Lifeboat Foundation

China and Russia are set to sign a milestone agreement in October on joint space exploration from 2018 to 2022, sending manned missions to the Moon for the first time. The bilateral agreement will cover five areas including lunar and deep space exploration, developing special materials, collaboration in the area of satellite systems, Earth remote sensing, and space debris research. This is the first bilateral agreement to cover a partnership spanning five years. It is to be signed against the background of space exploration race the US is trying to win, so the two partners decided to join the efforts. In February, the Trump administration asked NASA to look into the possibility of manning a heavy-lift rocket mission, expected to be launched in 2018, setting the stage for a human return to the Moon.

Russia’s Glavkosmos space launch operator is also working with Chinese partners on joint experiments aboard the International Space Station (ISS). China was interested in buying the world’s most powerful Russian-made RD rocket engines produced by Energomash while Russian Space Systems showed interest in Chinese electronic technology.

Continue reading “Russia, China to Join Together in Space Exploration Effort” »

Dear vice president mike pence, chairman of the national space council:

Thank you for your leadership of the National Space Council that has been recreated under the authority of President Trump. In 1962, when the Council was first formed under the leadership of Vice President Johnson, its executive director, Edward Welsh, played a decisive role in the drafting and passage of the Communications Satellite Act, which led to the creation of COMSAT and the subsequent formation of INTELSAT, an intergovernmental communications satellite organization initially with 14-member governments in 1964 that was privatized in 2001. COMSAT was the first major step towards the commercial use of outer space. In 1967, after Johnson had been elected president, he reported that “the Communications Satellite Act of 1962 [has] brought mankind to the threshold of a full-time global communications service to which all nations of the world may have equal access.”

The world is at a watershed moment regarding outer space. Governments have dominated in outer space. Increasingly, though, private investment will shape the future in space. The US does not have a strategy nor is it organized to effective ly advance private space development and the emergence of a self-sustaining space economy. This is the principal challenge to be addressed by the Space Council.

Continue reading “The National Space Council for American leadership in space industries” »

Let’s say you are the program manager of a very large, complex system. Perhaps it’s an aircraft, or a building, or a communications network. Your system is valued at over US $500 million. Could you imagine being told that you won’t ever be able to maintain it? That once it’s operational, it will never be inspected, repaired, or upgraded with new hardware?

Welcome to the world of satellite building. After a satellite is launched, it is on a one-way journey to disrepair and obsolescence, and there is little anyone can do to alter that path. Faults (which are called anomalies in the space business) can only be diagnosed remotely, using data and inferential reasoning. Software fixes and upgrades may be possible, but the nuts and bolts remain untouched. The upshot: Even if a satellite is operating well, it could lose its state-of-the-art status just a few years into a typical 15-year lifetime.

If governments and private companies could actively repair and revitalize their satellites in geosynchronous orbit—and move them to new orbits as needed—they could extend the lifespans of their investments and substantially defer the cost of building and launching replacements.

Continue reading “Robot Mechanic Could Prevent Satellites From Becoming Space Junk” »

(Phys.org)—For the first time, physicists have demonstrated that hyperentangled photons can be transmitted in free space, which they showed by sending many thousands of these photons between the rooftops of two buildings in Vienna. Hyperentanglement means that the photons are simultaneously entangled in at least two different properties—in this experiment, the researchers combined two two-dimensionally entangled properties to achieve four-dimensional hyperentanglement.

By showing that hyperentanglement transmission is feasible in the real world and not only in the lab, the physicists expect that the demonstration could one day be scaled up to establish a highly secure quantum Internet that uses satellites to quickly and securely transmit quantum information across the globe.

The physicists, led by Rupert Ursin at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, have published a paper on the distribution of hyperentanglement via atmospheric free-space links in a recent issue of Nature Communications.

Continue reading “Hyperentanglement across roof tops paves the way toward a global quantum Internet” »

The inventor of the EmDrive, a controversial space propulsion device that may speed up space travel, has revealed details of how it could be used to create a reusable launch vehicle to take rockets and satellites into space, as well as for personal flight.

Roger Shawyer has published a presentation about the third generation of the EmDrive, which he says is an improvement on the second generation. The original concept for the EmDrive, developed in 2008, was designed to enable in-orbit propulsion. The second generation, which has been in development since 2010, uses a superconducting cavity.

LONDON (Reuters) — The risk of cyber attacks targeting ships’ satellite navigation is pushing nations to delve back through history and develop back-up systems with roots in World War Two radio technology.

Ships use GPS (Global Positioning System) and other similar devices that rely on sending and receiving satellite signals, which many experts say are vulnerable to jamming by hackers.

About 90 percent of world trade is transported by sea and the stakes are high in increasingly crowded shipping lanes. Unlike aircraft, ships lack a back-up navigation system and if their GPS ceases to function, they risk running aground or colliding with other vessels.

Continue reading “Cyber threats prompt return of radio for ship navigation” »

A startup called OneWeb aims to make access to the internet (which the U.N. has deemed a basic human right) more widely available to those living in rural areas.

A satellite internet startup called OneWeb wants to make internet access available to all. From rural neighborhoods to completely remote communities, the company want to make sure that the internet isn’t just a luxury afforded to those who live in certain locations. Thanks in part to backing from Richard Branson of the Virgin Group, as well as Airbus and Qualcomm, OneWeb hopes to launch 720 satellites that would provide internet to places on Earth that are normally far out of reach.

Breakthrough Initiatives achieved a major milestone with the recent deployment of their Sprite satellites, the smallest satellites in history.

Planet Labs and other companies are sending hundreds of low-cost satellites into orbit. We’re only beginning to understand how that will change life on Earth.