Science

Watch ULA launch a classified spy satellite on its most powerful rocket

Published

11 months ago

August 27, 2020

In the very early morning hours on Thursday, the United Launch Alliance is set to launch its most powerful rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, lofting a classified spy satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office. The mission could be the first of three back-to-back launches out of the Cape, too, with SpaceX set to launch a mission on Friday and then another on Sunday.

Such a cluster of missions is a rare event for the Florida spaceport. “It could be a historic event for us this week — lots of things going on,” Brig. Gen. Douglas Schiess, commander, of the 45th Space Wing that oversees launches out of the Cape, said during a press call.

The rocket going up on ULA’s mission is the Delta IV Heavy, a giant vehicle that consists of three rocket cores strapped together to provide extra thrust. It’s one of the most powerful rockets in the world, though shy of the power packed into SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy. ULA doesn’t fly the Delta IV Heavy very often, as it’s an expensive vehicle to make, but the company uses the rocket for large, heavy satellites in need of going to super high orbits.

The rocket’s payload is NROL-44, and like all NRO missions, its purpose is cloaked in secrecy. The office simply notes that “NROL-44 supports NRO’s overall national security mission to provide intelligence data to the United States’ senior policy makers, the Intelligence Community and Department of Defense.” ULA has already launch 29 missions for the NRO, many of which have required the Delta IV Heavy.

Once the Delta IV Heavy launches, SpaceX will be on deck. The company is slated to launch a satellite for Argentina’s space agency on Friday night, sending the payload into an orbit over the poles. It’ll mark the first time in more than 50 years that a rocket launches into this kind of polar orbit from the Florida coast. After that flight, SpaceX will then launch its next batch of internet-beaming Starlink satellites on Sunday morning. Originally, SpaceX had hoped to launch this final mission on Saturday, which would have meant three launches in three days for Florida.

Despite the one-day delay, the 45th Space Wing will still have plenty of work to do in a short period. Three separate teams have been assembled to handle each launch — that way, there’s no overlap between the groups. The setup was designed as a precaution, to prevent unneeded exposure during the coronavirus pandemic. The 45th has also been taking extra precautions to oversee launches since March. “We take temperatures as we go into our operations centers; we wear face coverings; we have hand sanitizer sizer; we make sure that we’re washing our hands on a regular basis,” Schiess said.

The Delta IV Heavy is scheduled to lift off at 2:12AM ET out of ULA’s launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. So far, weather is looking good, with an 80 percent chance that conditions will be favorable for launch, according to the 45th Space Wing. ULA’s webcast will begin at 1:52AM ET, for anyone who is still awake and hoping to catch an early morning launch. ULA will also be doing live reports throughout the countdown starting at 5:30PM ET, including some trivia about the company.

Source : TheVerge ScienceRead More

Science

Too bright to breed

Published

8 months ago

November 24, 2020

theworldtrend

Night light from coastal cities overpowers natural signals for coral spawning from neighboring reefs.

PHOTO: NOKURO/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Most coral species reproduce through broadcast spawning. For such a strategy to be successful, coordination has had to evolve such that gametes across clones are released simultaneously. Over millennia, lunar cycles have facilitated this coordination, but the recent development of bright artificial light has led to an overpowering of these natural signals. Ayalon et al. tested for the direct impact of different kinds of artificial light on different species of corals. The authors found that multiple lighting types, including cold and warm light-emitting diode (LED) lamps, led to loss of synchrony and spawning failure. Further, coastal maps of artificial lighting globally suggest that it threatens to interfere with coral reproduction worldwide and that the deployment of LED lights, the blue light of which penetrates deeper into the water column, is likely to make the situation even worse.

Curr. Biol. 10.1016/j.cub.2020.10.039 (2020).

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Science

SpaceX launches Starlink app and provides pricing and service info to early beta testers

Published

9 months ago

October 27, 2020

theworldtrend

SpaceX has debuted an official app for its Starlink satellite broadband internet service, for both iOS and Android devices. The Starlink app allows users to manage their connection – but to take part you’ll have to be part of the official beta program, and the initial public rollout of that is only just about to begin, according to emails SpaceX sent to potential beta testers this week.

The Starlink app provides guidance on how to install the Starlink receiver dish, as well as connection status (including signal quality), a device overview for seeing what’s connected to your network, and a speed test tool. It’s similar to other mobile apps for managing home wifi connections and routers. Meanwhile, the emails to potential testers that CNBC obtained detail what users can expect in terms of pricing, speeds and latency.

The initial Starlink public beta test is called the “Better than Nothing Beta Program,” SpaceX confirms in their app description, and will be rolled out across the U.S. and Canada before the end of the year – which matches up with earlier stated timelines. As per the name, SpaceX is hoping to set expectations for early customers, with speeds users can expect ranging from between 50Mb/s to 150Mb/s, and latency of 20ms to 40ms according to the customer emails, with some periods including no connectivity at all. Even with expectations set low, if those values prove accurate, it should be a big improvement for users in some hard-to-reach areas where service is currently costly, unreliable and operating at roughly dial-up equivalent speeds.

Image Credits: SpaceX

In terms of pricing, SpaceX says in the emails that the cost for participants in this beta program will be $99 per moth, plus a one-time cost of $499 initially to pay for the hardware, which includes the mounting kit and receiver dish, as well as a router with wifi networking capabilities.

The goal eventually is offer reliably, low-latency broadband that provides consistent connection by handing off connectivity between a large constellation of small satellites circling the globe in low Earth orbit. Already, SpaceX has nearly 1,000 of those launched, but it hopes to launch many thousands more before it reaches global coverage and offers general availability of its services.

SpaceX has already announced some initial commercial partnerships and pilot programs for Starlink, too, including a team-up with Microsoft to connect that company’s mobile Azure data centers, and a project with an East Texas school board to connect the local community.

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Science

Erratum for the Report “Meta-analysis reveals declines in terrestrial but increases in freshwater insect abundances” by R. Van Klink, D. E. Bowler, K. B. Gongalsky, A. B. Swengel, A. Gentile, J. M. Chase

Published

9 months ago

October 27, 2020

theworldtrend

S. Rennie, J. Adamson, R. Anderson, C. Andrews, J. Bater, N. Bayfield, K. Beaton, D. Beaumont, S. Benham, V. Bowmaker, C. Britt, R. Brooker, D. Brooks, J. Brunt, G. Common, R. Cooper, S. Corbett, N. Critchley, P. Dennis, J. Dick, B. Dodd, N. Dodd, N. Donovan, J. Easter, M. Flexen, A. Gardiner, D. Hamilton, P. Hargreaves, M. Hatton-Ellis, M. Howe, J. Kahl, M. Lane, S. Langan, D. Lloyd, B. McCarney, Y. McElarney, C. McKenna, S. McMillan, F. Milne, L. Milne, M. Morecroft, M. Murphy, A. Nelson, H. Nicholson, D. Pallett, D. Parry, I. Pearce, G. Pozsgai, A. Riley, R. Rose, S. Schafer, T. Scott, L. Sherrin, C. Shortall, R. Smith, P. Smith, R. Tait, C. Taylor, M. Taylor, M. Thurlow, A. Turner, K. Tyson, H. Watson, M. Whittaker, I. Woiwod, C. Wood, UK Environmental Change Network (ECN) Moth Data: 1992-2015, NERC Environmental Information Data Centre (2018); .

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