IBM Research scientist Jerry Chow conducts a quantum computing experiment at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. (Feature Photo Service for IBM / Jon Simon)
President Donald Trump today signed legislation ramping up quantum computing research and development.
The National Quantum Initiative Act (H.R. 6227) authorizes $1.2 billion over five years for federal activities aimed at boosting investment in quantum information science, or QIS, and supporting a quantum-smart workforce.
The law also establishes a National Quantum Coordination Office, calls for the development of a five-year strategic plan and establishes an advisory committee to advise the White House on issues relating to quantum computing.
SpaceX’s plan for global broadband satellite coverage calls for using sets of satellites orbiting at different altitudes. (PatentYogi via YouTube)
SpaceX has won a $28.7 million fixed-price contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory for experiments in data connectivity involving ground sites, aircraft and space assets — a project that could give a boost to the company’s Starlink broadband satellite service.
The contract was awarded on Dec. 19, with work due to be completed by mid-2021.
It’s part of a program called Defense Experimentation Using Commercial Space Internet, or DEUCSI, which aims to provide the Air Force with the ability to communicate via multiple satellite internet services, using common hardware elements.
That strategy would make it possible for the Air Force to switch data service providers easily — for example, if new providers decide to enter the market, or if existing providers decide to leave it.
There are also tactical reasons for switchability. “An Air Force pilot using the space internet may wish to change vendors in flight to access a more favorable spectrum or geometry,” the project’s managers said in one of their calls for proposals.
A drone flies over a New York test site. (NUAIR Alliance Photo via NASA / Eric Miller)
Hundreds of flights have been canceled and tens of thousands of airline passengers have been stranded because of the buzz of unauthorized drones over London’s Gatwick Airport — demonstrating how disruptive a simple aerial strategy can be.
Military forces have been called up to hunt down the elusive drone operator, and the crisis has prompted calls to tighten up flight restrictions near Britain’s airport. But on that score, U.S. airports appear to be in a better position to guard against drone disruption.
In more sensitive areas, such as the National Capital Region around Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, restrictions are in force within a much wider radius — ranging from 15 to 30 miles, depending on the type of activity.
Sea-Tac spokesman Perry Cooper told GeekWire that the airport’s operations team hasn’t had any reports of drone incidents, and that it works in collaboration with the FAA on drone monitoring.
The FAA, meanwhile, says that it works with the Department of Homeland Security, the lead agency in drone security issues.
In October, language written into FAA reauthorization legislation gave Homeland Security and the Justice Department the authority to counter the use of drones for “nefarious purposes.”
As initially designed, Swarm Technologies’ controversial SpaceBEE satellites were each roughly the size of a sandwich. (Swarm Technologies Illustration via FCC)
The Federal Communications Commission says Swarm Technologies must pay a $900,000 fine and be subject to increased scrutiny for having a tiny set of satellites launched without authorization.
“We will aggressively enforce the FCC’s requirements that companies seek FCC authorization prior to deploying and operating communications satellites and earth stations,” Rosemary Harold, chief of the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau, said in a news release. “These important obligations protect other operators against radio interference and collisions, making space a safer place to operate.”
California-based Swarm is aiming to develop a constellation of miniaturized telecommunications satellites that would enable “low-cost, space-based connectivity anywhere in the world.”
The company drew the FCC’s ire after a four-pack of its sandwich-sized satellites, known as SpaceBEEs, was launched aboard an Indian PSLV rocket in January — even though the agency had turned down its application for authorization. FCC officials were concerned that the 4-inch-wide, 1-inch-thick satellites would be too small to be tracked in orbit.
The launch was facilitated by Seattle-based Spaceflight, which said it was not aware at the time that Swarm’s application had been rejected.
Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital spaceship sits on its West Texas launch pad in preparation for a launch in July 2018. (Blue Origin Photo)
Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture says it plans to send nine NASA-sponsored payloads to space and back on the 10th uncrewed test flight of its New Shepard suborbital spaceship.
Liftoff was originally set for 8:30 a.m. CT (6:30 a.m. PT) Dec. 18 from Blue Origin’s suborbital launch complex in West Texas.
Update for 5:47 a.m. PT Dec. 20: After working through a ground infrastructure issue, Blue Origin has decided to put off the next launch of its New Shepard suborbital spaceship until early 2019.
An image from NASA’s InSight lander shows the probe’s robotic arm putting a seismometer on Mars. This is the first time a seismometer has been placed onto the surface of another planet. (NASA / JPL-Caltech Photo)
The probe’s robotic arm pulled InSight’s seismometer, known as the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure or SEIS, from the spacecraft’s deck on Dec. 19 and slowly, gingerly set it down on a flat spot directly in front of the lander. The arm stretched out to nearly its maximum reach, 5.367 feet away from the deck.
Deploying SEIS is a major milestone for InSight’s two-year mission to monitor seismic activity and internal heat flow on the Red Planet. (The mission’s name is an acronym that stands for “Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport.”)
NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor is carried to a medical tent shortly after she, Germany’s Alexander Gerst and Russia’s Sergey Prokopyev landed in their Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft near the town of Zhezkazgan in Kazakhstan. (NASA Photo / Bill Ingalls)
NASA’s Serena Auñón-Chancellor, Germany’s Alexander Gerst and Russia’s Sergey Prokopyev touched down in the snowy steppes of Kazakhstan at 11:02 a.m. local time Dec. 20 (9:02 p.m. PT Dec. 19), leaving three crewmates on the orbital outpost.
The homeward-bound trio rode the same Soyuz they took up to the station in June. It’s the same Soyuz that experienced an air leak in August, causing consternation in space as well as back down on Earth.
Rocket fans in California may have been disappointed by tonight’s scrub of a Delta 4 Heavy launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, but they received a nice consolation prize: a fireball that left what looked like a contrail hanging in sunset skies.
The bright squiggle in the sky may have mystified some, but savvy folks who spotted the flash recognized it as the signature of an exploding meteor, also known as a bolide.
It was pure coincidence that the fireball flashed at 5:34 p.m. PT, just before United Launch Alliance called off the launch of a classified spy satellite known as NROL-71 for the National Reconnaissance Office, due to elevated hydrogen levels that were detected during the countdown.
Video views captured from cars traveling in locales including Sacramento, Stockton and the San Francisco Bay Area helped solve the celestial mystery.
NASA’s computer servers include the Pleiades supercomputer network. (NASA Photo)
NASA says it is reviewing its network security processes and procedures after a computer break-in exposed Social Security numbers and other personal information about the space agency’s current and past employees.
The breach was discovered in October, and its full extent and impact has yet to be determined. NASA says it will provide identity protection services to all those who have potentially been affected.
NASA Watch, an independent website founded by former NASA employee Keith Cowing, first brought the incident to light in a posting on Dec. 18 that quoted an internal NASA memo. The memo suggests that agency employees who were hired, transferred or left NASA between July 2006 and October 2018 may be affected.
An artist’s conception shows the Amazonia-1 satellite. (INPE Illustration)
Seattle-based Spaceflight says it’s struck one of its biggest deals for a satellite launch with Brazil’s space research institute, focusing on putting the Amazonia-1 satellite into low Earth orbit in mid-2020.
The contract was awarded on Dec. 18 during a ceremony in São José dos Campos, attended by Brazilian space officials as well as Melissa Wuerl, Spaceflight’s vice president of business development.
Amazonia-1 is designed to make observations of Brazilian territory, with a special focus on the Amazon region, for the National Institute for Space Research, known in Portuguese as the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais or INPE.
It’s the first Earth observation satellite to be completely designed, integrated, tested and operated by Brazil.
