Month: April 2023

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GeekWire

Microsoft Azure Space turns a chatbot into a satbot

Satellite antenna
The Pentagon envisions linking multiple ground communication systems with diverse satellite networks. (Photo via Defense Innovation Unit)

Can a chatbot help Pentagon planners find the satellite data they need to understand what’s happening in a global hotspot? Microsoft Azure Space recently showed the U.S. military how an application beefed up with AI could do just that.

The daylong demonstration, which was conducted for the Defense Innovation Unit’s Hybrid Space Architecture program last month, is among several space-related developments that Microsoft and its partners showcased today in advance of next week’s Space Symposium in Colorado.

Other developments include a collaboration with Ball Aerospace and Loft Federal on an experimental satellite program for the Defense Department’s Space Development Agency; a new frontier for Microsoft Azure’s partnership with Viasat; and a milestone for the Space Information Sharing and Analysis Center.

“Azure Space has been committed to enabling people to achieve more, both on and off the planet,” Stephen Kitay, senior director of Microsoft Azure Space, told me. “And this commitment encompasses not only commercial [applications], but also empowers government missions as well. Digital transformation within the government is the key to unlocking the full potential of what’s possible in space, and Microsoft is providing these technologies and solutions to government agencies alongside our partners to make this transformation possible.”

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Fiction Science Club

The 007 saga gets a tech upgrade for the 2020s

Kim Sherwood, author of "Double or Nothing," in an Alpine A110S sports car
Kim Sherwood checks out the driver's seat of the Alpine A110S sports car favored by her fictional Agent 003. (Photo by Rosie Sherwood)

Imagine a James Bond story with quantum computers, brain-computer interfaces, a cloud-shifting climate control system and a billionaire who owns his own launch system and satellite constellation.

Now imagine that James Bond is missing from the story.

That’s the unconventional tack taken by British author Kim Sherwood in her first-ever spy thriller, “Double or Nothing” — the kickoff to a trilogy that introduces a new cast of secret agents, plus some old favorites including M, Miss Moneypenny and CIA agent Felix Leiter.

James Bond, a.k.a. Agent 007, made his debut as the debonair MI6 spy 70 years ago in Ian Fleming’s first novel, “Casino Royale,” and went on to star in more than four dozen books and 27 movies. But “Double or Nothing” is not your grandparents’ 007 thriller.

“Ian Fleming, of course, was a product of his time, and I’m a product of mine,” Sherwood, a 33-year-old lecturer in creative writing at the University of Edinburgh, says in the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast.

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GeekWire

Icebergs ahead? This year’s Titanic trips will start early

MV Polar Prince at sea
The MV Polar Prince will be OceanGate’s seagoing base of operations. (Copyright Miawpukek Horizon Marine Services)

OceanGate Expeditions, which has conducted dives to the site of the Titanic shipwreck in 2021 and 2022, says it will begin its trips a month earlier this year, in May — a schedule change that strikes a chord with history.

“May is still considered to be iceberg season in the North Atlantic where the shipwreck of the Titanic lies,” Stockton Rush, president of OceanGate Expeditions, noted in a news release. Rush is also the CEO and founder of Everett, Wash.-based OceanGate Inc., which has OceanGate Expeditions as its exploration branch.

Almost exactly 111 years ago, the Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg during its first voyage, resulting in more than 1,500 deaths. The tragedy sparked one of history’s best-known tales of a disaster at sea — and also sparked interest in underwater shipwreck surveys like the ones organized by OceanGate.

Rush said he and his team were mindful of the potential hazard. “With this in mind, having a capable ship specifically designed for working in the icy Arctic regions is going to be very valuable for our extended crew of scientists, Titanic experts and mission specialists,” he said.

OceanGate Expeditions has signed a charter contract with Horizon Maritime and Miawpukek Horizon Marine Services for the use of the MV Polar Prince, which was previously operated by the Canadian Coast Guard as a light icebreaker known as the Sir Humphrey Gilbert. During most of its 64-year history, the ship cleared ice from harbors and guided other ships through ice-choked marine environments.

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GeekWire

Nuclear deep-space probe gets a new boost from NASA

Illustration: Nyx spacecraft with radioisotope-powered propulsion system
An artist's conception shows a probe with a radioisotope-powered propulsion system. (USNC-Tech Illustration)

Seattle-based USNC-Tech has gotten the green light from NASA to continue development of a rapid-response spacecraft that would use a nuclear-powered propulsion system for deep-space exploration.

The company’s proposed Nyx mission is one of six projects receiving Phase II grants from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program, or NIAC. Each grant provides up to $600,000 of support over the course of two years to follow up on Phase I NIAC projects.

USNC-Tech, the advanced-technology arm of Ultra Safe Nuclear Corp., has been working on a next-generation radioisotope thermoelectric generator known as EmberCore. RTGs are basically batteries powered by the decay of radioactive material. They’ve been used for decades for missions ranging from Apollo moonshots to Mars rover treks and deep-space odysseys. EmberCore promises to provide 10 times as much electrical power as the current generation of RTGs.

For the Nyx mission, USNC-Tech envisions adapting EmberCore for an electric propulsion system that could propel a spacecraft to extremely high speeds. “The spacecraft architecture is capable of incredible delta-V on the order of 50-100 km/s,” USNC-Tech’s Christopher Morrison says in the company’s proposal. That would translate to 110,000 to 220,000 mph.

Such spacecraft could theoretically catch up with mysterious interstellar objects like ‘Oumuamua, which zoomed through our solar system in 2017. Other potential missions include detection of objects in the far-flung Kuiper Belt, parallax microlensing to look for free-floating planets, and fast trips beyond the solar system’s zodiacal glow.

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GeekWire

How power plays could open new frontiers in space

Illustration: Spacecraft with nuclear thermal propulsion system
An artist’s conception shows a nuclear thermal propulsion system at work in orbit (USNC-Tech Illustration)

As more and more hardware goes into Earth orbit, and eventually to the moon and Mars, where will the power to run all those machines come from?

That’s one of the questions under consideration at a State of the Space Industrial Base workshop that’s being conducted this week at Seattle’s Museum of Flight.

The workshop, hosted by Space Northwest, is bringing together government, academic and commercial leaders to assess the state of advanced power and propulsion for space missions, as well as the outlook for a Department of Defense initiative known as Hybrid Space Architecture.

Input from the workshop will be combined with insights gained at two other workshops in Florida and New Mexico to help the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit produce its annual report about the space industry’s potential contributions to sustaining America’s leadership on the final frontier.

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Universe Today

Meet the crew who’ll fly around the moon for Artemis 2

Artemis 2 crew portrait
The Artemis 2 crew includes, clockwise from left, Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen and Reid Wiseman. (Credit: Josh Valcarcel / NASA)

The four astronauts chosen for NASA’s Artemis 2 mission will check off a string of firsts during their flight around the moon, scheduled for next year. It’ll mark the first trip beyond Earth orbit for a woman, for a person of color and for a Canadian. Artemis 2 will represent yet another first for Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen: Based on the current crew schedule, it’ll be his first-ever space mission.

Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialist Christina Koch round out the first crew for NASA’s Artemis moon program, which picks up on the legacy of the Apollo moon program. If all goes according to plan, they’ll be the first humans to circle the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.

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