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SpaceX Starlink Mission Double Header
On Tuesday, October 15 at 1:21 a.m. PT, Falcon 9 launched 20 Starlink satellites, including 13 with Direct to Cell capabilities, to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
This was the 19th flight for the first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched NROL-87, NROL-85, SARah-1, SWOT, Transporter-8, Transporter-9, NROL-146, and now 12 Starlink missions.
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=sl-9-7
On Tuesday, October 15 at 2:10 a.m. ET, Falcon 9 launched 23 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
This was the 11th flight for the first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched Euclid, Axiom-2, Axiom-3, Cygnus NG-21, SES 24, CRS-30 and now five Starlink missions.
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=sl-10-10
Archaeologists Discover Intricately Decorated Coffins Belonging to the Only Daughter of an Ancient Egyptian Governor
October 9, 2024
Archaeologists have discovered a 4,000-year-old Egyptian tomb belonging to a prominent governor’s only daughter, Idi. She is buried inside two coffins—one stacked inside the other—covered in intricate decorations.
The site dates to Egypt’s Middle Kingdom, a period that stretched from around 2030 to 1650 B.C.E.
“Finding two intact Middle Kingdom coffins is extraordinary,” Kathlyn Cooney, an Egyptologist and archaeologist at UCLA who wasn’t involved in the discovery, tells Live Science’s Owen Jarus.
The coffins “not only seem well preserved but covered with intricate coffin texts that helped the deceased find their way in the realm of the underworld.”
Idi’s burial chamber was discovered in the ancient city of Asyut during a joint excavation by researchers from the University of Sohag in Egypt and the Free University of Berlin.
According to a statement from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, archaeologists found Idi’s chamber near the tomb belonging to her father, Djefaihapi, who served as governor of the prosperous Asyut region, located along the Nile River.
His burial was the largest non-royal tomb built during the Middle Kingdom, suggesting that Djefaihapi was one of the most prominent regional governors of the era.
Researchers found Idi’s burial chamber nearly 50 feet below ground. Though it appears to have been pilfered by ancient grave robbers, it still contains the woman’s two coffins, which are engraved and painted both inside and out.
The larger coffin measures about 8.5 feet long, while the smaller one is around 7.5 feet.
Based on an analysis of Idi’s skeleton, researchers think she died before the age of 40 and had a congenital defect in one of her feet.
They also found several small artifacts, including a canopic jar—the container for a mummy’s internal organs—and two painted wooden statuettes. One of the figures may represent Idi.
The painted coffins are covered in hieroglyphic texts, which refer to Idi as the “lady of the house,” as Wolfram Grajetzki, an Egyptologist at University College London who wasn’t involved in the research, tells Live Science.
Idi’s father governed Asyut during the reign of Senusret I, the second pharaoh of the 12th Dynasty of Egypt, who ruled from 1971 until 1926 B.C.E.
As Joann Fletcher, an archaeologist at the University of York who was not involved in the excavation, tells Newsweek’s Aristos Georgiou, the woman’s tomb adds to researchers’ knowledge of the Middle Kingdom era, “which is all too often overshadowed by the earlier Old Kingdom ‘Pyramid Age’ and the late New Kingdom, with its big-name pharaohs such as Tutankhamun and [Ramses II].”
Fletcher adds that the new discovery illustrates the Middle Kingdom’s “artistic and cultural splendor, as indeed is reflected in the quality of the paintwork on the newly discovered outer coffin.”
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeologists-discover-intricately-decorated-coffins-belonging-to-the-only-daughter-of-an-ancient-egyptian-governor-180985217/
Allow me to re-introduce myself
October 10, 2024
I’ve been passionate about space since childhood, inspired by my Dad’s career as a scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center. As a kid, I remember reading Black Holes and Time Warps, talking physics with my Dad on long drives, and imagining science fiction that could happen in the real world.
All of this led me to Stanford, where I earned my Bachelor’s in Physics and Master’s in Mathematics.
I thought I was going to be a physicist or mathematician, but as I left college in 2008, the financial crisis was in full swing and pulled me in.
After college, my friend and I moved to New York City to start a finance company. The early years were challenging and our first companies didn’t gain traction.
And then we got the idea for Robinhood. With a mission to democratize finance for all, the company we founded pioneered zero commission trading, helped millions of people access the capital markets, and today is publicly traded.
I served as co-CEO until November 2020 and left my day-to-day role in March of this year to focus on the next episode: Aetherflux.
Our mission is to commercialize space solar power. If we succeed, we unlock a renewable energy source for humanity that can be delivered virtually anywhere.
Space solar power can revolutionize energy distribution, especially where delivering power is expensive, challenging, or dangerous.
Powering hard-to-reach places like remote military bases, islands, or areas hit by disasters unlocks new capabilities and advantages for our country.
Long term, we want to deliver renewable and affordable energy, day and night, to power commercial or civilian use cases.
If this sounds audacious, it’s because it is.
The idea for space solar power can be traced back to 1941, in Isaac Asimov’s short story, “Reason”.
The concept involves capturing the sun’s energy in space, converting it into electricity, and beaming it down for use on the ground.
The sun is our greatest energy source, emitting more in an hour than Earth uses annually.
In the 1970s, researchers turned to space solar power to harness this energy in a meaningful way.
Sunlight in space is more powerful than incident sunlight on Earth, and collection in space is largely unaffected by day-night cycles and weather.
Traditional proposals called for billion-dollar, goliath structures in Geostationary orbit, using radio waves for power transmission and requiring massive footprints on the ground. The proposals never materialized.
We’re taking a different approach. We’re building a constellation of small satellites in Low Earth Orbit, working together to transmit power to many small ground stations.
Instead of transmitting power through microwaves, we’ll use infrared lasers, allowing for higher power output and smaller footprints on Earth.
This isn’t your grandfather’s space solar power concept.
Over the years, space technology has progressed rapidly. Launch costs are lower, lasers and optics are cheaper and more efficient, and constellation management is better understood.
At the same time, global energy consumption continues to skyrocket and America continues to be energy dependent.
Energy needs are growing even more with the adoption of AI, global conflicts, and the electrification of seemingly everything.
Making space solar power a reality won’t be easy.
https://aetherflux.medium.com/allow-me-to-re-introduce-myself-3fb63b633d33
https://www.aetherflux.com/
The expanding battlefield: Army’s push into space warfare
October 14, 2024
As the boundaries of warfare continue to extend beyond traditional battlegrounds, the U.S. Army is making strides into the space domain.
With satellite capabilities now vital to military operations, the Army is launching initiatives to bolster its space warfare expertise and develop technologies to counter adversaries’ orbital assets.
While not intended to rival the Space Force, this move highlights what officials describe as an increasing synergy between ground and orbital operations.
The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has served as a stark reminder of the critical role space systems play in contemporary warfare.
Russia’s deployment of jamming systems and other disruptive technologies has provided a sobering preview of future combat scenarios, the head of U.S. Space Command, Gen. Stephen Whiting, said at the recent Air & Space Power Association’s Defense Space Conference in London.
“Russia’s aggression shows that forces on land, at sea and in the air can no longer move or conceal themselves without being tracked and targeted from space or by space-enabled systems,” Whiting said.
U.S. military planners now anticipate that China would adopt similar tactics in a conflict in Asia-Pacific, putting American forces in electronically contested environments where reliable satellite communications and navigation are no longer guaranteed.
In the face of such scenarios, Army officials argue that ground forces must be better equipped to defend against — and, if necessary, disrupt — an adversary’s space capabilities.
As the U.S. military’s largest consumer of space-based services, the Army “has to be able to mitigate risks from dependencies on space while seizing the initiative to exploit adversaries’ use of space,” said Lt. Col. Joe Mroszczyk, commander of the U.S. Army’s 1st Multi-Domain Effects Battalion at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington.
Mroszczyk runs a unit of about 500 soldiers specializing in multi-domain operations, a military term for the integrated employment of capabilities across multiple domains — land, air, sea, space and cyberspace — to gain a competitive advantage over adversaries.
He pointed out that despite the growing importance of space systems, soldiers across the Army have limited exposure or education space capabilities that are viewed as overly technical or too classified to discuss.
Across every command level in the Army, “we rely on space for intelligence, missile warning, weather, positioning, navigation and timing; all of those different mission areas support every aspect of how we operate,” Mroszczyk told SpaceNews.
“And so we need professionals to help focus on how we can integrate those capabilities better and on how to address vulnerabilities.”
Mroszczyk is a staunch proponent of an Army initiative to establish a dedicated space career field for enlisted soldiers, known as Army Space Military Occupational Specialty (MOS).
This would allow non-commissioned officers (NCOs) and junior personnel to specialize in space operations throughout their careers.
The proposal, put forth by the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command, has yet to be approved by the Army’s top leadership.
Currently, only officers have a designated space operations career path, while enlisted soldiers serving in space-related roles come from other fields like engineering, air defense and intelligence.
These soldiers then rotate back to their original branches after a single tour.
cont.
https://spacenews.com/the-expanding-battlefield-army-pushes-into-space-warfare/
France and Germany join U.S.-led space defense coalition
October 14, 2024
France and Germany formally joined Operation Olympic Defender, a U.S.-led initiative aimed at bolstering international cooperation in space defense, U.S. Space Command announced Oct. 14.
The move signals a deepening of military space ties between Europe and the United States, as concerns grow over the militarization of outer space.
In existence since 2013, the multinational Operation Olympic Defender is overseen by U.S. Space Command.
It coordinates efforts among partner nations to protect space assets from potential threats, including cyberattacks, satellite jamming and anti-satellite weapons.
The coalition previously included the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. New Zealand officially joined in September.
The newest members France and Germany bring significant military and technological capabilities to the group.
France, which has ramped up its military space efforts in recent years, established its own Space Command in 2019, emphasizing its ambition to be a leader in European space defense.
Germany, too, has advanced space surveillance capabilities.
As nations increasingly rely on space-based systems for civilian and military purposes, ensuring their protection has become a strategic priority, said the commander of U.S. Space Command Gen. Stephen Whiting. Satellites, once primarily viewed as tools of communication and science, are now seen as potential targets in the event of a conflict.
France and Germany are joining the coalition at a time of heightened tension in space, with both China and Russia demonstrating their ability to disrupt or destroy satellites.
Operation Olympic Defender aims to deter such actions through collective defense, shared intelligence, and the promotion of international norms for responsible space activity.
Ceremonies in Berlin, Paris
Germany’s official entry into Operation Olympic Defender was marked by a formal ceremony in Berlin, where Whiting joined Lt. Gen. Gunter Schneider, director-general for military strategy and operations at the German Ministry of Defence, and representatives from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. “Space is truly a team sport.
The addition of Germany to our roster of growing like-minded partners contributes to our collective ability to address the growing threats in the domain,” said Whiting.
Schneider said allied efforts to increase space domain awareness “will not only lead to a better understanding of the space domain but it will also dissuade possible adversaries from dangerous and escalatory behavior in space as they will have to take into account that we can closely observe and evaluate each of their actions.”
In a separate ceremony in Paris, France’s official entry into Operation Olympic Defender was recognized by Maj. Gen. Phillipe Adam, French Space Command commander, and representatives from the other members of the alliance.
France’s participation in this multinational effort, said Adam, “marks a new stage in the conduct of military space operations in coalition and sends out a clear message of strategic solidarity with our allies.”
https://spacenews.com/france-and-germany-join-u-s-led-space-defense-coalition/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13958541/ufo-mother-ship-military-bases-drone-swarms-pentagon.html
Drone swarms targeting US military bases are operated by 'mother ship' UFO, claims top Pentagon official
Updated: 20:25 EDT, 14 October 2024
A retired, senior Pentagon official has confirmed that UFO 'mother ships' were spotted 'releasing swarms of smaller craft' — adding further mystery to the still-unexplained intrusions over multiple US military bases.
His statements come amid the release of 50 pages of Air Force records related to provocative 'drone' incursions, that one general calls 'Close Encounters at Langley.'
For at least 17 nights last December, swarms of noisy, small UFOs were seen at dusk 'moving at rapid speeds' and displaying 'flashing red, green, and white lights' penetrating the highly restricted airspace above Langley Air Force Base in Virginia.
Senior ex-Pentagon security official Chris Mellon told DailyMail.com that the episode was 'part of a much larger pattern affecting numerous national security installations.'
'Two of the notable aspects,' he said, 'are the fact our drone signal-jamming devices have proven ineffective and these craft are making no effort to remain concealed.'
'In fact, in some instances,' as Mellon took pains to emphasize, 'it is clear they want to be seen as though taunting us.'
Mellon, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence under both Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, told DailyMail.com that since last year's Langley events 'a similar series of intrusions has also occurred over Palmdale, CA.'
An hour's drive north of Los Angeles, Palmdale is home to defense contractor Lockheed Martin's classified 'Skunk Works,' which made the F-22.
A spokesperson for Edwards Air Force Base near Palmdale told The War Zone this August that investigators were 'monitoring' that situation to 'determine if there is any ill intent and, even if not, we are trying to find out why or who is doing it.'
Similar efforts are still underway on the east coast at Langley, but the commander of its Air Combat Command, General Mark Kelly, said the government is stumped.
The bizarre craft above Langley — home to at least half the Air Force's fleet of F-22 Raptor stealth fighters — led to two weeks of emergency White House meetings.
And over the past 10 months, Air Force investigators, local police and even NASA analysts operating the space agency's high-tech WB-57F research plane have all taken a crack at trying to identify the mysterious craft — with no answers in sight.
What would the US do, as General Kelly put it to the Wall Street Journal, 'if this happens over the National Mall?'
General Kelly said the unidentified craft appeared to be 20-ft long and were capable of flying over 100 miles-per-hour at an altitude between 3,000 and 4,000 feet.
The Journal noted an overlapping incident in which a University of Minnesota student and Chinese national, Fengyun Shi, was caught photographing US Navy vessels under construction in nearby Norfolk, Virginia, via commercial drone.
But the amateurish incident, for which Shi was sentenced to six months in federal prison, appears to be unrelated to the sophisticated squadrons of mystery craft.
'I make no claims regarding their origin, perhaps many are Chinese drones,' Mellon told DailyMail.com.
'But their brazenness, range, flight duration, reliability, resistance to countermeasures and indifference to detection are confounding.'
'In some cases "mother ships" have been reported,' according to Mellon, who also managed security and information operations for part of his time at the Pentagon.
These 'mother ships,' Mellon clarified, were 'extremely fast larger vehicles that have been observed collecting or releasing swarm of smaller craft.'
One such 'mother ship' case was investigated by Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Special Agent Michael Bumberger over Nebraska, government records show.
Local sheriff's reported seeing 30 to 50 unusual craft flying independently of one another, with a larger 'mother ship' hovering nearby for hours.
At Langley last December, Air Force personnel equipped with 'dronebusters' — signal-jamming weaponry designed to counter remotely piloted enemy drones — reported that these mysterious craft 'failed to register' on their anti-drone devices.
One witness reported being unable to use their dronebuster 'due to not having a visual.'
Their testimony was released via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), first published by the Liberation Times on Monday.
In one December 6, 2023 encounter detailed in the FOIA documents, a Langley witness described serious aerial penetrations above a parking and servicing area for base aircraft, known as the Flight Line.
'I spotted nine (09) drones in diamond formation flying over [redacted] heading towards the flight line,' the witness stated.
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'[Redacted] and I followed the swarm onto the flight line where we lost visual of the swarm over the bay.'
Amid this frenzy of activity, NASA's Langley Research Center was also conscripted to aid in the effort to hunt down and identify these mystery drones.
NASA's WB-57F, according a research center spokesperson, 'provided additional imaging support' as it circled the base on December 18 and 19, 2023.
'The activation of a specialized NASA aircraft, equipped with what may be the most sophisticated airborne camera system in the world, suggests that the US government was truly baffled by these incidents,' said former Obama-era Pentagon appointee and frequent columnist at The Hill, Marik Von Rennenkampff.
One such 'mother ship' case was investigated by Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Special Agent Michael Bumberger over Nebraska, government records show.
Local sheriff's reported seeing 30 to 50 unusual craft flying independently of one another, with a larger 'mother ship' hovering nearby for hours.
Typically, there are four cameras total on the nose of NASA's WB-57F jets, each tailored to pick up specific 'colors' or wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Some of those wavelengths, like mid-wave infrared, cannot be measured from the ground, because much of it is absorbed by gases and particles in the atmosphere.
Von Rennenkampff expressed skepticism that the objects will prove to be foreign espionage platforms, given the ostentatious, showy nature of their flights.
'The multiple, consistent reports of bright, flashing lights and formation flying suggest that some actor — be it a drone operator or otherwise — was putting on a show of impunity, at considerable risk, over a key military facility,' he noted.
'If this was a foreign intelligence gathering operation,' he continued, 'the brazen nature of the incursions makes it some of the worst collection tradecraft imaginable.'
While still remaining agnostic about the solution to these alarming national security mysteries, some of America's most scientifically minded UFO investigators told DailyMail.com that they suspect culprits closer to home.
Electrical engineer John Tedesco, who runs a mobile lab affiliated with Harvard's Galileo Project, told DailyMail.com: 'I would tend to agree with Marik Von Rennenkampff that these are not from a foreign entity.'
'Some obvious telling signs, such as the engine noise generated, altitude, and travel velocity, make me believe this is some locally staged activity,' Tedesco advised.
Richard Hoffman, an information technology specialist at the Army's Redstone Arsenal who has worked on projects to counter drone incursions at US military bases noted that solving the mystery poses major technical and bureaucratic hurdles.
'We are in the process of fielding countermeasures at sensitive DoD [Department of Defense] locations, but it requires coordination with the FCC, FAA and others to deploy them,' Hoffman told DailyMail.com.
'Concerns about frequencies that could interfere with public and commercial uses has been an issue,' he noted. 'There are documented cases where GPS on commercial aircraft has been affected near military bases.'
Outside of his official duties, Hoffman is also a co-founder of the nonprofit, Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies, devoted to studying 'unidentified aerial phenomena,' once called UFOs.
'It is also a concern that these drones are using frequencies not used by traditional drones,' he said.
'It rules out commercial drones from within the US, which are regulated.'
Officials at Langley would appear to agree, admitting that the December 2023 'drone' swarms proved to be impossible to pin down.
The rogue fleets of small aircraft would disappear into thin air each night despite being hunted by the best hardware the Air Force and NASA had on hand.
The episodes were 'so sustained and disruptive that an entire fighter wing had to be relocated to another base,' according to Mellon, who wrote about the case in May.
General Glen VanHerck, the commander with North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) Command, who led the mission to takedown the infamous Chinese spy balloon back in February 2023, described these Langley cases as unlike any other.
General VanHerck said he had personally ordered jet fighters and other aircraft to fly close enough to these drones to pick up some visual clues.
Ultimately, the general advised Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to authorize a full battery of electronic eavesdropping equipment to get to the bottom of this case, but he acknowledged that strict rules govern the use of this tech over US soil.
Nevertheless, VanHerck said: 'If there are unknown objects within North America… go out and identify them.'
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Mass UFO sighting over US state as sleuths spot 'teleportation' in compelling clip
12:13, 15 OCT 2024
A series of strange lights have been spotted by hundreds of people over one US state – with many adamant it's UFOs.
The strange happenings occurred over Kokomo, Indiana, last week, with a series of videos appearing on social media sites such as Twitter/X and Reddit being posted.
The videos all appear to show two sets of three bright lights fading in and out of view in unison, before disappearing altogether after around 45 seconds.
In one of the most viral clips, the person filming it can be heard saying “yeah, this is real weird – it disappears then comes back”.
Originally, many on Reddit claimed it was connected to an air force base nearby, with the possibility of flares being mentioned.
However, that was shot down by other “internet experts,” with one raging: “This is the first truly mass sighting in what seems like a while.
There are multiple angles from multiple people on tiktok and YouTube. Many many people seen it.
“Also anyone saying this is flares - if you can provide me tangible evidence that flares appear to teleport to the side like this in training exercises, I'm all ears.
Like documentation that this is what is done. Until then i don't care what your pilot uncle says.”
And another said: “These videos with the teleporting lights never travel downward when compared to the landscape they're above.
These are not flares, or the brand-new-never-seen anti-gravity flares. And even if they were chute flares, they'd still not be going in and out that intensely.
“Flares guns go out after the arc, but in order to reproduce this, there would have to be multiple shooters with multiple guns shooting with the most perfect precision I've ever seen.”
One user also pointed to a very similar sighting across South Korea last year, where two people saw an almost identical light show to the one seen last week.
They claimed that “there was no sound, and there have been no military exercises with flares or anything of the sort in the vicinity”.
Indiana is actually a UFO sighting hotbed, with 3,912 sightings made across a 20 year span – the 15th most active nation in the United States.
The truth, as always, is out there.
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/mass-ufo-sighting-over-state-33894147
BREAKING! Crash Landing In Washington DC And Raleigh NC Reported!
Oct 13, 2024
This video looks at a crash-landing that happened over night on 10/13/2024 in both Washington DC and Raleigh NC, what is this mysterious crashlanding?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhMe9yzDj6E
Penguin Six: Did a plane crash in DC over the weekend?
October 14, 2024
Starting Sunday morning, my messages and emails started going crazy about a supposed plane crash in Washington about 3am. I was sleeping pretty soundly and didn't hear anything, nor did my plane spotter network or emergency services chat groups, but I decide why not go out and take a look at the supposed crash site?
Sunday aviation logs of DC
https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?replay=2024-10-13-00:31&lat=38.881&lon=-76.992&zoom=13.6
Radio logs
https://openmhz.com/system/dcfd?filter-type=group&filter-code=58e7010ce2932f0100a36b46&call-id=670b6cfc4510a809e23a78be&time=1728802000001
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNuJd-tG16o
Prep begins in DC months ahead of Inauguration Day
October 14, 2024, 4:40 PM
The election is three weeks away, but Inauguration Day preparations are already being made in the nation’s capital.
Large black riot fences and concrete barriers currently surround parts of Lafayette Park, as well as the sidewalks near the White House.
Construction crews in Lafayette Park are putting up Inauguration Day Parade stands and security barriers for the ushering in of the new president, which stands at nearly 100 days away on Jan. 20.
The National Park Service said the closures and riot fencing that’s all too familiar in D.C. are to ensure the safety of workers and visitors, and make it easier for building materials to be delivered and heavy machinery to be stored during the monthslong process.
Still, tourists eager for a photo in front of the White House are pushed a little further back behind the Andrew Jackson statue in Lafayette Park.
The northern part of Lafayette Park will remain open for visitors and political demonstrations.
The fencing is expected to be in place until February 2025.
Work for the presidential inauguration typically begins in November, but this year, preparation began early “to accommodate additional time needed for a safer and more secure environment for construction activities,” according to an NPS release.
In addition to building the construction zone near the White House, D.C.’s Department of Transportation is repaving a major portion of the inauguration parade route on Pennsylvania Avenue.
https://wtop.com/dc/2024/10/inauguration-day-prep-begins-in-dc-months-ahead-of-time/