May 21, 2022

Embry-Riddle Aospace Engineering Ph.D. Program Gets $840,000 Boost From U.S. Department of Education (Source: ERAU)
Fourteen Aerospace Engineering doctoral students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University were recently supported with funds from an $840,000 GAANN (Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need) grant, awarded by the U.S. Department of Education. One beneficiary of the grant, Ph.D. student Kaela Barrett, who is currently using 3D printing to design and optimize structural performance, has been using the flexibility afforded by the grant to explore the various niches within engineering. (5/12)

Space Force ‘Reverse Industry Day’ to Address Gaps in Sensing, Tracking (Source: C4ISRnet)
U.S. Space Force acquisition officials are meeting with companies to discuss capabilities that could help the service track ground targets with space sensors. The service, in coordination with the Air Force, has been studying options for future space-based tactical intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities over the last year and expects to complete a year-long review this spring. As part of that work, the service is meeting with industry to better understand what sensors and data analysis tools are available in the market. (5/19)

Why Have Aliens Never Visited Earth? Scientists Have a Disturbing Answer (Source: Space.com)
Why has humanity never been visited by aliens (that we know of)? The question has confounded scientists for decades, but two researchers have come up with a possible — and disturbing — explanation: Advanced civilizations could be doomed to either stagnate or die before they get the chance.

The new hypothesis suggests that, as space-faring civilizations grow in scale and technological development, they eventually reach a crisis point where innovation no longer keeps up with the demand for energy. What comes next is collapse. The only alternative path is to reject a model of "unyielding growth" in favor of maintaining equilibrium, but at the cost of a civilization's ability to expand across the stars, the researchers said.

The argument attempts to find a resolution to the Fermi Paradox, which draws attention to the contradiction between the immense scope and age of the universe — two things that suggest the universe should be teeming with advanced alien life — and the lack of evidence that extraterrestrials exist anywhere in sight. "Civilizations either collapse from burnout or redirect themselves to prioritizing homeostasis, a state where cosmic expansion is no longer a goal, making them difficult to detect remotely," the researchers suggest. (5/20)

Boeing's Starliner Playing Catch-Up with SpaceX's Crew Dragon (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Starliner had been on pace with SpaceX before the 2019 setback, a malfunction NASA referred to as a “high visibility close call” that led to a post-launch review calling for 80 changes to the program. After nearly 18 months of fixes, Boeing was back last August for a retry. But that attempt was foiled when moisture caused corrosion on several valves, and Starliner was delayed another nine months.

Now, with new hardware in place and issues resolved, the spacecraft can finally finish the job, which is being done at no cost to NASA since it’s a reflight. If all goes as planned, the Starliner will dock with the ISS on Friday at 7:10 p.m. and could return to Earth as early as May 25.

Starliner’s next flight, this time with passengers, could come later this year. Previously, NASA astronauts Barry Wilmore and Michael Fincke had been assigned, but final crew assignments for the Crew Flight Test (CFT) will be coming later this summer, NASA officials said. (5/20)

Boeing's Starliner Encounters Propulsion Problems on Way to ISS (Sources: Space.com, Space Daily)
During the spacecraft’s orbital insertion burn, which occurred 31 minutes after liftoff, two of Starliner’s thrusters didn’t fire as expected. The first failed after only one second. Its backup immediately kicked on and was able to fire for another 25 seconds before it also failed. Redundancy failsafes activated a tertiary backup for the thruster group, and Starliner was able to complete the crucial burn without incident.

The Boeing spacecraft is outfitted with four of these thruster groups on its aft section, which each contain three Aerojet orbital maneuvering and attitude control (OMAC) thrusters used to perform significant maneuver burns like those that achieve orbital insertion. The two OMAC thrusters that malfunctioned, and the third that stepped in to compensate, were all in the same group on Starliner’s aft section, Boeing representatives said.

"We'll just have to go through a little bit more troubleshooting and see if we can figure out why those two thrusters didn't complete that orbit insertion burn," said Boeing's Steve Stitch. The mission's success is key to repairing Boeing's frayed reputation after the first bid, back in 2019, failed to dock with the ISS due to software bugs -- one that led to it burning too much fuel to reach its destination, and another that could have destroyed the vehicle during re-entry. (5/20)

DARPA Funds Formation-Flying PredaSAR Sats for Data Algorithm Testing (Source: Space Daily)
Terran Orbital Corp. has announced that its subsidiary, PredaSAR, received a contract award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to research synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite formation flying concepts and joint data collection techniques. The potential prototype will provide data products from at least two SAR satellites flying in formation and demonstrate novel data processing algorithms. (5/19)

Recommendation Algorithms That Power Amazon, Netflix Can Improve Satellite Imagery (Source: Space Daily)
Algorithms that help consumers decide what to stream or buy online can do more than predict customers' habits: They can help satellites see the Earth better, according to a Rutgers study.

Optical satellites lose sight of the Earth's surface when it is covered by clouds, and researchers have long relied on inaccurate tools to fill the blind spots, particularly along coastlines. By adapting a recommendation algorithm first built for Netflix, Ruo-Qian Wang created a system that is more accurate and faster at predicting cloud-covered landscapes in coastal areas than conventional data-filling tools. (5/12)

Military Commands Misspent $19M In COVID Relief, OIG Says (Source: Law360)
Two military commands spent more than $19 million in COVID-19 relief funds on space-related data analytics and cloud environment software that couldn't be connected to their pandemic response efforts, the Pentagon's inspector general reported on Thursday. The money was part of a $66 million supplement, provided through the CARES Act, to help the North American Aerospace Defense Command and US Northern Command shore up their pandemic response. (5/19)