Daily Archives: August 9, 2021

Planet has signed another contract with SpaceX, locking it in as the 'go-to launch provider' for the Earth-imaging company through 2025.

San Francisco-based Planet operates the world's largest fleet of Earth-observation satellites, most of which are tiny but capable cubesats known as Doves (or, more recently, SuperDoves). SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets have launched 83 Planet satellites on seven missions to date, and the new deal ensures that number will grow.

"I'm excited to continue our partnership with SpaceX," Planet co-founder and CEO Will Marshall said in a statement today (Aug. 5). "We've had seven launches to date. But more than that, together we've pioneered rapid planning, manufacturing and launch of satellites that only Planet and SpaceX could together have achieved."

Related: Planet satellites' views of Earth (photos)

Today's statement doesn't specify the number of planned launches or the value of the contract. It describes the deal as a "multi-year, multi-launch agreement with SpaceX, solidifying them as our go-to-launch provider through the end of 2025."

Planet spacecraft will piggyback as "rideshare" payloads on Falcon 9 rockets, as they have done in the past. The first planned launch under the new agreement is scheduled for this December, when 44 SuperDoves will lift off on SpaceX's Transporter-3 mission.

Planet satellites have launched atop a number of rockets to date, including India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle and Rocket Lab's Electron (which gives small satellites dedicated rides to space). Planet will maintain such diversity in the future despite the new SpaceX deal, company representatives said.

"Moving forward, we will continue to operate with a variety of launch providers to ensure that launch needs can still be met in the event of unavailabilities of specific providers," Planet representatives wrote in the same statement. "By engaging with a diversified manifest, Planet can find launches to the right orbit in the right time frame for each evolving satellite project."

For example, Planet recently signed a deal with Bay Area startup Astra for a "multilaunch mission" in 2022. Astra has not yet launched any satellites to orbit but will attempt to do so on a mission for the U.S. Space Force later this month.

Mike Wall is the author of "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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SpaceX, Planet ink deal to launch Earth-imaging satellites through 2025 - Space.com

SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk poses as he arrives on the red carpet for the Axel Springer Awards ceremony, in Berlin, on December 1, 2020.

Britta Pedersen | AFP | Getty Images

LONDON Starlink, the space internet service created in 2015 by Elon Musk's space transportation firm, SpaceX, has set up a "ground station" on a tiny self-governing island in the Irish Sea to help it beam internet from satellites in low-Earth orbit to homes and offices.

Starlink's Isle of Man ground station, first reported by The Telegraph late last month, can be seen on the Starlink.sx website.

The government of the Isle of Man said Starlink has been working with local communications provider Bluewave, adding that the pair have together licensed some of the island's available spectrum.

Bluewave has a ground station just outside the capital of Douglas that can be seen on Google Maps. It acquired the site last year from SES Satellite Leasing. SES pulled out of the Isle of Man last summer.

The site boasts between four and eight radomes, according to a local source who works in the satellite industry that asked to remain anonymous as they're not permitted to discuss the matter. These are structural, weatherproof enclosures that protect a radar antenna, which sends and receives data transmissions.

"There is a nearly new vacant base station array here linked directly into data centers," said another source who works in the Isle of Man's tech industry, who asked to remain anonymous as they're not directly involved with the Starlink project. The source added that it has "an excellent horizon scan because being surrounded by sea it means there is nothing in the way."

Measuring 32 miles long and 13 miles wide, the Isle of Man is a British Crown dependency that sits in the middle of the Irish Sea roughly equidistant from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Starlink already has bases in Buckinghamshire and Cornwall in England, and the Isle of Man base will enable the company to provide blanket internet coverage across Britain.

The island's location, spectrum and existing satellite infrastructure have all contributed to Starlink's decision, according to the two CNBC sources.

The first source, who received a Starlink kit in May, said the island has a "very efficient" telecoms regulator that's fast to issue relatively cheap licenses.

"Then of course, the Isle of Man is a low tax jurisdiction so [there is] very little overhead," they added. "Plus the nation has an adequacy agreement with the EU for GDPR compliance. All this makes the island a good place for satellite or data related services." GDPR is a set of data protection and privacy regulations introduced by the European Union in May 2018.

The island also has its own spectrum bands that are less busy than those used in the U.K.; the Isle of Man has just 85,000 inhabitants whereas the U.K. has around 70 million.

The Isle of Man Communications and Utilities Regulatory Authority confirmed to CNBC on Thursday that Starlink and Bluewave have been granted a license for "provision of services and location of associated equipment on the island."

A spokesperson for the island's Department for Enterprise told CNBC: "This is very exciting and positive news for the Island which will enable the deployment of satellite broadband service on-Island and further afield."

They added: "Locally, the licensing of available spectrum will provide more choice for local consumers and potential for further jobs within the Island's telecoms sector."

SpaceX did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment, while Bluewave declined to comment.

Starlink ultimately wants to provide the world with faster internet, starting by improving internet access in parts of the world that aren't currently served by broadband providers.

It allows people to connect to the internet via a satellite dish that is placed on or near a person's property. The internet is beamed down to the dish via a network of Starlink satellites that have been put into orbit by SpaceX and ground stations.

The company has said it plans to spend $10 billion putting 12,000 small satellites into low-Earth orbit that can beam high-speed, low-latency internet to the ground. It has launched 1,700 so far and the service is being used by 90,000 customers in 12 countries.

"You can assume they'll need lots of ground stations, in lots of places, to ensure uninterrupted coverage," Craig Moffett, an analyst at research firm MoffettNathanson, told CNBC.

"The satellites aren't yet equipped with fiber interlinks, so for now, they need to be in constant contact with the ground. That requires a tremendous number of ground stations," Moffett added.

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Why Elon Musks Starlink has set up a satellite base on a tiny island in the Irish Sea - CNBC

Elon Musks SpaceX will put a huge advertising satellite in the sky where companies can display logos and other promoted content.

The space company is working with a Canadian startup Geometric Energy Corporation (GEC) to launch the satellite on a Falcon 9 rocket, which will release the advertising platform before the rocket reaches the moon.

Samuel Reid, CEO and co-founder of GEC, told Business Insider that the satellite would be released in 2022. People and companies would buy tokens to locate and design a pixel on the screen.

Five tokens affecting the pixels are purchasable: Beta and Rho for the adverts placement on the screen, Gamma and Kappa for the colour and brightness, and XI for its duration. These tokens will be purchasable via cryptocurrencies.

"Im trying to achieve something that can democratize access to space and allow for decentralized participation," Mr Reid said. "Hopefully, people dont waste money on something inappropriate, insulting or offensive.

"There might be companies which want to depict their logo ... or it might end up being a bit more personal and artistic. Maybe Coca-Cola and Pepsi will fight over their logo and reclaim over each other, he said.

It is currently unclear how large the ads will be, how many ads will be shown at any one time, the environmental impact of bright advertising on local flora and fauna, and the energy use of the satellite. Neither SpaceX nor GEC responded to The Independents request for comment before time of publication.

GEC is also the group behind the satellite Doge-1, which Mr Musk said would be the first crypto in space and the first meme in space.

The satellite will "obtain lunar-spatial intelligence from sensors and cameras", according to CNN. "This is not a joke," Reid said, but refused to comment further.

Dogecoin has proven to be a fast, reliable, and cryptographically secure digital currency that operates when traditional banks cannot and is sophisticated enough to finance a commercial Moon mission in full," a press release sent in May 2021 read.

"It has been chosen as the unit of account for all lunar business between SpaceX and Geometric Energy Corporation and sets precedent for future missions to the Moon and Mars."

Since then, however, Elon Musks tweets generally seen as market-movers in the crypto space have failed to affect dogecoins performance.

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SpaceX to launch billboard satellite that plays ads and hopes people dont do something inappropriate - The Independent

Heres how you fly a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft: Climb aboard; strap yourself in; close the hatch; fly to space. The Dragon takes care of everything, so relax and enjoy the rideunless, of course, something goes wrong, and in space, something can always go wrong.

So heres how you prepare for that possibility: Spend months of 60-hour weeks in classrooms and simulators; master hundreds of pages of technical specs and procedures; learn the workings of dozens of systems and subsystems aboard the spacecraft; train for emergencies ranging from communications blackouts to navigation failures to on-board fires; and, not for nothing, spend a little time in a centrifuge and an altitude chamber, practicing for the g-forces youre going to have to endure and the possibility of depressurization.

Theres north of 60 procedures that range from normal contingency to emergency, says Jared Isaacman, the CEO of Shift4 Payments, an online payment service, who will be commanding the Inspiration4 mission in September, spending three days in orbit with three other civilian astronauts. In a multi-day mission there is a lot of time for a lot of things to go wrong. (TIME Studios is producing a documentary series on the Inspiration4 mission.)

Practicing for those eventualities aboard a Dragon requires a whole new kind of training, because by any measure, the new ship is not your daddys spacecraft. NASAs old Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules were very much designed with an airplane cockpit in mind. Their sheet metal instrument panels were studded with hundreds of switches, dials, lights and analog gauges. Their simple on-board computers were controlled by a mechanical keyboard. The commander flew those ships the same way youd fly a planewith a control stick determining velocity, attitude, altitude and direction.

The Dragons designers swept all of that away, replacing everythingincluding the control stickwith three large touch screens facing four side-by-side seats. Each screen is capable of calling up as many as 10 sets of displays, allowing the crew to focus on a particular set of systemsguidance, environmental, electrical, and more.

You have an overall systems page on the screen, and then you can drill down into individual pages as well, says Doug Hurley, the commander of the first crewed SpaceX mission, which launched in May of 2020. Theres a total of 25 to 30 individual pages, and SpaceX may have added some more since my flight. With any aircraft or spacecraft, you always iterate because it makes sense and its easy and will help the crew.

The seats in the Crew Dragon spacecraft are reconfigurable, allowing it to carry up to seven peoplethough four is typical for a NASA mission. Three large touchscreens replace the traditional instrument panel.

Courtesy SpaceX

Ideally, the spacecraft helps the astronauts so much that they have virtually nothing to do, with the ship operating entirely autonomously. And if the automation doesnt take care of a problem, then the ground is your next layer of defense, says Hurley, referencing SpaceX ground controllers who can problem-solve and issue commands to the spacecraft from the comfort of mission control. Only if the Dragon fails to look after itself and the ground staffers cant solve the problem would the astronauts take over.

Thats the case too when it comes to the most critical aspect of commanding the spacecraft: flying it. The Dragon features a full-time autopilot program, requiring no astronaut intervention. On Hurleys flight, he took over in the final stages of the spacecrafts approach to the International Space Station, steering the ship in all axes, flying above, below and to the left and right of the station. But the purpose of that exercise was just to prove that the manual systems worked.

In space youve got to trust and verify, Hurley says. But theres no plans to do any more manual flying, unless theres a need for it from a systems failure kind of scenario.

Those failures do occur, and learning to fly the Dragon by hand can take some doing. Stripping out the control stick and replacing it with buttons on a touch screen may make for a more elegant spacecraft, but it also eliminates the most important physical connection a pilot has to their vehicle. Pilots using a stick never have to look at it because they operate by feel, but thats impossible with a touch screen that offers nothing by way of tactile response. When youre flying off soft keys on a touch screen its a totally different feel, and a lot of muscle memory is lost, says Isaacman, who is a licensed jet pilot and knows a thing or two about stick-and-rudder skills. There is that delay when you look at the screen and input a command before its executed, versus something instantaneous when you move the stick.

The Crew Dragon spacecraft before being mated to its Falcon 9 rocket (left); the Falcon's second stage is disposable, and the first stage returns to Earth, landing on a barge, to be refitted and reused.

Courtesy SpaceX/NASA

Then too, there are the kinds of emergencies that not only require on-site human intervention, but require it to be executed immediatelyand perfectly. Fires can and do break out aboard spacecraft; crew members on Russias Mir space station had to battle a blaze in 1997 when a fuel canister ignited. The biggest risk aboard Dragon is a fire caused by a battery overheating, and there are a lot of batteries aboard the shipnot only the spacecrafts own, but those that power the tablets, cameras and smartphones the crew members will carry.

There is also the risk of a spacecraft depressurization, requiring the crew to look for the breach, try to seal it off and scramble into their suits at the same time. A launch emergency may happen tooif, say, the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket that carries the ship to space fails to separate from the Dragon and the commander has to manually execute the separation maneuver. The Dragons guidance system is also subject to failure, potentially causing the ships solar panels to slip out of alignment with the sun and requiring human intervention to set things right.

Finally, there are the overall risks raised by the simple number of days the Inspiration4 crew will spend in orbit. Crews heading for the space station fly there directly and are usually aboard within a day or so of launching. The Inspiration4 crew will be in orbit for three days, flying independently, without the security the giant station providesthe longest a U.S. space a U.S. crew has been aloft in a vehicle other than the station since the last shuttle stood down in 2011. Every day spent on their own is another day during which something can go wrong.

The Crew Dragon spacecraft and the Falcon 9 rocket a few days before the launch of Crew-1 Mission in Nov. 2020.

Courtesy SpaceX

Ideally, nothing goes wrong on any given missionand on the three crewed flights SpaceXs Crew Dragon has flown so far, the ideal has been the real. But space remains, ever and always, a dangerous place to go. Its for the Dragon designers to remove the riskand even the workfrom the equation. Its for the crew to be prepared if that equation does not add up.

I dont know that theres ever been a human spaceflight mission that did not have some anomaly, says Isaacman. People are telling us were making good progress. I think weve definitely arrived at the point where were ready and this is going to be a well-executed mission.

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Write to Jeffrey Kluger at jeffrey.kluger@time.com.

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Inside the SpaceX Crew Dragon: Here's How the Inspiration4 Crew Will Fly to Space - TIME

Netflix is giving viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the historic launch of SpaceX's Inspiration4 mission in a brand new documentary series.

"Countdown: Inspiration Mission to Space" will be released in five parts. The first four episodes will premiere on September 6 and 13, with the rest of the series available September 14, 1 5, and 16 surrounding the launch day from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Unlike Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic's spaceflights, which only touched the edge of space and returned to Earth minutes later, Inspiration will orbit the Earth for three days to raise funds and awareness for St. Jude Children's Hospital.

There will be four passengers on board the flight, including billionaire Jared Isaacman, the 38-year-old founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments, who will Lead and Command the craft, according to a press release. Hayley Arceneaux, a 29-year-old physician assistant at St. Jude and pediatric cancer survivor, will serve as the mission's Chief Medical Officer.

Dr. Sian Proctor, a 51-year-old professor of geosciences and two-time NASA astronaut candidate who long dreamed of going to space, will serve as pilot, and Chris Sembroski, a 41-year-old, former member of the U.S. Air Force who served in Iraq and now works as a Lockheed Martin engineer, will serve as mission specialist.

"The crew was selected to represent the four pillars of the mission: Leadership, Hope, Prosperity, and Generosity," Netflix said in a press release.

The documentary series will be directed and executive produced by Jason Hehir, the director of the Michael Jordan and Chicago Bulls documentary "The Last Dance" on Netflix.

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SpaceX's first all-civilian launch next month will be chronicled in a Netflix documentary - Business Insider

This week was a pretty eventful one in science news, full of record-breaking rockets, a major anniversary for a remarkably vain robot on Mars (we kid, we kid. We love you Curiosity!), and Google claiming that it used its quantum computer to flagrantly violate one of the basic principles of physics.

Boeing unfortunately suffered another frustrating setback with its Starliner capsule, further delaying its second attempt at reaching the International Space Station. Speaking of which, ISS astronauts bid farewell to the Russian-made Pirs module as it safely burned up in the Earth's atmosphere and were kind enough to record this human "shooting star" for us critters down below.

Read on to learn more about all the exiting news you might have missed this week in the world of science.

NASA's highly photogenic Curiosity rover celebrated its ninth year on the red planet this week, sending out a trademark selfie in celebration.

The intrepid rover touched down in Gale Crater on the Martian surface in the late evening hours of August 5, 2012 (NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is in California, so the landing occurred on August 6, 2012 EDT). Since then, it has travelled more than a dozen miles across the Martian surface, even ascending nearly half a kilometer up the slope of Mount Sharp in the crater's center, making science with every turn of its many wheels. Here's to another year of science and many more to come!

As SpaceX prepares to return astronauts to the Moon in 2024, it is assembling some of the most advanced spacefaring vessels ever, including the largest rocket ever assembled. This week, SpaceX tested the stacking and mating of its Starship spacecraft with the Super Heavy rocket booster that will help carry it into its first orbital flight later this year. The two combined for a total height of 395 feet, beating out the previous record-holder, the Apollo program's Saturn V rocket, which stands at 363 feet.

SpaceX rival Boeing, meanwhile, suffered another frustrating setback this week in its efforts to get it's Starliner capsule off the ground and docked with the International Space Station (ISS). After last week's launch had to be postponed when an accidental misfire of a docked Russian capsule rotated the ISS and altered its trajectory it's fine now...we hope? Boeing and United Launch Alliance detected an unexpected "valve position indication" during a pre-launch check, and the launch was scrubbed until engineers can track down the problem. This puts Boeing even further behind SpaceX, something that's gotta sting for the venerable spaceflight pioneer.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station recorded the fiery end of the Russian-made Pirs module as it (safely) burned up in Earth's atmosphere.

The timelapse video shows the module turning into a "shooting star" of sorts, a fitting send off after its service in pursuit of science and discovery.

Finally, this week saw the science world trying to wrap their brains around a paper published by Google researchers late last week that claims to show its quantum computer, Sycamore, created a scalable "time crystal" using qubits that complete violate the second law of thermodynamics and the principle of time translation symmetry. What this development means is still unclear, since something like this isn't supposed to ever happen, so we'll have to wait for peer review to do its thing and confirm results from Google's scientists. If they do, maybe Sycamore can show us how to divide by zero, while it's at it.

Excerpt from:

Curiosity, SpaceX, and Time Crystals: this week in science news - TechRadar

Historic Moments in Texas

August 6th, we got a live view of something very historical happening. Livestreams of what's going down at theSpaceXStarbase facility in South Texas aired as people around the globe watched in anticipation.

The city of Boca Chica plays host to a SpaceX facility that is breaking records and making history happen. Engineers and workers completed the stacking of their massive SpaceX Starship.

The Starship stands alone at 165 feet, and the Super Heavy rocket adds another 230 feet making the massive vehicle just about 400 feet tall, make it the BIGGEST rocket ever assembled.

The bottom part of the rocket is the Super Heavy rocket. This piece is what is going to get the rocket soaring into space. It contains 29 raptor engines. That is a whole lot of power, which is necessary for a rocket that plans to reach the moon and Mars in its very first orbital test flight.

The Starship is the second part of the rocket. It sits on top of the Super Heavy rocket and is what will eventually carry cargo and passengers.

All of this went down Friday, August 6th, and Texas got to get in on this historic assembly. The record-breaking rocketship was assembled in the great state of Texas.

While the ship was assembled on August 6th, there is speculation that Elon Musk was aiming for the previous day, August 5th. On his personal Twitter page, Musk tweeted, "Winds are too high today. Looks like wind speed will be low enough to stack early tomorrow morning."

While the Starship and Super Heavy rocket assembly are complete, this massive rocket will not be launched just yet. SpaceX still has a couple of measurements they need to go through to get this rocket fully finished and ready.

According to MSN, the Super Heavy rocket "must pass several pressurization and engine tests before lifting off." Aside from that, "SpaceX is also waiting on anenvironmental review of Starship's launch operationsbeing performed by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration."

Women have left marks on everything from entertainment and music to space exploration, athletics, and technology. Each passing year and new milestone makes it clear both how recent this history-making is in relation to the rest of the country, as well as how far we still need to go. The resulting timeline shows that women are constantly making history worthy of best-selling biographies and classroom textbooks; someone just needs to write about them.

Scroll through to find out when women in the U.S. and around the world won rights, the names of women who shattered the glass ceiling, and which country's women banded together to end a civil war.

LOOK: 100 years of American military history

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SpaceX is Breaking Records with This Newly Assembled Rocket Ship in Texas - ktemnews.com