July 20, 2020

BeiDou Adopted in Unmanned Farm Machines in Xinjiang (Source: Xinhua)
The BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) has been adopted in more than 10,000 unmanned farm tractors and spraying drones in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, according to the regional agriculture and husbandry machinery administration. Xinjiang has been promoting tractors, harvesters and other agricultural machinery equipped with BDS in recent years, and techniques such as precision sowing, fertilization, and pesticide spraying, based on the system to improve the working quality of the machines. (7/20)

MIT Creates Apollo 11 'Moon Disaster' to Explore Danger of Deepfakes (Source: CollectSpace)
It was 51 years ago today (July 20) that U.S. President Richard Nixon addressed the country after fate ordained that the first humans to attempt a landing on the moon would "stay on the moon to rest in peace." The iconic broadcast, mourning the loss of Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, was delivered from the Oval Office at the White House just hours after the moon disaster. Except it wasn't. As history records, the first lunar landing was a total success and the crew returned to Earth safely, despite a new recording showing Nixon reading the contingency words prepared for him by speechwriter William Safire on July 18, 1969.

The video, released by MIT's Center for Advanced Virtuality on Monday — the 51st anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing — is "fake news," purposely. "Media misinformation is a longstanding phenomenon, but, exacerbated by deepfake technologies and the ease of disseminating content online, it's become a crucial issue of our time," said D. Fox Harrell, professor of digital media and of artificial intelligence at MIT and director of the Center for Advanced Virtuality, part of MIT Open Learning, in a statement. Click here. (7/20)

The Secretive UK Fund Behind the Government’s $500m Investment in OneWeb (Source: The Telegraph)
The National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF) isn’t like most venture capital funds. Its employees don’t give interviews, and many don’t even use social media. When they do, their online profiles typically list vague career histories such as decades spent working for the Foreign Office or Ministry of Defence doing “diplomatic service”. Most technology entrepreneurs in the UK haven’t heard of it. Many investors aren’t aware of its existence either. But despite its low profile, the secretive fund is quickly becoming a vital tool for the security services to access emerging technology built in the UK which could help bolster the country’s national security agenda. (7/20)

Successful SpaceX ANASIS-II Launch Highlights Company's Reusability Success Story (Source: SPACErePORT)
SpaceX launched South Korea's ANASIS-II satellite from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport at 5:30pm EDT. The picture perfect launch was capped off with an on-point booster landing on a downrange droneship, followed by the dry capture of both fairing halves using retrieval boats. This mission's booster was the same one that launched NASA's crew to the International Space Station only weeks ago. (7/20)

Handshakes and Histories: The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, 45 Years Later (Source: Space Review)
For the 45th anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, Roscosmos released documents about Soviet preparations for the mission. Asif Siddiqi and Dwayne Day examine the insights the documents provide that help put the mission into a new perspective. Click here. (7/20)
 
The Pandemic’s Effect on NASA Science (Source: Space Review)
Last week, NASA announced another delay in the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, which the agency said was at least in part because of the coronavirus pandemic. Jeff Foust reports that JWST is not the only NASA science mission or research program affected by the pandemic. Click here. (7/20)
 
Tracking Off-the-Books Satellites with Low Perigees (Source: Space Review)
Some objects in orbit aren’t included in an official Defense Department catalog, even those that can pose a reentry risk. Charles Phillips discusses efforts to track those objects with low perigees to see when they might reenter. Click here. (7/20)

Satellite Data Approach Could Reshape Climate Talks (Source: TIME)
As countries entered the final months of talks ahead of the Paris Agreement in 2015, China offered a big revelation: the country had burned substantially more coal than it had previously acknowledged in the preceding years. Many diplomats took the voluntary acknowledgment as a sign of good faith. Nonetheless, the update underscored the broader challenges that climate change activists face when it comes to data collection.

Historically, there’s been no way for third parties to directly gather data on the greenhouse gas emissions of both public and private entities, and so any concerted effort to reduce emissions has required trusting companies and governments to tell the truth about how much they’re polluting. Now, a new coalition of nine climate and technology organizations calling themselves Climate Trace say they have used satellite data, artificial intelligence and other technology to track greenhouse-gas emissions from across the globe remotely.

At the micro level, the platform allows users to track emissions down to the level of individual factories, ships and power plants. In aggregate, the platform will allow for a collective accounting of the how the world is doing in the effort to reduce emissions. The problem Climate Trace aims to solve is as old as the climate challenge itself. Emissions data are often collected by local governments and authorities and collated at a national level. For that reason, the validity of the data can vary significantly from country to country and region to region. (7/20)

Leveraging Microgravity to Improve Medical Diagnostics – One Drop at a Time (Source: Parabolic Arc)
What if a single drop of blood were all that is needed to provide reliable medical diagnostics in any setting on—or even off—Earth? This week, NASA astronauts Douglas  Hurley and Robert Behnken, who recently launched to the International Space Station (ISS) on the historic SpaceX Demo-2 mission, are working on an investigation from Boston-based biotech startup 1Drop Diagnostics to enhance a portable device that can run diagnostic tests from anywhere using just one drop of blood.

1Drop Diagnostics’ device contains specially designed microfluidic chips, and the company is doing research on the ISS to better understand fluid flow through the chips’ small channels. Results from the investigation, sponsored by the ISS U.S. National Laboratory, should allow 1Drop Diagnostics to improve chip design and function. Through their space-based research, 1Drop Diagnostics seeks to advance next-generation medical diagnostics that will reduce health care costs and provide better health outcomes for patients back on Earth. (7/19)

UAE Mars Probe Launches From Japan (Source: Space News)
The United Arab Emirates' Hope spacecraft is on its way to Mars after a launch Sunday. An H-2A rocket lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan at 5:58 p.m. Eastern and released the Hope spacecraft nearly an hour later. The 1,350-kilogram spacecraft, built by the UAE in cooperation with several American universities, will go into orbit around Mars in February. Hope carries three instruments to study Martian weather and climate. Hope is the first of three Mars missions scheduled for launch this month, with China's Tianwen-1 mission expected to launch Thursday, followed by NASA's Mars 2020 mission next week. (7/20)

White House Recognizes Space Exploration Day, July 20 (Source: White House)
Through NASA’s Artemis program, the United States will send the next man and the first woman to the surface of the Moon by 2024.  Soon, the rover Perseverance will launch from Kennedy Space Center, bound for the Jezero Crater on Mars, lighting the way for our brave American astronauts to one day follow.  Along with the helicopter Ingenuity, we will test powered flight on another world for the first time, unlocking the mysteries of the Red Planet in order to one day plant our great American Flag to proudly fly as a beacon of liberty and American creativity throughout the galaxy.

On Space Exploration Day, we pause and pay tribute to the Nation’s legacy of leadership in space and to those who came before us—remembering those who have sacrificed so much for our country’s successes and vowing to honor their achievements by continuing the noble pursuit of space exploration and understanding in the 21st century. (7/20)

UK Orders Military Satellite From Airbus (Source: Space News)
The British government has ordered a military communications satellite from Airbus Defence and Space. The $628 million Skynet-6A satellite, based on the Eurostar Neo platform, is slated for launch in 2025 and expected to provide communications services for the British military until at least 2040. The satellite will serve as a gapfiller as the U.K. government decides on the long-term replacement for the existing Skynet-5 system of four X-band and UHF satellites. Those evaluations will now likely consider what role OneWeb could play, now that the U.K. government is working with Bharti Global to acquire the satellite megaconstellation company. (7/20)

Space Force Tests Military Satellite (Source: Space News)
The U.S. Space Force has tested using a secure military communications technology using Skynet satellites. The Space Force Space and Missile Systems Center and the U.K. Ministry of Defence conducted a demonstration last week of the Protected Tactical Waveform, technology designed to mitigate the effects of jamming on tactical communications networks. The system has been in development for several years for the U.S. military's Wideband Global Satcom communications satellites. (7/20)

Space Force Acquisition Focuses on Innovation (Source: Space News)
The Space Force wants its acquisition command to embody a culture of innovation. The Space Systems Command, announced last month as one of three Space Force field commands, will be the acquisition arm of the Space Force, and will oversee the Space Force’s approximately $12 billion annual budget for research, development and procurement of new systems. It will include the Space and Missile Systems Center and other organizations that handle procurement of space systems. Gen. Jay Raymond, head of the Space Force, has previously said the traditional way of buying satellites and other space systems for the military takes too long. (7/20)

US Restrictions Eased on Imagery of Israel (Source: Space News)
The U.S. government is set to roll back restrictions on the sale of high-resolution commercial satellite images of Israel. A notice set to appear in the Federal Register this week from NOAA will formally change the resolution limit of images of Israel that NOAA-licensed companies can sell from 2 meters to 0.4 meters. A provision of federal law known as the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment requires companies with NOAA remote sensing licenses to sell images of Israel that are no better than what is commercially available elsewhere. A recent NOAA review concluded that satellite imagery for sale from foreign commercial operators and resellers had resolutions as sharp as 0.4 meters, justifying the change in the Kyl-Bingaman resolution limit. (7/20)

Three Companies Picked to Design Military Orbital Outpost (Source: Space News)
Three companies are studying concepts for a "space station" for military payloads. Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) announced last week it had won a contract from the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) for the Orbital Outpost program, which it described as "a scalable, autonomous space station for experiments and logistics demonstrations." SNC said its concept is based on the Shooting Star cargo module it developed for Dream Chaser missions to the International Space Station. Neither SNC nor DIU would disclose the value of the award, although DIU said the SNC award was one of three study contracts it made. Procurement databases showed that Arkisys and Nanoracks also received Orbital Outpost awards, with an average contract value of about $400,000. DIU says it envisions using Orbital Outpost for flying R&D payloads. (7/20)

Houston Monument Honors Town's Role in Space Program (Source: CollectSpace)
A monument in a Houston suburb honors its contributions to the space program. Nassau Bay, Texas, formally commemorated the monument, a steel arc 16 meters high atop a concrete pedestal, last week. The arc, sweeping upward, is intended to honor the connections between the Johnson Space Center and the neighboring community, which has been home to dozens of astronauts. (7/20)

Deceased Senator, Civil Rights Activist, Remembered for Saving ISS (Source: Space Policy Online)
The space community is remembering a civil rights activist for a vote he cast more than 25 years ago that "saved" the space program. Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) died Friday at the age of 80 of cancer. Lewis was one the leaders of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, and served in Congress from 1987 until his death. In 1993, Lewis voted against an amendment to a NASA authorization bill that would have killed the space station program, casting what is considered the deciding vote in a 216-215 rejection of the amendment. (7/20)