Really Rocket Science

Nice work by the Kepler Mission scientists, announced last week:

NASA's Kepler spacecraft has discovered the first confirmed planetary system with more than one planet crossing in front of, or transiting, the same star.

The transit signatures of two distinct planets were seen in the data for the sun-like star designated Kepler-9. The planets were named Kepler-9b and 9c. The discovery incorporates seven months of observations of more than 156,000 stars as part of an ongoing search for Earth-sized planets outside our solar system. The findings will be published in Thursday's issue of the journal Science.

Kepler's ultra-precise camera measures tiny decreases in the stars' brightness that occur when a planet transits them. The size of the planet can be derived from these temporary dips.

The distance of the planet from the star can be calculated by measuring the time between successive dips as the planet orbits the star. Small variations in the regularity of these dips can be used to determine the masses of planets and detect other non-transiting planets in the system.

In June, mission scientists submitted findings for peer review that identified more than 700 planet candidates in the first 43 days of Kepler data. The data included five additional candidate systems that appear to exhibit more than one transiting planet. The Kepler team recently identified a sixth target exhibiting multiple transits and accumulated enough follow-up data to confirm this multi-planet system.

"Kepler's high quality data and round-the-clock coverage of transiting objects enable a whole host of unique measurements to be made of the parent stars and their planetary systems," said Doug Hudgins, the Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Scientists refined the estimates of the masses of the planets using observations from the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. The observations show Kepler-9b is the larger of the two planets, and both have masses similar to but less than Saturn. Kepler-9b lies closest to the star with an orbit of about 19 days, while Kepler-9c has an orbit of about 38 days. By observing several transits by each planet over the seven months of data, the time between successive transits could be analyzed.

"This discovery is the first clear detection of significant changes in the intervals from one planetary transit to the next, what we call transit timing variations," said Matthew Holman, a Kepler mission scientist from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. "This is evidence of the gravitational interaction between the two planets as seen by the Kepler spacecraft."

In addition to the two confirmed giant planets, Kepler scientists also have identified what appears to be a third, much smaller transit signature in the observations of Kepler-9. That signature is consistent with the transits of a super-Earth-sized planet about 1.5 times the radius of Earth in a scorching, near-sun 1.6 day-orbit. Additional observations are required to determine whether this signal is indeed a planet or an astronomical phenomenon that mimics the appearance of a transit.

 More about the mission in this video...

Excellent work by Dr. Mazumder of B.U. is developing a system where solar panels, typically located in dry areas with lots of sun, dust themselves off with electric charges. The results of this reasearch was presented at the American Chemical Society's 240th National Meeting & Exposition in Boston last week.

"We think our self-cleaning panels used in areas of high dust and particulate pollutant concentrations will highly benefit the systems' solar energy output," study leader Malay K. Mazumder, Ph.D. said. "Our technology can be used in both small- and large-scale photovoltaic systems. To our knowledge, this is the only technology for automatic dust cleaning that doesn't require water or mechanical movement."

Mazumder, who is with Boston University, said the need for that technology is growing with the popularity of solar energy. Use of solar, or photovoltaic, panels increased by 50 percent from 2003 to 2008, and forecasts suggest a growth rate of at least 25 percent annually into the future. Fostering the growth, he said, is emphasis on alternative energy sources and society-wide concerns about sustainability (using resources today in ways that do not jeopardize the ability of future generations to meet their needs).

Scientific American got into some of the detail behind this innovation:

 A dust layer of 4 grams per square meter can decrease solar power conversion by 40 percent, says Malay Mazumder, a research professor in Boston University's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. To put this in perspective, dust deposition in Arizona is about 17 grams per square meter per month, and the situation is worse in many other solar-friendly sites, including the Middle East, Australia and India. Mazumder, who led the study, presented the results Sunday at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

The electrodynamic transparent screen developed by Mazumder and his colleagues is made by depositing a transparent, electrically sensitive material—indium tin oxide (ITO)—on glass or a clear plastic sheet covering the solar panels. When energized, the electrodes produce a traveling wave of electrostatic and dielectrophoretic forces that lift dust particles from the surface and transport them to the screen's edges. The researchers found that 90 percent of deposited dust can be removed by the transparent screen in fewer than 60 seconds.

This works in part because many solar panels are positioned at an angle—the raised dust would simply fall off. Whereas solar panels are generally placed in dry, open spaces, the researchers are hoping to make their technique and technology also work to keep raindrops and mud from adhering to solar panel surfaces as well.

Now, if we can only apply this technique to dusting our desks...

Space News is reporting an anomaly with the AEHF spacecraft's propulsion...

 The U.S. Air Force is investigating an anomaly with the propulsion system on its first Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) secure communications satellite and may alter its orbital maneuvering plan, the service announced Aug. 20.

The satellite was launched Aug. 14, and an unspecified problem occurred when operators fired the spacecraft’s thrusters to boost it to its designated testing orbit, Air Force Col. Dave Madden, the service’s military satellite communications program director, said in a press release. The satellite and all its subsystems remain safe and stable, and engineers are considering possible changes the orbital boosting process, it said.

Officially, the Military Satellite Communications Wing at Los Angeles Air Force Base is calling it a "concern."

DARPA refocuses its System F6 program to allow an open community of researchers and developers to have more input in designing the architecture for a network of wirelessly connected small satellites.

[Information Week - 08/20/2010]

Viasat subsidiary WildBlue gets $19.5M stimulus grant to activate new subscribers on its satellite broadband services.

[socaltech - 08/20/2010]

Boeing wins $182m contract to start building a seventh military communications satellite for the U.S. Air Force.

[Reuters - 08/19/2010]

LightSquared notifies Inmarsat to begin implimenting Phase 1 of cooperation agreement to re-band L-Band radio spectrum, providing additional bandwidth to both parties in the contiguous spectrum.

[TeleGeography - 08/19/2010]

KVH boosts mini-VSAT broadband capacity more than 500% in North American waters with an additional full transponder and new spread spectrum waveform.

[Market Watch - 08/19/2010]

Thrane & Thrane furthers its aeronautical dealer network within the UlS. and Canada, appointing four new dealers, as demand for its extensive range of satellite communications services remains strong.

[SatNews - 08/19/2010]

Competetitors in the 2010-11 Velux 5 Oceans round-the-world yacht race will relay video action of the race using FleetBroadband, fitted with Thrane & Thrane Sailor 250 terminals.

[SatNews - 08/19/2010]

SatNews and Surrey Satellite Technology team to deliver learning experience in December regarding current and future technologies involved in small satellite design.

[SatNews - 08/19/2010]

Inmarsat puts cost of new Boeing communications satellites and associated ground systems at $1.2B.

[Bloomberg - 08/18/2010]

ARRA awards announced this week include $100M to four satellite broadband providers to cover remote areas.

[PC World - 08/18/2010]

Gilat Satcom reinforces its satellite activities in Africa.

[Satellite Spotlight - 08/18/2010]

Johns Hopkins Universithy, Boeing, and Iridium Communications announce ne space-based service to help scientists monitor magnetic storms around Earth to assist in forecasting space weather that might affect satellite communications.

[Cnet - 08/18/2010]

India begins testing Centralised Monitoring System which can track all communication traffic - wireless and fixed line, satellite, internet, e-mails, and VoIP, to gather intelligence inputs.

[The Economic Times - 08/18/2010]

Spot LLC and DeLorme announce that the DeLorme Earthmate PN-60w with SPOT sSatellite Communicator wins Best in Show Award presented by GearJunkie.com at recent Outdoor Retailer trade show.

[Market Watch - 08/18/2010]

Intelsat IS-27 satellite to be C-Ku band hybrid augmented with 20 X 25 kHz channel UHF payload for government applications; will be launched in 2012 and will replace the Intelsat 805 satellite.

[TMCnet - 08/17/2010]

SES WORLD SKIES NSS-9 capacity to be used by the Nature conservancy on remote Palmyra Atoll 1000 miles south of Hawaii to establish connection with their National Wildlife Refuge.

[SatNews - 08/17/2010]

Fisher Communications of Seattle first to implement newly launched Streambox Avenir, a mobile device that can be carried as a side pack as alternative to SNG/ENG vehicles for field newsgathering.

[MarketWatch - 08/17/2010]

ViaSat deploys airborne Communications-On-The-Move terminals onboard several dozen U.S. Air Force Project Liberty aircraft to support ISR operations.

[SatNews - 08/17/2010]

Iran postpones satellite deployment as work on the satellite continues.

[Global Security Newswire - 08/16/2010]

Thuraya introduces Thuraya IP, a small 13.85 ounce package that allows users to control upload and download streaming bandwidths, contributing to significant savings.

[SatNews - 08/16/2010]

Google expances satellite ad offering via DirecTV deal.

[BtoB online - 08/16/2010]

New VC7700 series digital video compression and transmission system from NEC features one of industry's lowest compression delays - 10 milliseconds.

[SatNews - 08/16/2010]

Social Media Venture launches national satellite service offering, an Internet satellite service to be provided through an agreement with YourNetPlus.com.

[Satellite Spotlight - 08/16/2010]

WBMSAT PS satellite communications consulting services

Yes, friends, you too can be a rocket scientist and orbit your own satellite. All thanks to Tubesat. The $8,000 price includes launch into LEO. The low-down, via Discovery News...

The program, called TubeSat, is the brainchild of Randa and Roderick Milliron, a Mojave, Calif.-based couple who've been developing a bare-bones, low-cost rocket system for the past 14 years. Selling flights as a package deal with satellite-building kits is proving to be a winning combination, with more than a dozen customers signed up to fly on the debut launch early next year.

The first of four suborbital test flights is scheduled for August and there are customers for those as well.

"The acceptance and enthusiasm has been overwhelming," Randa Milliron, chief executive of Interorbital Systems, told Discovery News.

The customers include hobbyists like Alex Antunes, who is customizing his TubeSat into a device that can detect changes in the ionosphere in a digital format for musicians' use.

"You can listen to the ionosphere and get a sense of what space is like. Space is a very interesting place and sound is one way we can display it," Antunes said.

He ordered a kit late last year. It contains the shell components for a satellite including a printed circuit board, solar cells, batteries, a combination transmitter-receiver, microcomputer, electronic components, blueprints and a structural shell that's about the size of a one-liter bottle.

Antunes found a company in Canada that has sensors he wants, thermal and magnetic detectors that will be able to convert the dance of the ionosphere into a blueprint for music. The data will be transmitted real-time via ham radio and recorded for distribution via the Internet at no charge.

"This is a solo project," Antunes said. "It's not as hard as it looks. It's very much a hobbyist kind of thing."

I think that's very cool. SatMagazine reported quite a few customers have signed on for the launch.

In addition to those already signed on, 20 additional experimental teams have reserved payload space with sales pending (satellites are added to the manifest only after full payment is made). The NEPTUNE 30 was originally designed to launch a 32-TubeSat payload, or 15 CubeSats, but the customer base began to demand CubeSat launches and double or triple TubeSat placement. To keep the costs at affordable, academically accessible levels, no more than four Cubesats will be flown on the specially priced academic launches, leaving space for 26 TubeSats to launch at the original $8,000 rate. The base price per standard TubeSat Kit, including launch, is $8,000. The cost per Cubesat launch (no kit) on a mixed manifest flight is $12,500. The price per satellite aboard an all-CubeSat NEPTUNE 30 launch will be $18,000.

Four low-altitude (15km/10mi) suborbital test launches of the NEPTUNE 30 components are scheduled throughout 2010 prior to the first orbital launch. The first three pre-orbital testflights will evaluate the performance of a single CPM and related launch systems. The last testflight will be conducted with an all-up 5-CPM NEPTUNE 30. Payload space is still available for all suborbital flights on the NEPTUNE CPM launches. Prices start at a minimum of $500/kg.

Two technologies make Interorbital Systems' low-cost space program possible: the TubeSat and the NEPTUNE 30 Modular Rocket, both developed in-house. After studying the small satellite market for the last two years, and seeing the need for low-cost alternatives to existing small sat sources and launch options, IOS invented the TubeSat Personal Satellite (PS) Kit and offered it to the space community with a launch to orbit on the IOS NEPTUNE 30 rocket at the combined price of $8,000. Interorbital’s co-founder and CEO Randa Milliron commented, “Starting now, private ownership of a piece of space real estate is possible — and at an irresistibly affordable cost. Planet Earth has just entered the age of the Personal Satellite.”

With its low cost and flexibility of use, the TubeSat Personal Satellite Kit offers endless possibilities. What exactly can one do with one’s own spacecraft? For the general public, it’s an opportunity to send a loved-one’s ashes or mementos to orbit in a tiny private mausoleum. For tekkies, artists, scientists, or hobbyists, this is a chance to broadcast personal messages from space, track migrating animals, photograph and chronicle climate change, conduct sustained zero-G science, send private email, play a new musical release from orbit, study cosmic ray activity, space-qualify hardware, or advertise a product, company, or cause — all from one’s own orbiting platform that is tearing through space at over 17,500 miles-per-hour. 

Check out the "news" video...

 It may cost more than most DIY projects, but think of the possibilities. Think big.

According to Professor Fitts of Marquette University, astronauts need to stay fit while they travel to Mars. Tom Held's piece in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is worth reading...

Over five years, the MU professor and his team analyzed muscle biopsies taken from nine astronauts and cosmonauts before and after their six-month missions on the International Space Station. Their muscles atrophied and lost power significantly, despite regular workouts on a treadmill and resistance machine.

The lack of gravitational force to stress the muscles continues to be a problem.

“The muscle is being activated, but there is no load,” said Fitts, chairman of the Department of Biological Sciences at Marquette.

“The exercises are not adequate at the moment,” he said. “We showed that treadmill running was more effective than biking in protecting against muscle loss, but it’s still not good enough.”

Fitts has been studying the physical effects of prolonged space flight for nearly two decades, starting with analysis of muscle loss during the shorter space shuttle flights. The results of those studies guided the nutritional and exercise plans implemented by astronauts on longer missions, and the new findings will be vital if the U.S. pursues manned missions to Mars.

The paper published in the Journal of Physiology provides an in-depth analysis of 2,000 muscle fibers sampled from the calves of astronauts and cosmonauts who spent six months on the space station. Their missions were spread from 2000 to 2005.

Fitts found the muscles suffered a 35% loss of force and a 20% loss of size in the slow-twitch fibers. The loss of power – the key to movement – was roughly 45%.

“The biggest problem is the wasting of the muscle and the reduction of the motion, and as a result the power loss is much greater than the atrophy,” Fitts said.

“The danger would be in an emergency,” he said. “If there was an emergency on landing, they wouldn’t be able to egress out of the vehicle rapidly.”

Equally problematic is the loss of stamina. Astronauts attempting space walks or other operations after months in a low-gravity environment would fatigue quickly, limiting their capacity to work.

Take out your cans, 'cause here come the garbage man!

That's what Louie, played by Scatman Crothers, would sing when he'd come around the shop on "Chico and The Man," a popular TV show from the 1970s. Over at DARPA, they may call him EDDE these days.

Meet EDDE, the Electrodynamic Debris Eliminator.

EDDE is an operational electrodynamic vehicle proposed by Jerome Pearson of STAR Technology and Research. STAR and TAI have worked on it under AFRL, NASA, NIAC, and DARPA funding, and are about to receive additional funding from DARPA. EDDE spins like a propeller to stabilize itself. The spin also lets EDDE push and pull against the earth's magnetic field as desired, allowing controlled changes in all 6 orbit elements.

EDDE uses a 30mm wide reinforced aluminum-foil tape as a full-length 10 km electron collector and conductor, to improve electron collection at high altitudes. EDDE's solar arrays are distributed along its length. They serve as "electron pumping stations" that limit peak voltages relative to the local plasma. They also allow prompt detection and active quenching of arcs triggered by micrometeoroid impact on negatively-biased parts of EDDE, to prevent TSS-like failures due to sustained arcing. Like TEPCE, EDDE can flow current in either direction, but EDDE will use hollow cathodes as electron emitters, to allow multi-amp currents.

EDDE will be able to capture objects in expendable spinning nets deployed from either end, and drag them either down into short-lived orbits, or to facilities that might recycle much of the ~2100 tons of debris now in low earth orbit. Each EDDE weighs ~100 kg and should be able to handle ~25 tons of LEO debris per year. So a dozen EDDEs may be able to clean up most of the 2100 tons of debris in LEO within ~7 years. Thereafter a few EDDEs can stay in orbit to remove new spent stages and failed satellites on demand, providing a new option for complying with the "25-year rule."

This little device may help clean up space junk? Good idea...

Jerome Pearson, president of Star Inc, presented the idea for what he calls "a space garbage truck" on Friday at the annual Space Elevator conference. Pearson was an early proponent of the idea of building a space elevator, and a paper he wrote about it in 1975 inspired the description of a space elevator in Arthur C Clarke's science fiction book, The Fountains of Paradise, which popularised the idea.

Space garbage happens to be one of the biggest obstacles to building a space elevator. Pearson's proposed EDDE vehicle will come equipped with around 200 nets, like butterfly nets, that it extends to scoop up garbage in low-earth orbit. Over a period of seven years, 12 EDDE vehicles could capture all 2,465 identified objects over 2 kilograms floating in LEO, Pearson says.

NASA astronaut to use robot arm to repair International Space Station | NASA offers $5 million in prizes for robots, satellites and solar spacecraft | European space telescope spots big empty hole | Space elevator conference calls for more materials science research

Once it captures the object, the EDDE can do several things with it. EDDE can fling the garbage such that it lands in the South Pacific, where it has little chance of dangerously landing on anything important. Or, the EDDE can deliver the object closer to Earth where it will orbit out of harm's way and eventually decay.

Better yet, it can be reused in space to build a variety of useful structures, Pearson said. "So you'd be mining aluminium in orbit mainly," he said. Four EDDEs could collect enough metal and other material to build a structure the size of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, which could be used to host crews or store equipment, he said.

Pearson acknowledges a number of challenges to the idea behind EDDE. For instance, with 12 or more EDDEs zipping around, "we may need space traffic control," he said. Just like the US Federal Aviation Administration regulates US airspace, that agency has already begun looking at ways it might monitor space, requiring vehicles like EDDEs to file flight plans, he said.

Another possibly significant issue is that while Pearson is proposing the use of EDDEs to clean up garbage, they could potentially be used for more sinister purposes, and that has already raised alarms in China. For instance, an EDDE could be used for military purposes to remove a satellite from orbit. Because of those concerns, Space Inc is working on shifting the project to NASA rather than DARPA, which is part of the US Department of Defence, Pearson said. 

The newspaper's pretty thin today. Many people are away, so there are less ads to run. Reports and editors are on vacation, too. Less content overall.

So the timing must be just right for some satcom P.R., right? Sure, let's run that piece! First page of the business section in today's New York Times -- a story on satellite, "Tapping the Web from 22,000 Miles Up."

Great press for the folks at ViaSat and HughesNet, but you could have recycled a story from 5, 10 or even 15 years ago. The only difference is they're actually serving a million customers. Some quotables...

“One advantage satellite has is ubiquity,” Arunas G. Slekys, vice president for Hughes Network Systems, said. “The cost of reaching you with a satellite dish is independent of where you are. Fiber or cable is labor-intensive and dependent on distance.”

As to satellite’s potential in rural regions, “clearly, there’s an unserved market,” Mr. Slekys said. “And it’s not as though they have terrestrial or satellite. They only have satellite as a choice.” 

If rural is "unserved," WTF have you been doing? I've experienced "rural" in Upstate New York, and in Prince Edward Island, Canada. No comparison: PEI wins with broadband. People in Vermont have been waiting for years to get a price-competitive services from satcom. Nothing yet. National Broadband Plan? Satcom didn't get much. Let's all cry together...

Even so, the satellite companies contend that they should have received a bigger piece of the $7.2 billion in federal stimulus money for extending broadband service to underserved areas in the United States. Of its $2.5 billion share of the stimulus funds, the Agriculture Department is allocating just $100 million in grants to satellite companies.

Thomas E. Moore, chief of WildBlue, said satellite technology would be able to serve thousands more rural residents than terrestrial services at a fraction of the cost. He cited a $28 million grant to a nonprofit group in North Carolina to extend fiber to 420 schools and libraries. That same grant could have instead directly served 70,000 residents in North Carolina through satellite service, Mr. Moore said. 

What, can't lower the price? Gotta keep the 80% margins. I'd rather see the profits generated from television broadcasting used to provide broadband Internet service to under-served markets. If they had historical data on how they're "subsidizing" this type of service, perhaps they'd get some help from the Broadband Plan.

Hey, at least Space Systems/Loral get good press: they're building both Ka-band birds for ViaSat and Hughes.

Overall, the piece is typically well-balanced and well done. For the satcom guys, it's just another example of their press people not being taken seriously by the MSM. In other words, who cares?