is at the core of a new DoD international space cooperation strategy, Plumb said. “Our network of allies and partners is an asymmetric advantage” as China and Russia threaten to disrupt U.S. and allied satellites.
‘Commercial integration’ strategy
Plumb also highlighted his office’s work on a new strategy for integrating commercial space capabilities into defense programs. The strategy will set a high-level vision for harnessing innovation from the private sector, he said.
The U.S. Space Force is also drafting its own commercial integration plan, but Plumb stressed that the two documents are meant to be complementary. DoD and Space Force officials are collaborating closely on the strategies and these are not competing efforts, he said. “Just to be clear, We are working together to develop these two documents,” Plumb added. “I met with the Chief of Space Operations [Gen. Chance Saltzman] several times to make sure that we’re kind of hand in hand.”
Both commercial strategies are still being reviewed. “We’re hoping that they will be released in the near future as we push them up through the building and get approval from the most senior folks,” said Plumb.
He described DoD’s commercial space blueprint as a “little more strategic, focused on the entire department and looking out to the future,” whereas the Space Force document is a “a little bit more focused towards acquisition.”
“I think the way we’ve been developing them together is going to be a nice combination,” Plumb added.
Plumb was more skeptical about a Space Systems Command initiative to create a so-called Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve of private-sector space services that could supplement military systems in a crisis or conflict. Significant work remains to refine that concept and its potential legislative implications, adding that “the timing may not be right just yet.”
“Space Systems Command has developed CASR in a way that is independent of additional statutory language, and so that’s the piece we’re struggling with.”
Starlink a ‘remarkable achievement’
Plumb fielded several questions from reporters about DoD’s use of SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites, especially in light of recent controversies surrounding CEO Elon Musk.
Plumb acknowledged that Starlink is a “remarkable technological achievement” that the Pentagon is eager to utilize. And because it was the first low-Earth orbit broadband system developed at global scale, it is now very dominant in that domain, he said.
The Pentagon would like to see more competitors challenge SpaceX, Plumb allowed. But for the moment, he said, “the department wants access to this kind of commercial innovation.”
“Part of what we emphasize in the commercial space strategy is how can we make sure that we’re harnessing all the different aspects of commercial markets,” Plumb stressed.
https://spacenews.com/dod-seeks-less-space-classification-more-collaboration-with-allies-and-commercial-partners/
Robot Team Builds High-Performance Digital Structure for NASA
JAN 17, 2024
Greater than the sum of its parts: NASA tests the capability of a system that includes simple robots, structural building blocks, and smart algorithms to build functional, high-performance large-scale structures, ultimately enabling autonomous deep-space infrastructure.
If they build it, we will go – for the long-term.
Future long-duration and deep-space exploration missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond will require a way to build large-scale infrastructure, such as solar power stations, communications towers, and habitats for crew. To sustain a long-term presence in deep space, NASA needs the capability to construct and maintain these systems in place, rather than sending large pre-assembled hardware from Earth.
NASA’s Automated Reconfigurable Mission Adaptive Digital Assembly Systems (ARMADAS) team is developing a hardware and software system to meet that need. The system uses different types of inchworm-like robots that can assemble, repair, and reconfigure structural materials for a variety of large-scale hardware systems in space. The robots can do their jobs in orbit, on the lunar surface, or on other planets – even before humans arrive.
Researchers at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley recently performed a laboratory demonstration of the ARMADAS technology and analyzed the system’s performance. During the tests, three robots worked autonomously as a team to build a meters-scale shelter structure – roughly the size of a shed – using hundreds of building blocks. The team published their results today in Science Robotics.
“The ground assembly experiment demonstrated crucial parts of the system: the scalability and reliability of the robots, and the performance of structures they build. This type of test is key for maturing the technology for space applications,” said Christine Gregg, ARMADAS chief engineer at NASA Ames.
The high strength, stiffness, and low mass of the structural product is comparable to today’s highest-performance structures, like long bridges, aircraft wings, and space structures – such as the International Space Station’s trusses. Such performance is a giant leap for the field of robotically reconfigurable structures.
“‘Mission adaptive’ capabilities allow a system to be reused for multiple purposes, including ones that adopt hardware from completed activities, decreasing the cost of new missions,” said Kenny Cheung, ARMADAS principal investigator at NASA Ames. “‘Digital assembly systems’ refers to the use of discrete building blocks, as a physical analog to the digital systems that we use today.”
Many people use digital systems to view photos or text on a display, like a smartphone screen. A digital image uses a small set of pixel types to form almost any image on a high-resolution display. You can think of pixels as building blocks for 2D space. The ARMADAS system can use a small set of 3D building blocks – called voxels, short for volumetric pixels – to form almost any structure. Just like digital images, the ARMADAS system is ‘programmable,’ meaning that it can self-reconfigure to meet evolving needs, with the help of the robots.
The voxels used in the demonstration were made of strong and lightweight composite materials formed into a shape called a cuboctahedron. The voxels resemble a wire-frame soccer ball with flat faces and highly precise geometry.
“It’s surprising how strong and stiff these systems are, given how they look,” said Cheung. “Making large structures from small building blocks allows us to use good materials at the lowest cost. The size of the structures that can be made is only limited by the number of building blocks that can be supplied.”
This kind of scalability is revolutionary in comparison to current methods of fabricating spacecraft in factories, or even 3D printing.
https://www.nasa.gov/general/robot-team-builds-high-performance-digital-structure-for-nasa/
Crippled Peregrine moon lander expected to crash to Earth today carrying human remains
Jan 17, 2024
The private Peregrine moon lander's long journey is about to come to an end, back on its home planet.
Peregrine will likely slam into Earth's atmosphere over the southern Pacific Ocean today (Jan. 18) around 4 p.m. EST (2100 GMT), according to its builder, the Pittsburgh-based company Astrobotic.
"Astrobotic has positioned the Peregrine spacecraft for a safe, controlled re-entry to Earth over a remote area of the South Pacific," the company wrote in an update on Wednesday evening (Jan. 17).
"The team has been continuously monitoring our re-entry analysis with NASA," Astrobotic added, noting that such work has revealed "no anticipated hazards."
Peregrine launched Jan. 8 on the first-ever mission of Vulcan Centaur, United Launch Alliance's powerful new rocket.
The lander is toting 20 payloads for a variety of customers, including NASA, which put five scientific experiments on board via its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. The lander is also carrying human remains, in the form of memorial payloads manifested by the companies Celestis and Elysium Space.
Peregrine aimed to deliver this gear to the surface of the moon next month, but that plan was scuttled by a fuel leak that cropped up shortly after liftoff. The lander's handlers traced the problem to a ruptured oxidizer tank, which may have been caused by a stuck valve.
Despite the propulsion anomaly, Peregrine remains operational. The lander made it all the way out to lunar distance recently, then began looping back, on a collision course with Earth. Astrobotic, working with NASA, developed a plan to make the coming impact as safe as possible.
The Peregrine team took two main steps to put Peregrine on the best possible crash trajectory, Astrobotic wrote in Wednesday evening's update. First, they performed a series of 23 small burns with the lander's main engines. (The fuel leak made a single long burn impossible.)
"Secondly, we adjusted the spacecraft's attitude so the force induced by the leaking propellant shifted us towards the South Pacific Ocean," Astrobotic wrote.
"The procedures the team executed were to minimize the risk of debris reaching land," they added. "Astrobotic continues to work closely with NASA and other relevant government authorities to keep everyone informed and to solicit feedback as appropriate."
We should hear more about Peregrine's death plunge soon, and not just via an update on Astrobotic's website. The company plans to host a media telecon on Friday (Jan. 19) at 1 p.m. EST (1800 GMT) to discuss Peregrine's mission and its fate.
https://www.space.com/peregrine-moon-lander-crash-earth-preview
Pentagon issues statement in response to ‘jellyfish’ UAP questions
Updated: JAN 17, 2024 / 07:20 PM CST
The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) released a statement Wednesday in response to questions about a newly surfaced video of an alleged unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP).
What’s now been dubbed a “jellyfish” UAP was allegedly recorded by the U.S. military over a U.S. joint operations base in Iraq around 2018 and released by investigative journalist Jeremy Corbell.
NewsNation has not independently verified this footage.
According to Corbell, the object was officially designated a UAP by the Pentagon, and the footage was taken with thermographic/forward-looking infrared radar.
Sue Gough, spokesperson for the DOD, said in a statement that they “do not comment on the authenticity of alleged DOD material that may have been leaked.”
Gough emphasized the DOD’s commitment to openness and accountability while balancing the necessity to protect sensitive information.
“DOD takes public interest in unidentified anomalous phenomena seriously and is committed to openness and accountability to the American people,” the statement continued. “This commitment must be balanced with the department’s obligation to protect sensitive information, sources, and methods. “
The object, which does resemble a jellyfish, can be seen on video moving through a sensitive military installation before moving over water, where it began what Corbell describes as a controlled descent before submerging.
NewsNation special correspondent Ross Coulthart called the Pentagon’s response “very revealing.”
“I must say it’s very revealing for what it doesn’t say. It doesn’t reveal a categorical denial,” he said. “It’s the last resort of governments and intelligence services when they don’t want to answer a question. Essentially, it’s a neither confirm nor deny.”
Coulthart says the “jellyfish” video “is a very big issue here for the Pentagon.”
“Mr. Corbell is making the direct accusation that this was a designated UAP,” Coulthart pointed out. “That’s not something that’s denied by the Pentagon. I don’t know why it couldn’t be denied if it was untrue. And I think it really does put pressure on the Pentagon to start being more open and transparent with the public.”
Michael Cincoski, a marine who spoke with NewsNation, was an intelligence surveillance recognizance tactical controller at the base in Iraq in 2018. He said he was shown the full video and that soldiers weren’t sure what to make of it.
Cincoski says the video was taken from an aerostat, a big balloon that looks like a blimp and was over the base. It has cameras on it to keep a lookout for threats.
The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), part of the United States Office of the Secretary of Defense, investigates unidentified flying objects (UFOs).
Gough said the AARO will provide updates to the public via its website as it resolves UAP cases, “including sharing the analytic approach and method used for each case, as well as imagery, when approved for public release.”
https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/pentagon-jellyfish-uap-video/
Webb telescope finds oldest, most distant black hole
01/17/24 6:11 PM ET
An international team of researchers used the James Webb Space Telescope to discover the oldest black hole ever observed, the team announced Wednesday.
The University of Cambridge, which led the team of researchers, said in a news release Wednesday that the newly discovered black hole dates from 400 million years after the big bang — which scientists agree is likely the event that brought the universe into existence more than 13 billion years ago.
But a black hole of the size detected would require at least 1 billion years to form, according to what the news release describes as “standard models.” Since the black hole could only have been 400 million years old when it was first observed, scientists must now think about new ways that black holes can form.
University of Cambridge professor Roberto Maiolino, the lead author of the paper, which was published Wednesday in Nature, described the findings as a “giant leap forward.”
“It’s very early in the universe to see a black hole this massive, so we’ve got to consider other ways they might form,” Maiolino said in the news release. “Very early galaxies were extremely gas-rich, so they would have been like a buffet for black holes.”
Maiolino credited the sensitivity of NASA’s Webb telescope with the new findings. Since Webb first launched in December 2021, NASA has been able to observe the solar system and various corners of the universe with newfound clarity and precision.
“It’s a new era: the giant leap in sensitivity, especially in the infrared, is like upgrading from Galileo’s telescope to a modern telescope overnight,” Maiolino said.
“Before Webb came online, I thought maybe the universe isn’t so interesting when you go beyond what we could see with the Hubble Space Telescope. But that hasn’t been the case at all: the universe has been quite generous in what it’s showing us, and this is just the beginning.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/space/4414690-webb-telescope-oldest-distant-black-hole/