Month: June 2024

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Amazon to provide satellite connectivity in South America

Amazon and Vrio execs at Seattle Spheres
Executives meet up at Amazon’s HQ in Seattle to work on plans to bridge the digital divide. From left: Rajeev Badyal, vice president of Project Kuiper; Vrio President Dario Werthein; and Panos Panay, senior vice president of Amazon Devices & Services. (Business Wire Photo)

Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellite broadband network has been tapped to provide internet connectivity to customers in seven South American countries, under the terms of a newly announced deal with Vrio Corp., the parent company of DirecTV Latin America and Sky Brasil.

Vrio plans to use the Kuiper network to serve residential customers in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay. The area takes in about 383 million people, including tens of millions of people who still aren’t connected to the internet, according to World Bank estimates.

In a news release, Vrio President Dario Werthein said the collaboration with Project Kuiper addresses his company’s concerns about “bridging the technology gap and even more so the digital divide for our future generations.”

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How artificial intelligence is taking over the final frontier

Photoillustration: Robonaut 2 and spacesuit for human astronaut
Robonaut 2 (at left) was one of NASA’s early forays into the world of robotics and AI. (NASA Photo)

Will intelligent AI agents take on the job of capsule communicator in future missions to the moon, Mars and other space destinations?

It could happen, says James Burk, the executive director of the Mars Society.

“One of our advisers did a really deep dive on how the Apollo astronauts interacted with each other and with the CapCom back on Earth, and he came to the insight that the Apollo 17 astronauts were using CapCom almost like an AI bot — because the CapCom knew everything,” Burk said during a panel discussion focusing on the intersection of artificial intelligence and space ventures.

“You can imagine having an AI edge device which could be like a rover following the crew around, walking around the moon or Mars,” he said. “It’s watching them and taking stock of how everyone’s doing.”

This week’s panel was a crossover session presented at Madrona Venture Labs by the Washington Technology Industry Association for Seattle AI Week, and by Space Northwest for Seattle Space Week. “When you think about the kinds of megatrends of our time, two of the big ones are space and AI,” said Mike Doyle, Space Northwest’s president and co-founder.

Putting AI into space adventures isn’t exactly a new idea: The best-known sci-fi example is HAL, the AI who goes psycho in “2001: A Space Odyssey.” There’s also the no-nonsense computer voice in the Star Trek saga, or Marvin the Paranoid Android in “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”

But the real world isn’t science fiction. Yet.

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Stoke Space’s new rocket engine passes its first fiery test

Stoke Space hotfire test of booster engine
Stoke Space’s Zenith booster engine blazes during a hot-fire test in 2024. (Stoke Space Photo)

Kent, Wash.-based Stoke Space says it has successfully completed the first hot-fire test of the engine that will power the first stage of its reusable Nova launch vehicle.

The firing took place June 5 at Stoke’s testing site in Moses Lake, Wash., the startup said today in a news release. During the two-second test, the engine ramped up to its target starting power level, producing the equivalent of 350,000 hp in less than a second, and held that power level until shutdown. At full power, the full-flow staged combustion engine is designed to produce more than 100,000 pounds of thrust.

The rocket engine was designed and manufactured in just 18 months. The medium-lift Nova rocket’s first-stage booster will be powered by seven of the engines.

“We are incredibly proud of this achievement,” Stoke Space co-founder and CEO Andy Lapsa said. “Our team has worked tirelessly to bring this engine to life in record time. This successful test is a testament to their talent and dedication, and it puts us one big step closer to bringing the Nova launch vehicle to market. Nova has unique capabilities that give commercial, civil, and defense customers access to, through, and from space.”

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Investigator debunks fake news about OceanGate

Titan submersible
OceanGate’s Titan submersible was lost during a dive to the Titanic in June 2023. (OceanGate Photo)

The chairman of the Coast Guard investigation panel for last year’s loss of OceanGate’s Titan submersible says his team has “found no evidence” that crew members knew about their peril.

In the wake of the tragedy, a purported transcript of communications during Titan’s final dive included increasingly desperate references to an alarm aboard the sub. But Jason Neubauer, the chairman of the Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigation, told The New York Times that the document “was made up.”

That conclusion is based on a review of the actual messages between Titan and its mothership as the sub descended toward the wreck of the Titanic in the North Atlantic on June 18, 2023. Although that true transcript has not yet been released, Neubauer’s comments support the view that the five crew members died virtually instantaneously in the violent implosion of Titan’s carbon composite hull.

Neubauer told the Times that he hoped the truth would console relatives of the crew who may have worried that their loved ones suffered in their last moments.

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Exhibit celebrates space station dreams and realities

Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger in front of Museum of Flight's selfie station
Retired NASA astronaut Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger takes selfies at the Museum of Flight. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

The dream of having people live and work in space didn’t start with billionaire Jeff Bezos, or even with rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun. Instead, you’d have to look back at least as far as 1869 — a full century before humans walked on the moon.

That’s just one of the fun facts you’ll learn from the Museum of Flight’s new exhibition, “Home Beyond Earth,” which opens today.

Geoff Nunn, the museum’s adjunct curator for space history, said this exhibit is meant to provide fun as well as education in the subjects of science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM.

“One of our goals was to go beyond the STEM of it, and really look at the underlying cultural connection and human fascination with living and working in space,” Nunn said. “Ultimately, we want everyone who comes through this exhibit, whether or not they’re interested in science and engineering, to think about how the space community is changing.”

The 1869 version of the space station dream serves as an example. Back then, Edward Everett Hale wrote “The Brick Moon,” a serialized novella about an artificial satellite that was built from bricks. The Museum of Flight’s team adapted an illustration from the story to create a 3D-printed model of the masonry moon, complete with tiny figures and palm trees sticking up from the top of the globe.

Other displays trace the evolution of the space station concept through the 1950s, when Walt Disney turned von Braun’s vision of a rotating space station into a TV show … the 1960s, when “2001: A Space Odyssey” picked up on the idea … the 1970s, when the Soviets and the Americans put up their first space stations … the 1980s and ’90s, when Russia’s Mir space station helped bridge the Cold War divide … leading up to the present-day era of the International Space Station.

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‘Earthrise’ astronaut Bill Anders dies in plane crash

NASA astronaut Bill Anders suiting up for Apollo 8 in 1968
Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders adjlusts his helmet while suiting up for his 1968 moon mission. (NASA Photo)

Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders, who snapped the iconic “Earthrise” photo of our planet as seen from lunar orbit, died today in a plane crash in waters off the San Juan Islands.

The 90-year-old spaceflier’s son, Greg Anders, confirmed his father’s death in an interview with The Associated Press and said the family was “devastated.”

“He was a great pilot, and we will miss him terribly,” he told AP.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson paid tribute to Anders in a posting to the X social-media platform. “In 1968, during Apollo 8, Bill Anders offered to humanity among the deepest of gifts an astronaut can give,” Nelson wrote. “He traveled to the threshold of the moon and helped all of us see something else: ourselves. He embodied the lessons and the purpose of exploration. We will miss him.”

Anders is best-known around the globe as the lunar module pilot who wielded the camera during Apollo 8’s mission. But decades after that round-the-moon trip, he remained active on the Pacific Northwest aviation scene as the founder of the Heritage Flight Museum in Burlington, Wash. He and his family moved to Orcas Island in the San Juans in 1993 — and later took up residence in Anacortes, Wash.

The San Juan County Sheriff’s Office said a report came in at around 11:40 a.m. PT today that an older-model airplane plunged into the water off the coast of Jones Island as it flew from north to south. Seattle-area resident Phillip Person captured video of the crash.

San Juan County Sheriff Eric Peter said a search was conducted in cooperation with the U.S. Coast Guard, the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The Coast Guard reported that a Fish & Wildlife dive team recovered Anders’ body after more than four hours of searching.

Based on an incident report from the Federal Aviation Administration, Anders was the pilot and sole occupant of the Beechcraft T-34 Mentor aircraft. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the incident.

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Boeing’s Starliner docks with space station after a glitch

View of Starliner from International Space Station
A view from the International Space Station shows Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft during its approach for docking. (NASA via YouTube)

Boeing’s Starliner capsule and its two-person NASA crew arrived at the International Space Station today after mission managers coped with some post-launch glitches involving the spacecraft’s propulsion system.

“Today’s docking, I think, was challenging,” Steve Stich, program manager for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, told reporters after Starliner’s arrival. “We had a few things we had to work through as a team.”

One of the glitches had to do with the thrusters that are used to maneuver the gumdrop-shaped capsule in orbit. Five of the 28 thrusters initially malfunctioned — which forced NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams to put their final approach to the station on hold for more than an hour.

Four of the balky thrusters were successfully reactivated, clearing the way for the docking procedure to resume.

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SpaceX’s Starship makes a splash in its best flight test yet

SpaceX's Starship lifts off from its Texas launch pad.
SpaceX's Starship lifts off from its Texas launch pad. (SpaceX Photo)

SpaceX’s Starship earned high marks today in its fourth uncrewed flight test, making significant progress in the development of a launch system that’s tasked with putting NASA astronauts on the moon by as early as 2026.

The Super Heavy booster blasted off from SpaceX’s Starbase complex in South Texas at 7:50 a.m. CT (5:50 a.m. PT), rising into the sky with 32 of its 33 methane-fueled Raptor engines blazing. Super Heavy is considered the world’s most powerful launch vehicle, with 16.7 million pounds of thrust at liftoff.

Minutes after launch, the rocket’s upper stage — known as the Ship — separated from the first stage, firing up its own set of six Raptor engines. Meanwhile, Super Heavy flew itself to a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.

The soft splashdown marked a new achievement for Starship. During the third flight test, which took place in March, only a few of Super Heavy’s engines were able to light up again for a crucial landing burn. As a result, the booster hit the water with an uncontrolled splat.

Eventually, SpaceX plans to have the Super Heavy booster fly itself back to its base after doing its job.

The upper stage reached orbital-scale altitudes in excess of 200 kilometers (125 miles), but completing a full orbit wasn’t part of today’s plan. Instead, SpaceX aimed to have Ship make its own soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

Streaming video, relayed via SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network, showed the rocket’s protective skin glowing with the heat of atmospheric re-entry. Burning debris broke off from one of Ship’s control fins, damaging the camera’s lens — but the fuzzy view nevertheless confirmed that the spacecraft successfully hit the mark. That represented another advance over the third test, when the Ship broke up during its descent to the ocean.

“Despite loss of many tiles and a damaged flap, Starship made it all the way to a soft landing in the ocean!” SpaceX founder Elon Musk exulted in a posting to his X social-media platform.

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Boeing’s Starliner begins its first crewed space mission

Atlas V launch with Starliner capsule
United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket lifts off from its Florida launch pad, sending Boeing’s Starliner capsule into space. (NASA via YouTube)

Two NASA astronauts were sent into space today to begin the first crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, making a shakedown cruise to the International Space Station and back after years of costly setbacks and two scrubbed countdowns.

United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 10:52 a.m. ET (7:52 a.m. PT), sending Starliner and its crew — NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams — to the International Space Station.

“Let’s get going,” Wilmore told Mission Control just before launch. “Let’s put some fire in this rocket.”

The Atlas V rose smoothly into a mostly sunny sky, and within minutes, the gumdrop-shaped capsule separated from the rocket’s Centaur upper stage to continue its rise to orbit.

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Chinese probe collects moon samples — and lifts off

View of Chang'e-6 lander from mini-rover
An image captured by a camera-equipped rover shows China's Chang'e-6 lander. (Credit: CLEP / CNSA)

China says its Chang’e-6 spacecraft has gathered up soil and rocks from the far side of the moon and has lifted off from the surface, beginning a journey to bring the samples back to Earth. The payload represents the first lunar samples ever collected from the far side.

In a status update, the China National Space Administration said the Chang’e-6 ascent module successfully reached lunar orbit, where it’s due to transfer the samples to a re-entry capsule hooked up to the probe’s orbiter. (Update: CNSA says the ascent module made its rendezvous with the orbiter and transferred the samples to the re-entry capsule on June 6.)

If all goes according to plan, the orbiter will leave the moon’s orbit, head back to Earth and drop off the re-entry capsule for retrieval in China’s Inner Mongolia region sometime around June 25.

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