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Astronaut José Hernández Boards Discovery
Sep 24, 2024
In this photo from Aug. 7, 2009, Jose Hernandez, mission specialist, smiles at the camera as he waits for his turn to enter the space shuttle Discovery as part of STS-128.
It was the 128th Shuttle mission and the 30th mission to the International Space Station. While at the orbital lab, the STS-128 crew conducted three spacewalks.
Hernandez joined NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston in 2001.
There, he was a materials research engineer in the Materials & Processes branch; eventually, he became branch chief.
In 2004, he was selected as an astronaut candidate, and in 2009, he became a crew member of STS-128.
Get to know some of our Hispanic colleagues, past and present, during Hispanic Heritage Month.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/astronaut-jose-hernandez-boards-discovery/
https://www.nasa.gov/gallery/hispanic-heritage-month/
Williams Leads Station as Crew Swap Operations Continue
September 24, 2024
Expedition 72 is officially underway with NASA astronaut Suni Williams as its commander aboard the International Space Station.
Meanwhile, the nine orbital residents are awaiting more visitors while also preparing for the next crew departure.
Williams took command of the orbital outpost when NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub undocked from the Prichal docking module at 4:36 a.m. EDT on Monday.
The trio inside the Soyuz MS-25 crew ship parachuted to a landing in Kazakhstan at 7:59 a.m. EDT (4:59 p.m. Kazakhstan time).
Williams, who arrived at the station with NASA Flight Engineer Butch Wilmore on June 6, will lead orbital outpost operations until February when she and Wilmore are scheduled to return to Earth with the SpaceX Crew-9 members aboard the Dragon Endurance spacecraft.
Williams was busy Tuesday readying standard emergency equipment ahead of Crew-9’s upcoming arrival.
Wilmore explored how specialized substances gel and coarsen possibly leading to advancements in the pharmaceutical, food, and 3D printing industries.
NASA and SpaceX teams have adjusted the next launch opportunity for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission to no earlier than 1:17 p.m. EDT, Saturday, Sept. 28, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida due to expected tropical storm conditions in the area.
The change allows teams to complete a rehearsal of launch day activities Tuesday night with the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket, which rolled to Space Launch Complex-40 earlier in the day.
Following rehearsal activities, the integrated system will move back to the hangar ahead of any potential storm activity.
Although Tropical Storm Helene is moving through the Gulf of Mexico and expected to impact the Florida panhandle, the storm system is large enough that high winds and heavy rain are expected in the Cape Canaveral and Merritt Island regions on Florida’s east coast.
NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov are to launch aboard the Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station on what will be the ninth crew rotation mission with SpaceX under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. They will conduct research and perform maintenance activities during their five-month mission. The mission is launch from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
In the meantime, the SpaceX Crew-8 mission, which has been aboard the station since March 5, is getting ready to end its stay in early October.
NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick and Mike Barratt, the Commander and Pilot respectively of Crew-8’s Dragon Endeavour, reviewed spacecraft systems and packed personal items and other cargo throughout Tuesday.
Dominick also trained for the upcoming rendezvous and docking of the Crew-9 mission.
Also returning with Crew-8 is NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov.
However, Epps focused on an advanced life support experiment on Tuesday swapping out hardware on a device that may inform the future design of water and urine processors in different gravity environments.
Grebenkin tried on the Roscosmos-designed lower body negative pressure suit with assistance from fellow cosmonaut Ivan Vagner.
The suit may alleviate space-caused head and eye pressure symptoms and help crews adjust quicker to the return to Earth’s gravity.
Vagner is continuing to get up to speed with space station systems since his arrival with cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin and astronaut Don Pettit on Sept. 11.
He and Ovchinin spent some time on Tuesday getting familiar with operations aboard the orbital outpost.
Pettit worked out on the advanced resistive exercise device as cameras and a motion capture system monitored his form.
Observations may inform unique microgravity workouts to keep astronauts fit and healthy on long-term missions farther away from Earth.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2024/09/24/williams-leads-station-as-crew-swap-operations-continue/
In Odd Galaxy, NASA's Webb Finds Potential Missing Link to First Stars
25-Sep-2024 10:05 AM EDT
Looking deep into the early universe with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have found something unprecedented: a galaxy with an odd light signature, which they attribute to its gas outshining its stars.
Found approximately one billion years after the big bang, galaxy GS-NDG-9422 (9422) may be a missing-link phase of galactic evolution between the universe’s first stars and familiar, well-established galaxies.
“My first thought in looking at the galaxy’s spectrum was, ‘that’s weird,’ which is exactly what the Webb telescope was designed to reveal:
totally new phenomena in the early universe that will help us understand how the cosmic story began,” said lead researcher Alex Cameron of the University of Oxford.
Cameron reached out to colleague Harley Katz, a theorist, to discuss the strange data.
Working together, their team found that computer models of cosmic gas clouds heated by very hot, massive stars, to an extent that the gas shone brighter than the stars, was nearly a perfect match to Webb’s observations.
“It looks like these stars must be much hotter and more massive than what we see in the local universe, which makes sense because the early universe was a very different environment,” said Katz, of Oxford and the University of Chicago.
In the local universe, typical hot, massive stars have a temperature ranging between 70,000 to 90,000 degrees Fahrenheit (40,000 to 50,000 degrees Celsius).
According to the team, galaxy 9422 has stars hotter than 140,000 degrees Fahrenheit (80,000 degrees Celsius).
The research team suspects that the galaxy is in the midst of a brief phase of intense star formation inside a cloud of dense gas that is producing a large number of massive, hot stars.
The gas cloud is being hit with so many photons of light from the stars that it is shining extremely brightly.
In addition to its novelty, nebular gas outshining stars is intriguing because it is something predicted in the environments of the universe’s first generation of stars, which astronomers classify as Population III stars.
“We know that this galaxy does not have Population III stars, because the Webb data shows too much chemical complexity.
However, its stars are different than what we are familiar with – the exotic stars in this galaxy could be a guide for understanding how galaxies transitioned from primordial stars to the types of galaxies we already know,” said Katz.
At this point, galaxy 9422 is one example of this phase of galaxy development, so there are still many questions to be answered.
Are these conditions common in galaxies at this time period, or a rare occurrence? What more can they tell us about even earlier phases of galaxy evolution?
Cameron, Katz, and their research colleagues are actively identifying more galaxies to add to this population to better understand what was happening in the universe within the first billion years after the big bang.
“It’s a very exciting time, to be able to use the Webb telescope to explore this time in the universe that was once inaccessible,” Cameron said. “We are just at the beginning of new discoveries and understanding.”
https://www.newswise.com/articles/in-odd-galaxy-nasa-s-webb-finds-potential-missing-link-to-first-stars
https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/534/1/523/7697173
Sahara Desert Turns Green, NASA Shares Stunning Image of Transformation
Sep 25, 2024 10:45 am IST
One of the driest places on Earth is seeing a surprising burst of greenery, as heavy rainfall has led to vegetation sprouting across the typically barren Sahara Desert.
NASA's satellite images reveal patches of plant life emerging in the desert following an extratropical cyclone that drenched parts of northwestern Africa on September 7 and 8.
Regions in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, which rarely receive rain, are now showing traces of green, according to NASA's Earth Observatory.
Shrubs and trees are growing in low-lying areas like riverbeds, explained Sylwia Trzaska, a climate variability researcher at the Columbia Climate School.
Peter de Menocal, president of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, noted that while it's rare, plant life does respond quickly to heavy rain events in this part of Africa.
When substantial rain falls, dunes transform into lush, green landscapes for a brief time as plants take full advantage of the moisture.
Historically, the Sahara was once covered in vegetation and lakes between 11,000 and 5,000 years ago, de Menocal's past research suggests.
Now, even lakes that are typically dry are filling up due to this recent deluge, according to Moshe Armon, a lecturer at the Institute of Earth Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The unusual rainfall event was triggered by the northward movement of the tropical rain belt, known as the Intertropical Convergence Zone, reaching farther north than usual, bringing heavy rains typical of equatorial regions into the Sahara.
Some areas saw over half a foot of rain, which far exceeds the typical annual precipitation of just a few inches.
While the rains largely affected sparsely populated areas, devastating floods have killed over 1,000 people and affected around 4 million across 14 African nations, according to the World Food Programme and the Associated Press.
Experts believe the shift in the rain belt is influenced by record-high ocean temperatures and climate change, which could lead to further changes in rainfall patterns across Africa.
However, as ocean temperatures balance out globally, the rain belt is expected to shift back south, potentially crossing the equator, according to de Menocal.
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/sahara-desert-turns-green-nasa-shares-stunning-image-of-transformation-6644222
Tropical Storm Helene delays SpaceX's Crew-9 astronaut launch to Sept. 28
September 25, 2024
SpaceX's next astronaut mission has been delayed by a powerful storm.
The company had been planning to launch the Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday afternoon (Sept. 26).
However, that target date has slipped by at least two days, thanks to a maelstrom named Helene.
Helene is a tropical storm at the moment, but it's expected to slam into Florida's Gulf Coast on Thursday as a Category 3 hurricane.
Thus, NASA and SpaceX now aim to launch Crew-9 on Saturday (Sept. 28) at the earliest. Liftoff that day would be at 1:17 p.m. EDT (1717 GMT).
"Although Tropical Storm Helene is moving through the Gulf of Mexico and expected to impact the Florida panhandle, the storm system is large enough that high winds and heavy rain are expected in the Cape Canaveral and Merritt Island regions on Florida's east coast," NASA officials said in an update this afternoon (Sept. 24).
Crew-9's Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule, named Freedom, rolled out to the launch pad today.
Mission team members will conduct rehearsal activities with the hardware tonight, then roll the rocket-capsule combo "back to the hangar ahead of any potential storm activity," NASA officials wrote.
Crew-9 will send NASA's Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov to the ISS.
They'll live on the station for about five months, coming home in February 2025.
Crew Dragon capsules usually carry four people to the orbiting lab, but NASA is saving two seats on Freedom for astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who need a ride back to Earth.
Williams and Wilmore arrived at the ISS in June on the first-ever crewed flight of Boeing's Starliner capsule.
That mission was supposed to last just 10 days or so, but after Starliner experienced thruster problems in orbit, NASA extended the capsule's ISS stay while studying the issue.
The agency ultimately decided to bring Starliner home uncrewed, which occurred without incident on Sept. 7.
Williams and Wilmore remain aboard the ISS; they'll end up spending about eight months in orbit, if all goes according to plan.
As its name suggests, Crew-9 will be the ninth operational astronaut mission SpaceX launches to the ISS for NASA.
Elon Musk's company has six other crewed flights under its belt as well — a test mission to the station for NASA in 2020, three private flights to the ISS and two commercial efforts that circled Earth solo.
Like SpaceX, Boeing holds a contract with NASA's Commercial Crew Program.
It's unclear, however, when the aerospace giant will launch its first long-duration crewed flight to the ISS, given the issues that Starliner experienced on the recent test flight.
https://www.space.com/tropical-storm-helene-delays-spacex-crew-9-launch-september-28
1 week until annular solar eclipse turns the sun into a dramatic 'ring of fire'
September 25, 2024
On Wednesday, Oct. 2, an annular solar eclipse will be visible over parts of the Pacific Ocean, southern Chile and southern Argentina.
Though the path of annularity — a 165 to 206-mile (265 to 331-kilometer) wide route where the moon will cover up to about 93% of the sun's disk — passes over a small portion of land, eager eclipse chasers unable to watch in person will be able to follow along here on Space.com's solar eclipse live blog and watch the action unfold via numerous livestreams.
Details of which will be released closer to the time.
An annular solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the sun and Earth, casting a shadow on Earth.
During an annular solar eclipse, the moon is slightly farther away from the sun compared to a total solar eclipse whereby it completely obscures the solar disk.
Therefore the moon doesn't completely eclipse the sun but instead creates a spectacular "ring of fire."
REMEMBER to NEVER look directly at the sun. To view this solar eclipse safely you must use solar filters at all times.
Whether your location will experience a partial solar eclipse or an annular solar eclipse, the dangers are the same.
Observers will need to wear solar eclipse glasses, and cameras, telescopes and binoculars must have solar filters placed in front of their lenses at all times.
Our how to observe the sun safely guide tells you everything you need to know about safe solar observations.
Approximately 175,000 people live within the path of annularity, making this solar eclipse a rather remote affair.
If you're unable to view the eclipse in person you can watch all the action unfold live here on Space.com with several livestreams (details of which will be released closer to the time).
Notable locations where the solar eclipse is visible
For an in-depth look at the timings of each stage of the eclipse depending on your location, check out these resources on Time and Date.
Rapa Nui/Easter Island, Chile (5 minutes, 38 seconds to 6 minutes, 12 seconds of annularity starting at 14:03 EAST, 67 degrees above North)
Cochrane, Chile (5 minutes, 40 seconds of annularity starting at 17:21 CLST, 26 degrees above NNW)
Perito Moreno National Park, Argentina (6 minutes, 17 seconds of annularity starting at 17:21 ART, 25 degrees above NNW)
Puerto Deseado, Argentina (3 minutes, 22 seconds of annularity starting at 17:27 ART, 20 degrees above NNW)
Puerto San Julian, Argentina (5 minutes, 12 seconds of annularity starting at 17:24 ART, 21 degrees above NNW)
For those outside the path of annularity a partial solar eclipse will be visible whereby the moon appears to take a "bite" out of the sun.
Here are some notable locations where a partial solar eclipse will be visible (along with the percentage coverage of the sun) on Oct. 2, 2024.
Ushuaia, Argentina (72%)
Falkland Islands (84%)
Villarrica, Chile (63%)
Punta Arenas, Chile (75%)
Buenos Aires, Argentina (42%)
São Paulo, Brazil (10%)
https://www.space.com/one-week-to-go-annular-solar-eclipse-2024
'We are close:' SETI astrobiologist Nathalie Cabrol on the search for life
September 24, 2024
A leading astrobiologist melds her passion with the weighty nature of trying to grasp for answers to two key questions:
Are we alone in the universe? How did life on Earth begin in the first place?
Nathalie Cabrol's book, "The Secret Life of the Universe: An Astrobiologist's Search for the Origins and Frontiers of Life" (Scribner/Simon & Schuster), released last month, offers an insightful and reflective view of the search for life — a mind-stretching quest not only looking "out there" but also right here on Earth.
Perhaps part of the challenge is that humankind is both the observer and the observation, Cabrol explains.
That is, we are life trying to understand itself and its origin. "We are reminded that the universe is both an enigmatic puzzle and a profound mirror reflecting our own existence," Cabrol writes.
Nathalie Cabrol is a French-American explorer and the director of the Carl Sagan Center for Research at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California.
In an exclusive interview, Space.com discussed with her the new book and the professional odyssey that she has embarked upon.
Space.com: Your book consists of a dozen unique chapters - is there a theme linking them? Perhaps in those subjects you tackled, you were on your own personal journey to help recognize the issues surrounding the are we alone question?
Nathalie Cabrol: The questioning behind every single chapter is that we're looking for something that we don't understand. It's a point of reference that this is us.
And that's okay. It doesn't matter that we don't have the answers. Because if we had the answers we wouldn't make the journey.
Space.com: So that journey is one that's open-ended in that we should standby for surprises?
Cabrol: The chapters are the journey. Each one helps you see a different perspective, a different angle, shine a different light on a question.
I am not necessarily buying the way we're going after life in the universe right now. I'm very vocal about this. But this is where we are and this is what we have.
The missions are telling us that the stuff we're made of is not an accident. It's almost common out there.
I wanted to share at the same time there are unanswered questions … show there might be other ways of exploring for life.
Space.com: You write about Mars and the long saga of looking for life on the Red Planet. In particular, flagging the Viking Labeled Release (LR) experiment of the 1970s, results that you say today are still deemed inconclusive.
Cabrol: Yes, it's inconclusive and just another acknowledgment that five decades later you have people thinking that it showed that life was there on Mars.
We have today evidence those results could be achieved without life and by the environment alone. That [evidence] says we didn't demonstrate that life was there.
You have to prove that the environment alone didn't yield those LR results. Environment and life … how do you detangle the two and come up with an unambiguous signature of life?
When life is somewhere, you don't have one or the other anymore. You have co-evolution, a mixed thing, a living world.
Space.com: Is the search for Mars life a template, a teaching tool, for looking for life elsewhere?
Cabrol: It depends on the scenario you are choosing. Scenario 1 is that life never appeared on Mars, period.
The problem for us will be to demonstrate that. In science this is the hardest one — when do we pull the plug and just admit that there's no life on Mars and we're sure of that.
Scenario 2 is Mars has life, but unfortunately somehow we contaminated each other through planetary exchange.
So it's likely to be related and not teaching us much about other types of life. Scenario 3 is that life on Mars is found to be a separate genesis.
Mars can teach us general rules of looking for life elsewhere, and especially the relationship between life and the environment.
It will teach us general rules of co-evolution for sure. Can it teach us how to search for life on Titan or on Venus?
I don't think so. Those environments are so different.
cont.
https://www.space.com/seti-nathalie-cabrol-the-secret-life-of-the-universe
Radian Aerospace completes ground tests of prototype space plane
5:00 AM PDT September 25, 2024
Radian Aerospace has moved one step closer to achieving the “holy grail” of spaceflight: a reusable space plane that can take-off from an airfield and land on a runway like a conventional airplane.
The startup just announced completion of a series of ground tests in Abu Dhabi earlier this summer.
The tests were completed with a sub-scale prototype flight vehicle that the company is calling PFV01.
The main purpose of the testing was to generate data on how the vehicle would fly and handle, and to compare this data to simulations the company’s been doing over the last several years.
While the vehicle did not fly, it did perform a series of small hops on the runway, executives told TechCrunch in a recent interview.
PFV01 is much smaller than the final vehicle at around 15 feet long, but the data still helps inform key pieces of the final design and flight control systems, like where the landing gear should be located, or where the center of gravity should be to maximize stability midair, cofounder CTO Livingston Holder explained.
“This vehicle gives us the ability to adjust the center of gravity forward and aft, up and down, it gives us the ability to adjust the location of the landing gear.
Those adjustments give us real world feedback into what our analytical data says,” he said.
“Wherever there’s ambiguity… that’s one of the things that the PFV really gives us the opportunity to do, is drive uncertainty down so that we have better fidelity with our analytical processes as we go faster with the vehicle and do more flights.”
The plan is for the Radian One space plane to take off from a roughly two mile-long rail sled, ignite engines on orbit, then return to Earth back on a normal runway.
The concept is considered a holy grail because removing the necessity for a launch vehicle makes space, in a way, as accessible to space vehicles as the upper atmosphere is to airplanes.
The economics are promising, too: a reusable space plane could take trips to and from space on a daily basis or even more frequently, and with better margins to boot.
It’s been tried before; one of the most notable examples is NASA’s X-33 program to develop a suborbital space plane. Holder led Boeing’s X-33 effort.
“The least interesting thing this system has the potential to do is launch satellites,” Radian cofounder and CRO Jeff Feige said.
“What’s really impressive about Radian is that it’s a system that can do a wide, wide range of missions so it basically accesses a much larger market than a traditional rocket.
Not only could you potentially launch something, but you can service it, you can recover it. We can bring entire payloads or satellites down from space.
We can carry people up. We can dip in the atmosphere and theoretically, either drop things or observe things on the planet. So there’s just a much wider range of capability.”
The design is dramatically different from a vertical rocket, and this means the development process differs as well, noted Feige:
“You have to retire a lot of risk early.” So while rocket companies must build full-scale vehicles, the stepwise fashion of spaceplane development more closely resembles how an airplane is developed.
The Seattle-based startup isn’t disclosing any technical specs of the tests, like the top speeds of the vehicle or how long it was taxiing for, but Holder did say PFV01 “reached its velocity for takeoff.”
Now the company will spend some time analyzing all the data it collected from the tests before embarking on a series of higher-speed taxi tests and the start of actual flight testing.
Parallel to that, the company will be working on getting regulatory approval to operate out of a different UAE-based airport and fly there.
Company executives say they are hoping to start full scale flights of the Radian One space plane in 2028.
The company has raised $32 million to date from investors including Fine Structure Ventures, EXOR, The Venture Collective, Helios Capital, SpaceFund, Gaingels, The Private Shares Fund, Explorer 1 Fund, and Type One Ventures.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/25/radian-aerospace-completes-ground-taxi-tests-of-prototype-space-plane/
US Space Force partners with India to open a microchip factory for next-gen tech
September 24, 2024
The United States Space Force is partnering with the Indian government to establish a new factory that will manufacture semiconductors, which are microchips essential for building next-generation technologies.
Space-based sensors and spacecraft (not to mention nearly all computers, TVs, mobile phones, cars, game consoles, etc.) rely on semiconductors.
The integrated circuits are perhaps more commonly referred to as microchips, or simply "chips."
They are the "brains" that nearly every modern electronic device relies on. However, for years, the world has faced a global semiconductor supply shortage — and that shortage peaked in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, U.S. Space Force leaders have been hammering home the fact that the service needs new cutting-edge technologies in order to out-compete its competitors.
So, to help the U.S. develop and acquire those technologies, the White House and the government of India signed the "U.S.-India Comprehensive Global and Strategic Partnership" this week, part of which includes a "strategic technology partnership" between two Indian technology firms and the U.S. Space Force that will help establish a new semiconductor factory.
The factory will develop chips for use in "advanced sensing, communication, and power electronics for national security, next generation telecommunications, and green energy applications," according to a White House statement, which calls the agreement the "defining partnership of the 21st century."
Specifically, the factory will be aimed at developing infrared, gallium nitride and silicon carbide chips, which are some of the most advanced forms of semiconductors.
Gallium nitride (or GaN) chips can be incorporated into spacecraft with innovative instruments like synthetic aperture radar, for instance, and used to create communication systems with "five- to ten-fold signal strength and data transmission rates" compared to previous technologies, according to the European Space Agency.
Beyond in-space sensing and communications, GaN technologies are also being incorporated into terrestrial radar systems and electronic warfare platforms, which are used to disrupt, deny, or degrade the use of radio, radar, infrared or other frequency bands of the electromagnetic spectrum.
The U.S. Space Force has been testing portable satellite jammers in recent years and even creating units dedicated to targeting other nations' spacecraft with electronic warfare systems.
As the service looks to expand its ability to project force and protect its own units from such attacks, the need for new technologies that depend on a steady supply chain of next-generation semiconductors will only grow.
The need for new cutting-edge technologies isn't the only reason the U.S. Space Force and White House are partnering with India to develop a new semiconductor factory.
Currently, the world's largest producer of semiconductors is Taiwan, but geopolitical tensions with China have been compelling Western nations to seek new supply chains elsewhere.
China claims Taiwan as part of its own, and fears of a Chinese invasion of the island nation have been rising for years.
To that end, President Biden signed the CHIPS Act in 2022, which provided $52.7 billion of American investment in semiconductor manufacturing and research to "keep the United States the leader in the industries of tomorrow."
This week's partnership with India stems from that act.
https://www.space.com/us-space-force-india-semiconductor-factory
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/09/21/joint-fact-sheet-the-united-states-and-india-continue-to-expand-comprehensive-and-global-strategic-partnership/
Free Starlink Wi-Fi now on most Hawaiian Airlines transpacific fleet
September 24, 2024
Hawaiian Airlines announced Sept. 24 the start of free Starlink Wi-Fi on most of its transpacific fleet flying to and from Hawaii.
The company said it has finished installing antennas for SpaceX’s low Earth orbit (LEO) network across the 42 Airbus aircraft in its fleet — 24 A330s and 18 A321Neos — after debuting the broadband service early this year on the airline’s first connected flight.
Marissa Villegas, a spokesperson for the airline, said the company plans to connect its two Boeing 787-9 planes to Starlink, and 10 more 787-9s on order to arrive by 2027, over the coming years but did not include details.
Hawaiian does not plan to bring inflight connectivity to the smaller 19 Boeing 717 planes in its fleet, used for short-range, high-frequency trips throughout the Hawaiian Islands.
The company was the first major airline to announce a deal with Starlink in April 2022 for a service it touts as indistinguishable from low-latency internet access at home.
While Starlink has since won a handful of similar deals with small airlines and business jet providers, the company landed its next major aviation deal Sept. 13 with plans to connect more than 1,000 planes in United Airlines’ international fleet.
Expansion mode
Nick Galano, director of Starlink sales and partnerships and its head of aviation, said the company had around 2,500 aircraft under contract Sept. 17 during World Satellite Business Week in Paris.
Starlink’s network currently has around 300 terabits per second of capacity, Galano added, which continues to increase amid SpaceX’s aggressive constellation launch schedule.
This is“probably over 100 times what all the legacy systems have provided,” he told the conference, opening up new use cases and applications to the entire aircraft.
Previously, he said airlines had to monitor how many people were using the capacity and for what applications. “Now that constraint is gone,” he said.
According to astrophysicist and space watcher Jonathan McDowell, more than 6,400 Starlink satellites are currently in orbit.
While Galano said Starlink equipment can now be installed on an aircraft in less than a day, he called for more standardization to streamline and accelerate a certification process that is holding back deployments.
LEO diversity
Hawaiian Airlines recently completed its $1.9 billion sale to Alaska Airlines, a larger carrier in the middle of upgrading planes with enhanced connectivity services from Starlink aviation competitor Intelsat.
Intelsat provides inflight connectivity from its fleet of geostationary satellites and capacity leased from Eutelsat’s OneWeb LEO network.
Starlink and Intelsat will be the satellite connectivity partners for the combined fleet, Villegas said via email, adding: “We are actively evaluating options for future fleet growth and evolution of our inflight WiFi.”
https://spacenews.com/free-starlink-wi-fi-now-on-most-hawaiian-airlines-transpacific-fleet/
NaNotics Selected for Space-H Accelerator to Explore Astronaut Disease Treatment in Space
September 25, 2024
NaNotics, a biopharmaceutical company developing NaNots® – novel subtractive nanoparticles that treat disease by capturing and clearing pathogenic molecules from blood – today announced that it has been selected for the inaugural SPACE-H Accelerator program – a collaboration between Starburst, NASA’s Human Research Program (NASA HRP), the Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH), Methuselah Foundation, and Microsoft Federal.
The SPACE-H mission is “to support entrepreneurs working to advance biological and medical capabilities with the potential to minimize the health and performance risks in human spaceflight.”
Space is a harsh and inhospitable environment for humans, posing unique health challenges for crew and passengers. Environmental factors can accelerate aging and give rise to various diseases.
Treatment options are limited by the size, weight and training required to operate medical technology commonly used on Earth.
Multiple space exploration programs – including Artemis, which seeks to establish a permanent lunar base – are now creating new opportunities to advance biological research and support the development of next generation, autonomous systems for maintaining astronaut health on long duration spaceflights.
“Space-H has been set up specifically to accelerate advanced health systems to support space exploration,” said Starburst’s USA Managing Director, Elizabeth Reynolds.
“We selected NaNotics LLC for our inaugural program because NaNots® – a highly novel therapeutic platform – have the potential to address significant medical challenges associated with deep space travel.”
NaNots are a new class of medicine for treating cancer and inflammatory diseases, by adsorbing specific molecules from blood that drive or enable these diseases.
For instance, profound tumor suppression can be achieved via adsorption of tumor-generated immune inhibitors, as reported by Mayo Clinic, which tested NaNots in a humanized mouse model of triple negative breast cancer – which responds poorly to conventional drugs.
Deadly “cytokine storms” can also be extinguished with NaNots that rapidly adsorb the inflammatory molecules that drive these storms.
NaNots are especially well-suited for use in deep space because they can be administered by simple injection, with target depletion confirmed using portable blood analyzers.
“We’re very excited to have been selected for the first cohort of the SPACE-H program,” said Lou Hawthorne, CEO of NaNotics and the inventor of NaNots®.
“The SPACE-H program is run by some of the world’s top technologists; their interest in our work speaks to the advanced nature of the NaNot platform and its potential significance for maintaining health in space as well as on Earth.”
For more information on NaNots and their potential use in space, download the company white paper – “NaNots for Astronauts” – available here.
About NaNotics LLC
NaNotics LLC is a late preclinical-stage company based in Mill Valley, CA.
The company is developing a pipeline of NaNots® against a range of oncology and inflammatory targets driving numerous diseases with significant unmet medical need. NaNots are designed specifically to tackle soluble targets, meaning molecules dissolved in blood, and can even discriminate between biochemically identical soluble and membrane targets, one of many ways that NaNots outperform antibody drugs.
NaNotics has 38 granted patents to date on the NaNot® platform in the US and in key foreign countries. To learn more, visit https://nanotics.com/ or follow NaNotics on LinkedIn.
https://www.citybiz.co/article/604808/nanotics-selected-for-space-h-accelerator-to-explore-astronaut-disease-treatment-in-space/
https://www.spacehealthaccelerator.com.
James Webb Space Telescope Creates Three-Dimensional Map of Planet’s ‘Puffed-Up’ Atmosphere
September 25, 2024
Scientists studying the puffed-up atmosphere of exoplanet WASP-107b say the advanced instruments of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope are helping them create a three-dimensional map of the unusual atmosphere in stunning detail.
Originally spotted in 2017 by researchers from the Wide Angle Search for Planets (WASP-South) international consortium, the warm-Neptune gas giant has perplexed astronomers due to its puffy atmosphere.
“Our previous findings showed that WASP-107b is extraordinarily puffed up, almost as if the planet had popped like a kernel of popcorn under its own heat,” explained study co-author Luis Welbanks, a 51 Pegasi b Fellow at Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration.
WASP-107b orbits a relatively small, cool star roughly 210 light years from Earth.
The planet also has about 80% of the volume of Jupiter but only 10% of its mass, making it an unusual find for exoplanet hunters.
Due to its proximity to its host star, WASP-107b completes an orbit every 5.72 days.
It is also tidally locked, meaning half of the planet is in permanent sunlight while the other is in permanent darkness.
WASP-107b made headlines in 2023 when researchers detected water vapor, sand clouds, and sulfur dioxide in its atmosphere.
Led by Matthew Murphy, a graduate student at the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory, the research team trained JWST’s robust suite of instruments on the planet’s atmosphere.
Several observations were conducted when the planet passed between Earth and its host star, allowing scientists to measure and characterize the starlight as it passed through its atmosphere and create a three-dimensional atmospheric map.
“With JWST, we are getting a clearer picture of what’s happening in its atmosphere in three dimensions, and it turns out there’s even more to munch on!” said Welbanks.
Perhaps the team’s most significant finding is a pronounced asymmetry in the atmosphere between the eastern and western halves of the planet.
According to the study, this variance “suggests differences in the properties between the two sides of the exoplanet.”
“The source of this asymmetry is intriguing,” said Associate Professor Michael Line from Arizona State University, who contributed to the research.
“While our initial analysis suggests that the asymmetries may be due to one limb of the planet being more cloudy than the other, this could also be linked to how heat is transported across the planet’s atmosphere.”
“It’s as if one side of WASP-107b is cooking faster than the other!” he added.
Before JWST, this finding would have been virtually impossible. However, the sophisticated nature of the telescope’s instruments allowed the researchers to isolate and examine the light spectrum data from the eastern and western edges of the planet’s atmosphere separately. According to the researchers, this feat has never been achieved in this detail.
“The high precision of JWST’s instruments is like having a magnifying glass for planets,” said Welbanks.
“We can now look at specific processes happening on each side of WASP-107b’s atmosphere, giving us valuable insights into how climate works in these extreme conditions.”
Murphy agreed, noting the difficulty in studying ‘intermediate’ planets whose size rests somewhere between the planets in our solar system and the hottest, most massive exoplanets ever discovered has resulted in very little data.
“Traditionally, our observing techniques don’t work as well for these intermediate planets, so there’s been a lot of exciting open questions that we can finally start to answer,” he said.
“For example, some of our models told us that a planet like WASP-107b shouldn’t have this asymmetry at all – so we’re already learning something new.”
The study “Evidence for morning-to-evening limb asymmetry on the cool low-density exoplanet WASP-107 b” was published in Nature Astronomy.
https://thedebrief.org/james-webb-space-telescope-creates-three-dimensional-map-of-planets-puffed-up-atmosphere/
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1059098
Space startup seeks to solve solar power's daylight problem
September 25, 2024
Solar power has always had one pesky limitation: It needs daylight.
But what if it didn't?
State of play: That's the question being asked by Reflect Orbital, a startup that recently raised $6.5 million led by Sequoia Capital.
The big idea: Build and deploy a low-orbit constellation of Mylar "mirrors" that would send sunlight to solar installations in places that are still 90 minutes before sunrise or 90 minutes after sunset.
Once low-light minutes are included, this could mean an extra four hours of power generation.
Why it matters: The world needs more renewable power, particularly with the rise of data centers.
This could help eat into that new demand without needing to build much new physical infrastructure, which consumes both money and space.
Catch up quick: If this feels a bit familiar, you might have seen a viral video that Reflect Orbital CEO Ben Nowack (ex-Zipline) posted back in March.
And also that one of the responses, shortly after it was posted, came from Sequoia Capital partner Shaun Maguire, who wrote: "Very clever insights."
Maguire tells me that the general concept of space-based solar has been around for at least 15 years, but that it wasn't pursued because of the on-ground capital expenditures that would have been required.
Now, however, there are so many solar stations on Earth that a company like Reflect Orbital is viable.
Well, after figuring out things like how to unfold the mirrors, steering, computation, and making a solar sail to power the electronics.
He adds that there are understandable concerns that the tech could brighten dark areas on the ground, but insists that Reflect Orbital's tech works more like a laser beam than a flash light (i.e., very little diffusion).
Deal details: Other Reflect Orbital investors include Starship Ventures, two Zipline execs (Keller Rinaudo Cliffton and Keenan Wyrobek), and Baiju Bhatt (the Robinhood co-founder who's working on a separate space-based energy project).
Zoom in: The company recently put out a "request for sunlight," and claims to have received over 10,000 inquiries. Including from some power plants.
It's also received a lot of inbound from venture capital firms.
The original plan was to launch a proof-of-concept via the $6.5 million, but the massive "RFS" response may lead it to accelerate both its fundraising and deployment plans.
The bottom line: The days are getting shorter. For now.
https://www.axios.com/2024/09/25/daylight-solar-power-space-startup
https://www.spaceforce.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3916745/usecaf-highlights-contributions-of-women-in-national-security/
USecAF highlights contributions of women in national security
Sept. 25, 2024
Many Americans correlate national defense with the service members who wear the uniform. Under Secretary of the Air Force Melissa Dalton challenged audiences at the 2024 Women in Defense National Conference on Sept. 24, to think a step further.
“I think of defense as a triangle … it doesn’t exist unless it has three sides,” Dalton said. “In this case, defense comprises our men and women in uniform, those who serve in the career civil service, and the defense industrial base.”
Dalton pointed out “American national security simply does not exist without that triangle intact,” and sufficiently representing women is part of that.
“Much like a builder would not use only half of the lumber or nails required for a house, the defense triangle is fragile if only half the population is adequately represented in it,” Dalton said.
“Our female Airmen and Guardians are operationally effective, they are resilient, and they are downright lethal — when we empower them to be,” Dalton said.
Dalton emphasized women are one of the U.S.’ competitive advantages as she took attendees on a journey through multiple Airmen and Guardians’ careers and their impacts on real-world operations.
These anecdotes included stories like A-10C Thunderbolt II pilot retired U.S. Air Force Col. Kim Campbell’s harrowing landing near Iraq after her aircraft took heavy enemy fire during a close air support mission; this occurred a full 12 years before the Department of Defense opened all combat roles to women.
Or the amazing story of retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Heather Penney, a woman who upheld the Air Force’s core value of service before self as she flew her F-16 Fighting Falcon without munitions with full understanding that her mission was to use her aircraft to bring down the remaining hijacked airplane on 9/11 – the hijacked airplane crashed before she could execute that mission.
Or the quick thinking and decision making of U.S. Space Force Maj. Justine Pescetello-Parr when she and her team detected over a dozen intermediate range ballistic missiles headed for Al Asad Air Base in Iraq.
The speed with which they sent the “just-in-time” warning saved hundreds of American lives when the missiles struck the base.
“Stories like these exist for several reasons,” Dalton said. “First is a passion to serve, common to all these women.
But second is the hard work being done by organizations within the Department to find barriers to service for our service members, groups like the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in Armed Services, or within my own department, the Air Force Barrier Analysis Working Groups like the Women's Initiatives Team.”
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Teams like the Women's Initiatives Team have played a large part in removing barriers to women serving, such as changing women’s hair regulations, altering policies so pregnant women can choose to fly throughout their pregnancies on certain airframes, ensuring both parents can take parental leave after welcoming a new child, and requiring all units to provide sanitary lactation rooms.
Dalton noted, “The work is far from over. Identifying and removing the barriers to a woman’s quality and longevity of service can be a thankless task for these thousands of volunteers. They — dare I say, ‘we’ — still have a long way to go.”
As the DAF looks toward more integration in the future, it also must understand its roots.
“Standing on the shoulders of giants” is an often-heard refrain that pays homage to the greats who paved the way for change.
Dalton, as under secretary of the Air Force, understands this and sees women as an integral part of the positive changes being made within the defense industrial complex.
“Across the instruments of national power, amazing women are serving at every echelon: as federal service employees, as contractors, and as volunteers to ensure that the lens through which we view national security has no blind spots,” Dalton said.
“By removing blind spots, I mean … a national security approach that is strengthened by the participation of women, and one that incorporates consideration of issues unique to women.”
There is no doubt that women are involved with not only serving in and out of uniform, but also within the defense industrial base, which is made up of a vast network of facilities, organizations, and other resources that provide support to military operations.
Dalton sent a call to action for conference attendees: “Let’s not ignore the overwhelming empirical evidence; let’s embrace it.
Let’s not downplay the contribution women make to the strength of the defense triangle; let’s break down the barriers getting in their way.
Let’s do all of this and more. Now. Together. Because to meet the moment in this era of Great Power Competition, we need everyone in the fight.”
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https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/image-released-of-mysterious-object-shot-down-over-yukon-in-2023-1.7049241
Image released of mysterious object shot down over Yukon in 2023
Updated Sept. 24, 2024 11:14 a.m. PDT
An image of the unidentified object shot down over Canada's Yukon territory in February 2023 has been obtained by CTVNews.ca.
Released through a Canadian freedom of information request, the grainy image appears to be a photocopy of an email printout.
Heavily redacted documents show how the image was approved for public distribution within days of the headline-grabbing incident, but then held back after a public affairs official expressed concerns that releasing it "may create more questions/confusion."
CTVNews.ca has requested a higher resolution copy.
What did Norad shoot down?
A U.S. F-22 fighter jet shot down the object on Feb. 11, 2023, shortly after it entered Canadian airspace in the Yukon territory, which borders Alaska.
It was one of three unidentified aerial objects(opens in a new tab) blasted out of the sky that month following the high-profile Feb. 4, 2023 downing of an apparent Chinese surveillance balloon(opens in a new tab).
Shot down over Alaska, Yukon and Lake Huron between Feb. 10 and 12, 2023, the three objects were reportedly much smaller than the towering Chinese balloon.
At the time, officials described the Yukon object(opens in a new tab) as a "suspected balloon" that was "cylindrical" in shape. A reported Pentagon memo(opens in a new tab) said it appeared to be a "small, metallic balloon with a tethered payload below it."
Released as part of the freedom of information request package, an email from a Canadian brigadier-general offered what they described as the "best description that we have" of the Yukon object.
"Visual - a cylindrical object," they wrote in an Feb. 11, 2023, email. "Top quarter is metallic, remainder white. 20-foot wire hanging below with a package of some sort suspended from it."
The image appears to have been taken from an aircraft below it, although that has not been confirmed.
Why was the image never released?
The image of the Yukon object was distributed internally on Feb. 14, 2023. The next morning, it was declared unclassified and approved for public release.
In a partially redacted email thread, additional footage is mentioned. Canada's former top soldier and previous Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre(opens in a new tab) even suggested using the declassified picture in an upcoming social media post.
"Attached is an image approved to be released," a Feb. 15, 2023, email to Canadian military leaders says. "We are looking at getting a better one to send to you."
But despite a flurry of emails to clear the image for public release, the Department of National Defence's acting assistant deputy minister for public affairs soon poured cold water on the idea.
"Should the image be released, it would be via the [Canadian Armed Forces] social media accounts," the public affairs official wrote on Feb. 15, 2023.
"Given the current public environment and statements related to the object being benign, releasing the image may create more questions/confusion, regardless of the text that will accompany the post."
Later that afternoon, Gen. Eyre's public affairs officer added that the image would be held back "pending U.S. engagement."
The photo was never released.
Reached Monday morning, Canada's Department of National Defence said it would not be able to immediately respond to a request for comment.
Emphasizing that it was declassified and already approved for public release, CTVNews.ca has requested the original image file.
"In a very large organization such as the military, different elements and even different people may have different views on what information can be made public," Iain Boyd, director of the Center for National Security Initiatives at the University of Colorado, told CTVNews.ca.
"Ultimately, the public affairs office has responsibility to vet all external communications."
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Why have so few details emerged?
The documents were provided to CTVNews.ca by a civilian researcher who wishes to remain anonymous.
It took Canada's Department of National Defence 18 months to respond to the March 2023 access to information request.
The information release package includes reports and emails from the Canadian Armed Forces' Strategic Joint Staff, the Royal Canadian Air Force and Canada's Norad operation.
Short for North American Aerospace Defense Command, Norad is a joint Canada-U.S. defence group that is responsible for protecting the continent from incoming attacks.
Citing harsh winter conditions and remote mountainous terrain, efforts to recover debris from the Yukon object were called off on Feb. 17(opens in a new tab), 2023.
Searches were also halted for the objects shot down above Alaska and Lake Huron.
While U.S. President Joe Biden has said(opens in a new tab) the three objects likely posed no threat and were probably private or research balloons, a lack of details and imagery has created an air of mystery around the incidents when compared with the well-documented Chinese balloon.
Boyd, who is also a professor of aerospace engineering, says the incidents of February 2023 ultimately illustrated a failure by the U.S. and Canada to accurately identify objects in their airspace, hence the ensuing secrecy.
"It comes down to these episodes illustrating a potential vulnerability in the U.S./Canada defensive system," Boyd added.
"Certainly the failure to provide more information has fed conspiracy theories, but the military will likely accept that outcome over disclosing information that may help an adversary identify defensive weaknesses."
In the documents, the Yukon object is referred to as "UAP 23." "UAP" typically stands for "unidentified aerial phenomena," which has largely replaced the terms "UFO" and "unidentified flying object" in official circles.
TVNews.ca previously reported(opens in a new tab) that the Yukon object was the 23rd so-called "UAP" tracked over North America in the first few weeks of last year.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon(opens in a new tab), NASA(opens in a new tab) and American lawmakers(opens in a new tab) have recently gone public about their efforts to investigate UAP.
In Canada, the Office of the Chief Science Advisor's Sky Canada Project(opens in a new tab) plans to release its own official UAP report this year.
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