Category Archives: Space Station

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. NASA's newest space observatory, the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), is set to begin spying on some of the universe's most dramatic objects black holes and neutron stars potentially changing our understanding of the cosmos in the process.

The 730-pound (330 kilograms) IXPE satellite launched to orbit on Dec. 8 atop a previously flown SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, bound for an equatorial perch where it will peer out into the universe, helping to unlock the mysteries of some of its most enigmatic residents.

Following its successful liftoff, the $214 million satellite has spent the past month checking out its various systems. According to the mission's lead, astrophysicist Martin Weisskopf of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, its three identical detectors (built by Ball Aerospace) are set to begin a two-year campaign to observe the polarization of light emanating from these cosmic entities.

"I'm pleased to tell you that the commissioning phase has been successfully completed," Weisskopf said Monday (Jan. 10) during a news briefing held during the 239th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). "Tomorrow we'll start taking our first science data."

Related: Our X-Ray universe: Amazing photos by NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory

X-rays are one tool that astronomers can use to observe and understand the universe. X-rays are a high-energy type of light that typically emanates from extremely energetic objects like superheated jets spewing from black holes or the explosions of stars and enables astronomers to study these events in a way they can't by using other wavelengths.

But X-rays are tricky because they can be studied in detail only from space, as they're mostly blocked out by Earth's atmosphere. To that end, NASA has launched a fleet of space-based observatories to peer inside cosmic sources like the gaseous nebulae where stars are born, and to probe the mysteries of black holes.

One such observatory, called Chandra, launched in 1999 and is NASA's flagship X-ray space telescope. It's tasked with detecting X-ray emissions from the extremely hot regions around exploded stars, galaxy clusters and black holes.

Chandra works in tandem with two other NASA space observatories the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) telescope, which flies on the International Space Station, and the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuStar) as well as the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton to study the X-ray universe.

These observatories have detected stellar nurseries and provided solid evidence of the existence of dark energy, and even a way to estimate its density.

But IXPE is about to look at the X-ray universe in a way that's rarely been done before: through the polarization of light.

The use of imaging X-ray polarimetry is what sets IXPE apart from its predecessors. Polarization refers to the orientation of light wave oscillations. It can provide scientists clues about how X-rays were made and what type of matter they traveled through.

This will, in turn, provide scientists with helpful information like the orientation of incoming electric and magnetic fields. Armed with this data, astronomers can glean more information from the X-rays emitted by astrophysical phenomena.

The IXPE satellite will provide astronomers with a new tool to probe the mysteries of the universe. The refrigerator-sized satellite is equipped with three identical telescopes that will be able to study the polarization of light from cosmic sources such as black holes and superdense stellar corpses known as neutron stars. With IXPE's observations, astronomers will be able to study the structure and mechanisms that power these types of enigmatic cosmic objects.

"The launch of IXPE marks a bold and unique step forward for X-ray astronomy," Weisskopf told Space.com before the launch. "IXPE will tell us more about the precise nature of cosmic X-ray sources than we can learn by studying their brightness and color spectrum alone."

IXPE's first target is a supernova remnant called Cassiopeia A (Cas a for short). Located approximately 11,000-light-years from Earth, it's the remains of an exploded star. Using its three identical telescopes, IXPE will observe the stellar corpse for a period of three weeks.

Follow Amy Thompson on Twitter @astrogingersnap. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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NASA's newly launched X-ray space telescope is ready to start observing the cosmos - Space.com

In my role as copy chief at SFGATE, I have also become our official pandemic timekeeper, marking the days, since the first cases were reported (Dec. 31, 2019), since the pandemic was declared (March 11, 2020), since the first shelter-in-place orders were announced in the Bay Area (March 16, 2020). Every few months, I have to remind a writer that its not the past year or the past 18 months since the pandemic started, that time continues to move forward, that its been two years since COVID-19 first entered our lives.

So as I watched the first episode of HBO Maxs Station Eleven unfold, which featured title cards marking time (10 days before, 80 days after), I felt my chest tighten with recognition. I knew this feeling, this endless marking out of days, the way they seem to trudge by and also vanish, lurching you into an unforeseen future.

Station Eleven is a post-apocalyptic drama based on the novel of the same name by Emily St. John Mandel (written in 2014, filming began in January 2020) about a flu that sweeps through the world almost overnight, killing millions and leaving the few survivors to reckon with what it means to go on when civilization falls.

The story involves a famous actor trying to launch a late-career renaissance, a religious zealot and a Shakespearean acting troupe known as the Traveling Symphony, but at the heart is a comic book called Station Eleven. Station Eleven, the comic, follows a mysterious character named Doctor Eleven who floats through space before finding himself on a stalled space station inhabited by warring factions.

Two children, Kirsten and Tyler, both find themselves with copies of the rare comic book around the time of the plague, reading it obsessively. When we see them as adults, 20 years after civilization has collapsed, they are both defined by the story. Tyler becomes a sort of Pied Piper, luring children away from settlements of pre-pan survivors with the prophecy, a retelling of Doctor Elevens story in which there is no before. Kirsten, the star actress of the Traveling Symphony, tattoos herself with a symbol from Station Eleven for each person shes killed to ensure her own survival.

Plenty of post-apocalyptic fiction is about what happens when society unravels, often starring a Strong Survival Gun Guy in a world without laws or tax brackets. What sets Station Eleven apart is its focus on how traumatic events can sever our connections to others, and the ways in which we continue to reach for each other even when a deadly plague is spreading and we have no way of knowing whos sick and whos safe. Thats shown in the character who shelters a child actor when her family goes missing, even though it will mean more risk for him, or in the Traveling Symphony, which brings music and theater to the small settlements that have sprung up in the wake of disaster.

The series adaptation departs enough from the story of the novel to make it entirely fresh, meaning theres no telling when someone will get stabbed or mauled or when a bomb will go off (as of the second-to-last episode, my count is three bombs, plus a couple instances of arson). And it has clearly been influenced by real life. Small moments provide the texture of a global illness. In one scene, a swanky hotel hands out complimentary room-sealing kits with masks and duct tape to cover the vents. Im reminded of the strip of tape running down the center of my tiny dining room table, where my partner and I would unpack and wipe down our groceries, moving them from dirty to clean as if that would protect us.

In its own way, Station Eleven became a comfort to me as I read it near the start of the pandemic. Here was a world hit by a devastating and mysterious respiratory illness, and yet ultimately, the tone of the book is one of hope. Its a world where even without electricity or modern medicine, people still create art and find meaning in the works of Shakespeare. Its a work that says we can get through this, if we find each other.

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HBO Max's 'Station Eleven' is post-apocalyptic sci-fi without the Strong Survival Gun Guy - SFGate

So youve seen the headlines by now,

Is a Russian Invasion of Kazakhstan on the Horizon?- Georgetown Security Studies Review

Should Kazakhstan Fear A Crimea-style Russian Invasion?- TRT World Magazine

The Potential Fallout Should Kazakhstan Become Russias Next Ukraine- The Week

Putin dreams of a Russian Sphere Of Influence in Kazakhstan- Washington Post

About a week ago, a rise in fuel prices in the western part of Kazakhstan sparked protests locally that then spread nationally. Not so much about fuel prices as government corruption, inequality and living under a virtual dictatorship in leader, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the handpicked successor of the previous dictator, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who ruled Kazakhstan from its independence in 1991 up until 2019.

Perhaps hundreds have been killed, thousands have been arrested. Police have shoot to kill orders against demonstrations and the power and internet in the country are down.

The reports that Russia has sent 2,500 troops into the country is true but it isnt the whole truth. Tokayev invoked something called, the Collective Security Treaty Organization comprised of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. HRiussie did this by accusing the protestors of being terrorists which triggered the mutual defense part of the pact with these other countries. It was probably done at the prompting of Russian President Vladamir Putin.

So here is the why of all this. There is a sizable ethnic minority of Russians in Kazakhstan that Putin wants to look out for and the Kazakh government seems to be losing its grip on the situation on the ground. Kazakhstan also has a long border with Russia and the sooner this revolt is put down the less likely it is to see a million Kazakh refugees spilling across his border.

But there is something else that is probably at the very center of this intervention by Russia. There is a clue in where they are sending the troops. According to news reports, Russian paratrooper arrived at a military airfield in Kazakhstan, then offloaded light armored vehicles.

Some 70 Il-76 and 5 An-124 transports have been used to bring in units of the Russian contingent of the CSTO countries as a Peacekeeping force. The aircraft are also flying in troops from Belarus, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia. The Russian units involved are part of the 45th separate Airborne brigade of Russian Special Forces, the 98th airborne division and the 31st separate Airborne brigade.

The operation is being led by Airborne Colonel-General Andrei Serdyukov.

These troops are being sent to secure the main airport in Almaty and some government buildings. They are also being sent to Baikonur, a place most of you reading this probably never heard of, but its a very important place to Russia and believe it or not, also the U.S.

Baikonur has been the major spaceport facility for Russia since the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957. its position on a map at the 46th parallel is just a few points from the 51.6-degree orbital inclination of the International Space Station. You see, Baikonur is where all the manned missions to the ISS originated from until very recently when Space X launched Crew Dragon to the space station in 2020. Russia has poured a ton of money into the place to prepare for its first Soyuz II launch this year.

Baikonur is now the back-up launch base in case something goes wrong with a Space X rocket.

Read Next: Increasing levels of radiation in European air indicates nuclear accident in Russia or Kazakhstan, says experts

That makes it pretty important to the U.S. as well.

We expect the Biden administration will seem strangely quiet about these Russian troops landing in Kazakhstan as long as it doesnt turn into Russia rolling whole armored divisions into the country.

They are probably there just to secure the space port in Baikonur in support of the International Space Station.

Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP

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We Think We Know Why Russia Really Sent Troops To Kazakhstan - SOFREP

New missions, new suit, new provider. Image via @Axiom_Space.Axiom Space: Spacesuits, stations, and more

Private space flights are already a thing. But what about other commercial space-y things, such as space suits and maybe even space stations? The engineers of Axiom Space are currently busy developing spacesuits. And, in anticipation of their use, the privately funded infrastructure company is preparing to launch the first fully private crew to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2022. Axiom has long-term goals of establishing its very own commercial space station after that.

The commercial company tweeted about their spacesuits on November 23, 2021:

The 2022 lunar calendars are here. A few left. Order yours before theyre gone!

Axioms civilian mission, called Ax-1, is currently expected to fly in February 2022. On it will be three civilian passengers marking their first spaceflight: Larry Connor, Mark Pathy, and Eytan Stibbe. Itll be the fifth flight for retired NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, who will command the mission. The astronauts will spend eight days together on the orbiting laboratory to conduct several research experiments. And although the mission comes far too soon to feature the new spacesuits, it prepares the way for Axioms longer-term private station plans.

By 2028, Axiom plans to build and dock the first-ever commercial space station to the existing ISS. NASA granted access to Axiom in early 2020 to the forward port of the Harmony module of ISS, to which Axiom plans to dock its entire Axiom Orbital Segment. When the ISS reaches its retirement date, the Axiom Orbital Segment will detach and operate as a free-flying outpost. The first module could be launched in 2024, with the second, third, and fourth in 2025, 2026, and 2027, respectively.

Axiom also wants an airlock by 2027 to support spacewalks, otherwise known as extravehicular activities (EVAs). Hopefully, the company says, its new spacesuits will allow for infrastructure construction and maintenance in space. They would eliminate the cumbersome need to launch the modules from Earth in the way that previous stations have been built. In an interview with Space.com published December 23, Matt Ondler, Axioms chief technical officer, said that in-house suits could also attract new customers. He also said:

In many ways, the spacesuit is just like a space station. It has all the same systems and all the same things you worry about We discovered that a lot of our private astronaut customers would like to experience an EVA. So were trying to figure out ways to make that very safe and easy to do.

With its orbital plans in mind, Axiom aims to have the spacesuits ready by 2024. That timeline coincides with NASAs hunt for new spacesuits to be used in spacewalks, moonwalks, and tasks at its prospective Gateway outpost. NASA has said it will start awarding contracts in 2022, and according to Space.com, Axiom hopes to be in the discussion. Perhaps the spacesuits Axiom is building today will be worn by men and women on the moon during the Artemis era. Ondler told Space.com:

Having that capability in 2024 allows us to also partner with NASA and potentially be a suit provider for NASA

Kam Ghaffarian founded Axiom in 2016. Michael Suffredini currently oversees the company. Both are former ISS program managers. It has headquarters in Houston, Texas, and the company boasts of its workforce of experienced space travelers and recruited NASA personnel. It has made claims to offer up to two flights to the ISS per year as they align with flight opportunities as they are made available by NASA. As for Ax-1, each passenger is reported to have paid $55 million for a seat.

Bottom line: Axiom Space is a privately funded space company busy with a slew of plans centered around spaceflight. While developing commercial spacesuits, its also preparing to launch the first fully private crew to ISS in 2022, with the long-term goal of establishing a commercial space station of its own.

Via Space.com

Lia De La Cruz is a Physics graduate and Editorial Assistant of EarthSky, contributing also as a field correspondent with a long-time passion for space exploration that began early in her college career. She started her blog SkyFeed in 2018, which earned a mention in Feedspots Top 50 Space Blogs to Follow," has been published in Smore Magazine, and led her to launch a communications career in tandem with her planetary passion. She currently resides in Southern California with her husband and small pug pup.

Read more here:
Axiom Space develops commercial spacesuits and a space station - EarthSky

A new batch of AstroPi computers are up and running on board the International Space Station (ISS), set-up by ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer.

The units were shown off in September 2021 and launched aboard a SpaceX Dragon 2 freighter atop a Falcon 9 rocket in December. They are to replace the existing AstroPi units "Ed" and "Izzy" which have resided on the ISS for six years.

Maurer spent yesterday afternoon on the ISS setting up the new kit, which consists of Raspberry Pi 4 Model B hardware, a 12.3MP camera, and a range of sensors.

Engineers will eventually be able to control the units from the ground and upload code submissions from the Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab programs. Both are aimed at getting young people interested in coding, with one teaching participants how to write a program to take a humidity reading and display a message (without swears) to the astronauts while the other is a more complicated team-based affair.

Pi supremo Eben Upton was unsurprisingly cock-a-hoop, telling The Register: "Almost exactly six years after the first Astro Pi units were set up by Tim Peake, we finally have new flight hardware on the station.

"With Raspberry Pi 4, and the 12-megapixel high-quality camera (not to mention some very expensive optics), these are much more capable devices than their predecessors. We can't wait to see what kids on the Mission Space Lab and Mission Zero programs are able to do with them."

Testing code on the ground using Raspberry Pi hardware might, however, present a bit of a challenge. Component shortages reported last year look set to continue.

Upton told us: "Resellers are pretty much completely destocked post-Christmas. We actually have a reasonable amount of Raspberry Pi 4 4GB inventory on hand (stuff that was made too late in December to ship in 2021) and this is starting to flow out to resellers now."

A quick look at Pi supplier The Pi Hut showed all memory configurations of the Pi 4 Model B sold out.

Other vendors reckoned more stock would be in during the coming weeks, but some are applying a limit of one unit per customer. Alternatives, such as the Pi 400, remain available.

Upton reckons the tightness of supply would continue for a while, although attributed it more to demand rather than a straightforward supply crunch, resulting in a large order backlog.

"Where the semiconductor shortage has hurt us," he said, "is that we've been unable to scale production up to service that backlog more promptly."

Read more here:
New batch of AstroPis relieve Ed and Izzy of duty on board the International Space Station - The Register

NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei is scheduled to return to Earth on March 30 after 355 days in space. Credit: NASA

Biology and agriculture were the dominant research themes aboard the International Space Station on Thursday. Also, an Expedition 66 Flight Engineer is beginning a set of record-breaking milestones before returning to Earth at the end March.

NASA astronauts Raja Chari and Kayla Barron started work Thursday morning inside the Kibo laboratory module examining mice for the Rodent Research-18 study. The space biology experiment observes how microgravity affects the visual function and changes the retina. Barron transferred the mice back and forth into the Life Science Glovebox and restocked their habitats with food throughout the day. NASA Flight Engineer Thomas Marshburn took over the mice investigation during the afternoon.

Flight Engineer Matthias Maurer of ESA (European Space Agency) started his day with a hearing test for the Acoustics Diagnostics study. The human research investigation seeks to understand how sound levels on the station affect astronauts. Maurer then spent the afternoon setting up AstroPi computer hardware to promote coding and engineering education on Earth.

NASA Flight Engineer Mark Vande Hei photographed operations for the Plant Habitat-05 experiment that is studying cotton genetics. Space botany is an important area of study as NASA and its international partners learn to sustain healthy crews on long-term missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond.

As of Thursday, Vande Hei has lived in space continuously for 273 days, surpassing NASA astronaut Andrew Morgans record of 272 days which was set on April 17, 2020. He will go on to break three more NASA records before the end of his mission at the end of March.

Vande Hei, along with Roscosmos Flight Engineer Pyotr Dubrov, arrived at the station on April 9, 2021, and are staying on the station for 355 days. Cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, who has been aboard the station since October 5, 2021, will lead Vande Hei and Dubrov to a parachuted landing in Kazakhstan inside the Soyuz MS-19 crew ship on March 30.

Continued here:
Biology and Agriculture Research on Space Station As Astronaut Begins Record-Breaking Spree - SciTechDaily

The International Space Station is about to getan onboard art gallery and museum sort of.

As part of a freshly-inked agreement with NASA, a startup called Uplift Aerospace is planning to send all kinds of precious items from pieces of visual art to precious gems and artifacts that would normally live in museums to the ISS starting this year.

The venture is a bid to establish commerce in space, as the company put it in a press release.

Many of the items featured in a roughly locker-sized vault, which will range from rare coins and fancy jewelry to soft goods meant for space travelers on board the station, will be put on sale. Others will be destined for museums after they get back to Earth.

Youre not wrong if you think this sounds both lofty and complicated. In an interview with space artifacts publication collectSPACE, Uplift Aerospace CEO and president Josh Hanes admitted that the company hasnt quite worked out the logistics of getting these goods to the ISS in the second half of this year.

The idea is that well be able to showcase the items while they are on the space station, Hanes told the website, but were still developing the exact process of how that will be done.

Because nothing can happen these days without some connection to the blockchain, there will be a non-fungible token (NFT) aspect to the vault though in this case, the NFTs will act as membership cards for Uplifts Space+ community where they can access real-life space experiences, as collectSPACE put it.

Currently, NFTs do not have a lot of utility in the physical world, Hanes told the publication. Were trying to build that into them.

Those who buy Uplifts NFTs at a purportedly low price point will, according to the CEO, ultimately be able to enter giveaways for space flights or items destined for the vault. In the nearer term, theyll get to attend Space+ talks and get small items from the ISS such as mission patches.

Though the NFT bit does come off as a bit wonky, it nevertheless is a lot more tangible and, frankly, cooler than buying expensive computer-generated JPGs of apes.

The reason why we, as a company, have decided to create an NFT platform is because we truly believe that there is utility in NFTs and cryptocurrency in space applications for the long term, Hanes told collectSPACE. Our purpose in the long term is to facilitate commerce. We think it is a good infrastructural system for commerce between space and Earth.

And, unlike pedestrian digital goods like virtual Metaverse land plots or NFTs for jars of farts,at least this one involves a vault on the freakin International Space Station.

READ MORE:NFT-backed vault on space station to showcase prized goods for sale [collectSPACE]

More weird space stuff: We Need to Talk About Gay Sex in Space

Care about supporting clean energy adoption? Find out how much money (and planet!) you could save by switching to solar power at UnderstandSolar.com. By signing up through this link, Futurism.com may receive a small commission.

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Startup Will Store Precious Artifacts in Vault Aboard the International Space Station - Futurism

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Space Station Flyover Thursday morning - FOX Carolina

The International Space Station (ISS) has released a video of parts of the South Island captured on Saturday afternoon.

The video, posted by ISSAboveYou on Twitter, comes three days after the ISS captured a stunning video of the North Island showing the coastline stretching from Cape Reinga to the northern part of Hawke's Bay.

A representative for ISSAboveYou said the video was captured as the space station passed by just a bit to the north of Christchurch on January 8 at 12.35pm.

READ MORE:* Beautiful clear video of North Island from International Space Station * Weather: Heavy rain and strong winds expected for much of NZ* Aurora looks just as cool from space, as seen from the International Space Station* International Space Station passing sun captured by Auckland astrophotographer

ISSAboveYou/Supplied

The video was taken as the space station passed by just a bit to the north of Christchurch on January 8.

The ISS orbits Earth every 90 minutes and has been doing so since November 2000. A crew of seven people live and work in the station while travelling at a speed of 8 kilometres per second.

Nasas website says the space station orbits Earth 16 times in 24 hours and travels through 16 sunrises and sunsets in a day.

Link:
Stunning video of South Island captured by International Space Station - Stuff.co.nz

When we think about space exploration, we tend to think of astronauts, rockets, or the International Space Station. Maybe we also think about a team of experts sitting in the office of a Chinese or American space agency, breaking out into fits of joy as they successfully land a new rover on Mars.

What we tend to miss is all the people who write the software that keeps the satellites orbiting and the rockets on track. Large numbers of people sift through data from satellite sensors or simulate rocket launches before they take place. They, too, are doing rocket science. But its less intuitive to think of them as such.

Many images we see in the media show expert teams congratulating themselves or cool rovers and rockets cruising in outer space. They satisfy our human curiosity and our everlasting thirst for crossing new borders and expanding our horizons. At the same time, these types of stories keep things simple enough. Anyone can appreciate the fact that humanity has landed a few rovers on Mars. On the other hand, it takes a heap of expertise to understand how that rover is built, what goes into steering it, and which technologies make it fit for life on Mars.

Many people want to know about space. They want to know what it looks like and what humanity is doing to explore it. But without detailed knowledge, its hard to understand how space technology really works.

Thats where being a software engineer helps. Even if you dont know too much about physics, or about rocket materials, coders can understand what types of software technologies are used in space and why.

Although NASA makes a lot of its code public, its hard to find details on the day-to-day activities of a software engineer for space tech. A few stories are available from Elon Musks projects, though. Considering that working at SpaceX or Starlink is many an engineers dream, these will be my focus here.

Back in 1945, when science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke first proposed satellite TV, it sounded like a pipe dream. Even though it took three decades, this technology finally became reality. Nowadays, many people have satellite receivers on their roofs and think nothing of it. Satellites major advantage over cable is that they can reach rural areas, which wouldnt be cost-effective with very long cables.

Similarly, satellite internet still sounds like a pipe dream to many people. But the demand is there: One in four rural Americans thinks that their lack of access to high-speed internet is a major problem. Spotty internet access is also a problem for moving objects like trains, jets, and ships. Anyone who has tried to use WiFi while traveling can attest to that.

These problems might get resolved soon, however. Starlink, a spinoff of private-sector rocket pioneer SpaceX, is laying the groundwork for more expansive internet access. First announced in 2015, Starlink internet is already available in many parts of the U.S. today.

To ensure that the internet isnt too slow, the satellites need to be quite close to Earth. Because of that, they only remain overhead for a few minutes at a time. So, the ground-based antennas that they communicate with need to change which satellite they speak to very often. And the satellite network needs to be dense enough to provide the antennas with a signal at any given moment in time.

The network consists of hundreds of satellites; new ones are constantly being added and old ones replaced. As a result, Starlink software lead Andy Bohn says that the team doesnt have time to put each satellite into its own designated orbit. Instead, every Starlink satellite navigates itself. To manage the busy traffic conditions, the Earth-side network gives each satellite a place to be, and the satellite steers itself into its spot.

This process requires a huge computational effort. First, the satellites dont only risk bumping into each other. They can also collide with planes and other satellites in low orbit. Starlink satellites are already involved in half the near-collisions in space, where two objects get closer than one kilometer (0.6 miles) to one another, so this risk is real.

Second, the possibility of interference contributes to the massive computational requirements. When the signals of two satellites overlap, they can distort or even cancel one another. Avoiding interference requires putting the signals into slightly different frequency bands. But this isnt as easy as it sounds, and a finite number of possible frequency bands. Therefore, two satellites with bands that are too similar cant get too close to each other. This requirement further complicates the satellites navigation.

You might wonder why the satellites positions need to be calculated on Earth and not directly onboard the satellites. For one thing, if something goes wrong inside a satellite, its much harder to go there and fix it. In addition, things go wrong much more often in outer space than on Earth.

Because the suns radiation is much stronger outside the Earths atmosphere, bits can flip more easily. Bits, the zero-or-one encoding units of all computers, can corrupt entire software programs when they flip their value. To prevent this from messing up a satellites trajectory, different machines share software, and a correct copy of it can be reloaded in the event of corruption.

Software at Starlink is written in well-known programming languages. Because of its reliability and capability for bare-metal programming, Starlink uses C++ for most of the code in its satellites. The company also uses Python for some prototyping because its generally faster to build in. This mirrors what developers use in autonomous vehicle technology.

Satellite internet is a very ambitious project, and it comes with many difficult challenges. Starlink is undoubtedly the pioneer of this field, but other companies and space agencies are quick to follow. In a decade or two, it might be just as standard as satellite TV is today.

Similarly ambitious is SpaceX, of which Starlink is an offshoot. Launching rockets into outer space, docking with the ISS, or aiming for Mars requires near perfection in both hardware and software engineering. Tests can fail, of course. But in the final mission, nothing is allowed to go wrong. And if a part of the rocket system doesnt work properly, all other parts need to compensate for that failure.

All flight software for SpaceX rockets is built around control cycles. First, all the inputs are read, such as data from sensors or commands from the ground. Then this data gets processed and important things get calculated, such as the position of the rocket or the status of the life support system. Then the program goes to sleep for a fraction of a second, to save compute power, after which the whole cycle starts again.

Different subsystems control different parts of the rocket. In order to prevent big disasters, these need to be isolated from one another. If, for example, something goes wrong in the guidance system that steers the aircraft, the life support system doesnt need to go haywire as well. If one thing goes wrong, the show must still go on.

This setup differs from how many other tech companies operate. Take Google, for example. They record every failure, select those that seem most important, and try to draw lessons for the future from them. In other words, Google lets failures happen and tries to learn from them afterward.

For Google, this approach works perfectly well. But a search machine (and translator, document editor, cloud service provider, and more) operates a little differently from a rocket. If one process in Google fails, maybe a search query will return eerie results. If a manned rocket steers in the wrong direction, though, human lives are in jeopardy.

Because of the high-stakes nature of the problems it tackles, SpaceX tries its best to never fail. Although the companys engineers do embrace failure for rocket tests, in those cases, theyre almost purposefully allowing the project to fail in order to learn for the future. When the rocket starts for an actual mission, however, everything needs to work. That means the rocket must remain intact even if a part of it fails.

Rocket software needs to be as reliable as possible. So, it comes as no surprise that the quality requirements are high at NASA and SpaceX, especially compared to regular commercial applications. Elaborate systems are in place to ensure that no one breaks the code by merging something faulty with the master branch. That being said, none of SpaceXs tools related to testing are unheard of elsewhere in software development.

Before a developer can make a pull request, they need to meet a set of elaborate criteria. Before merging, the code gets tested twice, and its tested again after the actual merge.

SpaceXs continuous integration environment is largely based on HTCondor, and its metadata is managed with PostgreSQL. In addition, the company uses Python for backend test running, build orchestration, and web services. For the front end of these web services, it uses Angular, JavaScript, and some TypeScript. In terms of containerization, SpaceX uses Dockers, along with a little bit of Kubernetes.

The choice of tools and languages is, thus, very similar to what youd expect in a terrestrial company. Meeting the quality requirements and merging, however, is much more rigorous.

In addition to the software that gets deployed in and around rockets and satellites, spacefaring projects also deal with application software. This type helps bring a rocket to the pad and get it ready to launch and entails areas like supply chain, manufacturing, finance, inventory, and more.

Following the trend across many industries, SpaceXs application software has shifted from a monolithic architecture to microservices, specifically from AngularJS, C#, and MySQL towards Angular, PostgreSQL, and containerization. The advantage is largely the same as for all the other systems in SpaceX: If one piece is broken or waiting for repair, that delay doesnt affect the other pieces that much.

What sets SpaceXs application software division apart from its equivalents in other companies is that they have four very different projects to support: Falcon, which delivers cargo to outer space, Dragon, which focuses on human spaceflight, Starship, which will focus on interplanetary transport, and Starlink, for satellite internet. This scope of projects sets it apart even from NASA.

As in other areas, space tech uses largely the same tools and follows the same trends as others, but the scope and variety of the projects are a lot higher than in most terrestrial companies.

In other words, if youre a seasoned software developer and youre considering working at NASA, SpaceX or Starlink, you wont need to learn about many more tools and frameworks. But you should get prepared for more varied tasks, higher quality requirements, and a more intense workday ahead.Pe

Its quite legitimate to ask why we should bother with exploring outer space when we cant even handle our problems on Earth properly. Amidst an ongoing pandemic, racial and societal inequalities, floods and wildfires, plus all the smaller problems of life, shouldnt we take our gaze off the sky for a minute?

No. Its true that every rocket launch burns a horrendous amount of fuel. Its true that every software developer working on starships is one who isnt working on an app to beat a pandemic or on a payment processor for underprivileged communities. Its true that every dollar invested in outer space isnt invested in fair housing, better education, or preserving wildlife.

Those rocket launches, workers, and dollars come back in other ways. Open-source NASA software, for example, is available to help minimize aircraft emissions, calculate the size and power requirements of a solar power system, or optimize the efficiency of wind turbines. Therefore, by writing code for outer space, some developers just might be contributing to making other sectors greener.

In addition, the rise of private companies in space isnt necessarily a bad thing. If a small group of wealthy people loses a part of their money by literally shooting themselves to the moon and beyond, so be it.

By developing smart regulations, we do need to ensure that these people dont colonize space and repeat history. These regulations exist and ensure that no single country calls space their own territory, that every nation is free to explore it, that no entity is allowed to cause harm to space or the environment, and so on. As long as we make sure that these rules are respected, were not risking the future of less wealthy humans, were not wasting tax money, we can reap the benefits of open-source code, and we can satisfy our human curiosity for new frontiers. Sounds like a win-win-win-win to me.

This article is written by Ari Joury and originally published at Builtin. You can read it here.

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Software engineers are the backbone of space tech this is what they do - The Next Web