Cosmic Log
Twenty-five years ago, the opening of Russia’s Seattle consulate was a symbol of the post-Cold War thaw, but now a chill in relations is causing its closure. It’s due to be shuttered on April 2 as part of the international response to this month’s poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in London.
The latest chapter of an Irish-American family tragedy played out on St. Patrick’s Day when an expedition team backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen discovered the shipwreck of the USS Juneau in the South Pacific.
The Juneau was sunk by a Japanese torpedo during the Battle of Guadalcanal on Nov. 13, 1942, leading to the deaths of 687 sailors — including the five Sullivan Brothers.
The Sullivans insisted so forcefully on serving together that naval officers bent their rules against having brothers serving on the same ship during wartime.
The Iowa family’s tragic story rallied the nation during World War II, inspired a movie titled “The Fighting Sullivans” and led to the christening of two Navy ships in honor of the Sullivans.
President Donald Trump today talked about creating a U.S. Space Force, breathing new life into a concept that’s been proposed by lawmakers but opposed by Pentagon leaders.
The subject of space policy came up during the president’s visit to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in California, while he was addressing a crowd of Marines. His comments had an off-the-cuff tone, and made it sound as if creating a military service focused on defending the space frontier was his idea.
Space industry deregulation, and the potential perils posed by China’s space program, shared the spotlight at today’s meeting of the National Space Council, presided over by Vice President Mike Pence.
Commercial space ventures and NASA’s vision for deep-space exploration also got shout-outs when members of the council, newly named advisers and other VIPs gathered inside the Space Station Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
“As we continue to push further into our solar system, new businesses and entire enterprises will be built to seize the infinite possibilities before us,” Pence declared. “And there will be no limit to the jobs and prosperity that will be created across this country.”
The classified satellite known as Zuma was said to have disappearedsoon after its Jan. 7 launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, but the commander of the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center is giving SpaceX a qualified thumbs-up.
The U.S. Department of Defense funded a program to investigate unidentified flying objects until 2012, and the program may well be continuing with alternate funding, The New York Times reported today.
The Times says its report is based on a range of interviews with people familiar with the program — including the military intelligence official who ran it until a couple of months ago, Luis Elizondo; and the now-retired U.S. senator who helped get $22 million in funding for the program, Nevada Democrat Harry Reid.
“This was so-called ‘black money,’” Reid told the Times.
The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program is also discussed today in a report published by Politico.
Reuters reports that Canadian officials have decided to cancel an order of 18 Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet jets, marking an escalation in the trade battle involving Canadian jet maker Bombardier’s sales to U.S. markets. Unnamed officials are quoted as saying that the decision will be announced next week, and that Canada’s armed forces will buy used Australian F/A-18 Hornets instead.
As if the mere phrase “killer robots” weren’t scary enough, AI researchers and policy advocates have put together a video that combines present-tense AI and drone technologies with future-tense nightmares.
The disturbing seven-minute movie is being released to coincide with a pitch being made on Nov. 13 in Geneva during talks relating to the U.N. Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, or CCW.
Diplomats will be discussing the prospects for a global ban on lethal autonomous weapons, and an advocacy group known as the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots is pressing for quick action. The campaign’s video is meant to show how quickly the threat could move from TED talks to mass killings.
After more than a week of delays, the National Reconnaissance Office was glad to see its latest spy satellite go into orbit on Oct. 15 — and so was Kirkland, Wash.-based Systima Technologies.
When a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket launched the NROL-52 satellite from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, Systima’s pyrotechnic valves played a mission-critical role as part of the reaction control system on the rocket’s Centaur upper stage.
“This marks the first flight of Systima’s pyrovalves, RCS hardware, as well as the first time Systima has supported an Atlas 5 launch,” Taylor Banks, Systima’s controller and contracts manager, told GeekWire in an email. “Systima is thrilled to be part of the ULA team and would like to congratulate all that supported the successful mission.”
Northrop Grumman’s purchase of Orbital ATK for $7.8 billion will create a company involved in projects ranging from America’s next stealth bomber and ballistic missile system to the International Space Station and the James Webb Space Telescope.
The deal, previewed in news reports over the weekend and announced today, is part of a trend toward greater consolidation in the defense and aerospace industry.
Virginia-based Orbital ATK itself was part of that trend back in 2014, when it was formed through the merger of Orbital Sciences Corp. and Alliant Techsystems’ aerospace and defense groups. More recently, United Technologies announced its $30 billion acquisition of Rockwell Collins, including the combination of the companies’ aerospace operations to create a new business unit.