Category: Science

TAMPA, Fla. — The U.K. is funding nearly half the cost of replacing the government-backed cubesat that British maritime surveillance venture Horizon Technologies lost in January in Virgin Orbit’s final launch attempt before bankruptcy.

Horizon said in an Oct. 19 news release that the UK Space Agency awarded the company a £1.2 million ($1.5 million) grant to help launch the spy satellite in mid-2024. The U.K. would use the replacement satellite to scan for radio frequencies (RF) from ships attempting to avoid detection.

Using revenues from equipping spy planes and drones to track satellite phones and radars, Horizon plans to provide the rest of the £2.8 million funding the Amber Phoenix satellite program needs to meet manufacturing, ground segment, launch, and other costs.

AAC Clyde Space (ACS) is building Amber Phoenix, the UK Space Agency announced separately, and a launch provider has not yet been booked. Publicly listed ACS is headquartered in Sweden but builds small satellites in Scotland.

John Becker, Horizon’s CEO, said Amber Phoenix would have undisclosed improvements over the lost Amber IOD-3 (In-Orbit Demonstration) satellite that ACS also provided.

Amber IOD-3, a 6U cubesat like its successor, was part of a program led by British government-backed nonprofit Satellite Applications Catapult that used Horizon as a prime contractor.

Becker told SpaceNews Horizon spent more than £4 million on the technology needed for what was to be its first satellite, supported by a £600,000 grant from U.K. government’s innovation agency.

The uninsured Amber IOD-3 was one of nine small satellites lost when Virgin Orbit’s Launcher One failed to reach the proper orbit in its first and only launch from British soil. Virgin Orbit collapsed into bankruptcy three months later.

Bad launch bet

Horizon had initially planned to launch Amber IOD-3 aboard a SpaceX Cargo Dragon mission in 2021 for deployment from the International Space Station.

After missing this launch opportunity following pandemic-related production delays, Becker said Amber IOD-3 was moved to Virgin Orbit partly to support its first U.K. launch.

Amber IOD-3 was originally due to launch with Virgin Orbit in July 2022, he added, but was delayed while the launcher sought permission to fly from the United Kingdom.

Without the grant from the UK Space Agency to partly fund a replacement satellite, Becker said Horizon would have had to shut down plans to expand its business into space.

Horizon ordered two other Amber surveillance satellites from ASC in 2021, initially slated to launch in 2022 but also suffered production delays. 

Only preliminary work has been done on these cubesats, according to Becker, and the company expects to announce a deployment date for them once a launch provider has been nailed down for Amber Phoenix.

Horizon envisages a constellation of more than 20 Amber payloads in low Earth orbit, enough to provide worldwide RF data with 30-minute latency.

The U.K. Royal Navy’s Joint Maritime Security Centre (JMSC) plans to use the constellation to tackle piracy, smuggling, and other illegal activities.

Becker said Horizon is seeking to sell its space-based detection services to other governments and commercial customers.

He said the constellation will also include RF-tracking payloads integrated into partner Earth observation and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) constellations.

Sensors on these constellations could be tasked to capture more data on areas RF payload has identified as of interest.

Horizon has a memorandum of understanding with a U.S.-based Earth observation company to add payloads on satellites due to launch next year, Becker added, and is closing in on a deal with a separate SAR company.

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Middle-aged women who eat a diet designed to lower blood pressure were about 17% less likely to report memory loss and other signs of cognitive decline decades later, a new study finds.

The new findings suggest that a mid-life lifestyle modification—adoption of the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, or DASH diet—may improve cognitive function later in life for women, who make up more than two-thirds of those diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, the most prevalent form of dementia.

The findings, published in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia, have implications for the approximately 6.5 million Americans over age 65 diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2022. That number is expected to more than double by 2060.

“Subjective complaints about daily cognitive performance are early predictors of more serious neurocognitive disorders such as Alzheimer’s,” says senior author Yu Chen, professor in the population health department at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine.

“With more than 30 years follow-up, we found that the stronger the adherence to a DASH diet in midlife, the less likely women are to report cognitive issues much later in life.”

The DASH diet includes a high consumption of plant-based foods that are rich in potassium, calcium, and magnesium and limits saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, and sugar. Longstanding research shows that high blood pressure, particularly in midlife, is a risk factor for cognitive decline and dementia.

“Following the DASH diet may not only prevent high blood pressure, but also cognitive issues.”

For the study, the researchers analyzed data from 5,116 of the more than 14,000 women enrolled in the NYU Women’s Health Study, one of the longest running studies of its kind that examines the impact of lifestyle and other factors on the development of the most common cancers among women, as well as other chronic conditions.

The researchers asked the study participants’ about their diet using questionnaires between 1985 and 1991 at study enrollment when the participants were, on average, 49 years old. The participants were followed for more than 30 years (average age of 79) and then asked to report any cognitive complaints. Participants that did not return questionnaires were contacted by phone.

Self-reported cognitive complaints were assessed using six validated standard questions that are indicative of later mild cognitive impairment, which leads to dementia. These questions were about difficulties in remembering recent events or shopping lists, understanding spoken instructions or group conversation, or navigating familiar streets.

Of the six cognitive complaints, 33% of women reported having more than one. Women who adhered most closely to the DASH diet had a 17% reduction in the odds of reporting multiple cognitive complaints.

“Our data suggest that it is important to start a healthy diet in midlife to prevent cognitive impairment in older age”, says Yixiao Song, a lead author of the study.

“Following the DASH diet may not only prevent high blood pressure, but also cognitive issues,” says Fen Wu, a senior associate research scientist who co-led the study.

According to the investigators, future research is needed across multiple racial and ethnic groups to determine the generalizability of the findings.

Additional coauthors are from NYU and Columbia University. The National Institutes of Health supported the work.

Source: NYU

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Los Angeles startup Machina Labs is expanding its role in the space sector by working with satellite and hypersonic vehicle manufacturers.

Since Machina Labs was founded in 2019, the company has worked with NASA, the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and SpaceX to apply robotics and artificial intelligence to space-related manufacturing processes.

Work with AFRL focused on developing robotic technology for manufacturing metal tooling for composite structures. For NASA, Machina Labs developed machine learning-based software for in-space manufacturing with autonomous articulated robots. 

Now, Machina Labs is working with satellite manufacturers to help them rapidly iterate designs.

“I can try out a design of a tank and then see if it works,” Edward Mehr, Machina Labs CEO and co-founder, told SpaceNews at Satellite Innovation 2023. In addition, Machina Labs helps customers manufacture “things that were traditionally not possible,” he added.

For example, doughnut-shaped toroidal propellant tanks, popular decades ago, have rarely been produced in recent years because they are difficult and time-consuming to manufacture. Machina Labs’ process, called Roboforming, reduces the cost and speeds up manufacturing of toroidal tanks, said Mehr, a former Relativity program manager and SpaceX software engineer.

Hypersonic Vehicles

For hypersonic vehicles, Machina Labs works with materials tough enough to withstand the heat of reentry.

“With our technology, we can process some of those materials like titanium or Inconel,” Mehr said.

AI and ML

Machina Labs machines, which use Nvidia chips, rely on machine learning to replicate the work of people who incrementally deform metals or composites to create shapes.

“We need to replicate what happens in the mind of a craftsman,” Mehr said.

To do that, the company built empirical models of how materials deform throughout the shaping process. Then, Machina Labs engineers determine the appropriate set of processes.

“For every geometry, what are the right process parameters and where does the robot need to go to get to the right part?” Mehr asked.

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Researchers have developed a genome-scale metabolic model or “subway map” of key metabolic activities of the bacterium that causes Lyme disease.

Using this map, they have successfully identified two compounds that selectively target routes only used by Lyme disease to infect a host.

While neither medication is a viable treatment for Lyme because they have numerous side effects, the successful use of the computational “subway map” to predict drug targets and possible existing treatments demonstrates that it may be possible to develop micro-substances that only block Lyme disease while leaving other helpful bacteria untouched.

Genome-scale metabolic models (GEMs) collect all known metabolic information on a biological system, including the genes, enzymes, metabolites, and other information. These models use big data and machine learning to help scientists understand molecular mechanisms, make predictions, and identify new processes that might be previously unknown and even counterintuitive to known biological processes.

Killing Lyme bacteria, and only Lyme

Currently, Lyme disease is treated with broad-spectrum antibiotics that kill the Lyme bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, but simultaneously also kill a wide range of the other bacteria that inhabit a host’s microbiome and perform many helpful functions. Some people with chronic Lyme symptoms or recurring Lyme disease take antibiotics for years, although it is against medical guidelines and there is no proof that it works.

“Most of the antibiotics we still use are based on discoveries that are decades old, and antibiotic resistance is an increasing problem across many bacterial diseases,” says Peter Gwynne, research assistant professor of molecular biology and microbiology at Tufts University School of Medicine and the Tufts Lyme Disease Initiative and first author of the paper in mSystems.

“There is a growing movement to find micro-substances that target a specific pathway in a single bacterium, rather than treating patients with broad spectrum antibiotics that wipe out the microbiome and cause antibiotic resistance.”

The two compounds identified using the “subway map” computational model are an anticancer drug with significant side effects that make it impractical to use in treating Lyme, and an asthma medication taken off the market because of its side effects. The researchers tested both drugs identified by the model in the lab and found they successfully kill Lyme bacteria—and only Lyme—in culture.

“The Lyme bacterium is a great test case for narrow spectrum drugs because it is so limited in what it can do and so highly dependent upon its environment. This leaves it vulnerable in ways other bacteria are not,” says senior author Linden Hu, a professor of immunology and of molecular biology and microbiology.

Maps for more bacteria

Use of the computational model—which Gwynne and collaborators developed during COVID when they couldn’t work onsite in the lab—has the potential to enable scientists to skip some painstaking basic science steps and lead to swifter testing and development of more targeted treatments.

“We can now use this model to screen for similar compounds that don’t have the same toxicity of the anticancer and asthma medications but could potentially stop the same or another part of the Lyme disease process,” Gwynne says.

The researchers are conducting other research to determine whether people with chronic Lyme symptoms are still infected or are suffering from an immune malfunction that creates chronic symptoms.

“I can imagine a day when people take a targeted Lyme treatment for two weeks rather than a broad-spectrum antibiotic, are tested and determined to be clear of the infection, and then take drugs to tame their immune response if chronic symptoms persist,” Gwynne says.

Similar computational “subway maps” can be developed for other bacteria with relatively small genomes, such as those that cause the sexually transmitted diseases syphilis and chlamydia, and rickettsia, which causes Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Gwynne says. His team is looking at developing maps for some of these bacteria.

The Bay Area Lyme Foundation and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health funded the work.

The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funders.

Source: Tufts University

WASHINGTON — The cybersecurity firm SpiderOak has signed an agreement with the U.S. Space Development Agency to research the use of the company’s software to protect ground systems that control military satellites.

SpiderOak, a software company focused on satellite cybersecurity, said Oct. 17 the agreement is a so-called Other Transaction Authority contract. It allows the Space Development Agency (SDA) to research the integration of the company’s OrbitSecure software suite into a military ground system currently in development called the Rapid Resilient Command and Control program. 

SDA, an agency under the U.S. Space Force, is building a large constellation of communications and missile-tracking satellites in low Earth orbit. 

The Rapid Resilient Command and Control program, or R2C2 — a new initiative led by the Space Force’s Space Rapid Capabilities Office — is an effort to develop a modern software-based ground control system for military satellites. 

SpiderOak’s technology is known as zero-trust cybersecurity, where all data is encrypted and the encryption keys are only known to the client.

Contract value not disclosed

A spokesman for SpiderOak said the company is not disclosing the value of SDA’s contract or the performance period. “They are variable and based on our success in delivering an exemplary zero-trust solution,” the spokesman said. “We expect a durable and growing project as we demonstrate OrbitSecure can safeguard satellite operations.”

SpiderOak previously demonstrated OrbitSecure on a Ball Aerospace prototype payload and on the International Space Station using an Amazon Web Services’ edge computing device provided by Axiom Space.

Dave Pearah, CEO of SpiderOak, said the company’s zero-trust mechanisms allow data to travel securely on networks and infrastructure with different owners and variable-security protocols. 

“The Space Force wants to ensure that communications are secure and there are redundancies in the event an adversary attempts to poke holes in communications networks, which are increasingly dependent on space,” he said.

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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — CesiumAstro won a NASA contract to design a space-qualified wideband active phased array terminal to communicate with commercial and government networks.

Under the $396,000 award, CesiumAstro will identify barriers, challenges and solutions for integrating the Ka-band terminal for satellites in low-Earth orbit with NASA’s Near Space Network.

“CesiumAstro is proud to support NASA’s efforts in fielding cost-effective, multi-constellation terminals,” Trey Pappas, CesiumAstro vice president of business development, told SpaceNews by email. “This opportunity will expand CesiumAstro’s current terminal development to fully support Near Space Network space relay frequencies, along with traditional commercial and military Ka-band.”

NASA is moving toward greater reliance on commercial satellite communications. In 2022, the space agency awarded Communications Services Project contracts with a combined value of $278.5 million to six companies to begin demonstrating how commercial providers could support missions that currently rely on NASA’s own Tracking and Data Relay Satellite constellation.

“CesiumAstro is honored to provide a commercially available product to advance reliable, secure and continual space communications for long-term operations,” said Shey Sabripour, CesiumAstro founder and CEO, said in a statement. “We’re proud to leverage CesiumAstro’s existing expertise in active phased array space communications and explore innovative wideband solutions that can help guide NASA toward the successful commercialization of the Near Space Network.”

In addition to supporting government missions, CesiumAstro sees commercial applications for its phased array wideband terminals. The NASA contract will cover the development of a wideband terminal engineering model and three or four flight models scheduled for delivery by late 2027.

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WASHINGTON — Virgin Galactic will conclude its schedule of suborbital spaceflights this year with a mission in early November whose crew will include a longtime advocate of suborbital research.

The company announced Oct. 18 that the next flight of its VSS Unity suborbital spaceplane, Galactic 05, is scheduled for a window that opens Nov. 2 from Spaceport America in New Mexico. It will be the fifth commercial flight for the company and the sixth flight of Unity this year, all since late May.

Galactic 05, like the Galactic 01 mission in June, is described as a research flight by the company. It will carry among its crew two researchers, Alan Stern and Kellie Gerardi. A third customer is described by the company only as a Franco-Italian private astronaut.

Stern, an associate vice president of Southwest Research Institute’s (SwRI) space science division, will evaluate a harness used for collecting biomedical data as well as test a mockup of an astronomical camera planned for a future suborbital flight. Gerardi, representing the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences (IIAS), a research and educational organization, will test a biomonitoring device and collect other biomedical data while also conducting a fluid dynamics experiment.

Stern has been a leading advocate for using commercial suborbital vehicles like Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo to conduct research more rapidly and less expensively than alternative platforms, giving scientists access to several minutes of microgravity and other aspects of the space environment. That interest has included running a series of conferences since 2010 devoted to commercial suborbital research.

Stern was the first scientist selected by NASA in 2020 for an award through the agency’s Flight Opportunities program that would allow him to go on a commercial suborbital vehicle to conduct research. This flight, though, is funded by SwRI and will serve as training for that future NASA-funded mission.

“What sets this flight apart from others, and which likely represents a new kind of space activity, is that more than anything else I will be training — in space — for future space experiments I will be performing with NASA funding,” Stern said in a statement. “Virgin’s suborbital costs are low enough to open up space training actually in space as a viable opportunity, and that is a game changer.”

IIAS signed an agreement with Virgin Galactic in 2021 to fly Gerardi, who has worked with IIAS for several years. “This mission represents the beginning of a new era of access to space for the research community, and the culmination of a personal lifelong dream,” she said in a statement. “I’m looking forward to paving the way for our many talented researchers who will follow, using space as a laboratory to benefit humanity.”

The company has highlighted suborbital research as an alternative application for its vehicles versus space tourism, and one that is potentially more lucrative on a per-seat basis. “We’re thrilled to offer a wide breadth of high-quality and reliable access to space-based research,” Michael Colglazier, chief executive of Virgin Galactic, said in a company statement. “Insights from this flight will be used to enhance and refine the research capabilities of our future Delta fleet.”

The mission will be commanded by Mike Masucci with Kelly Latimer as pilot and Colin Bennett as the in-flight astronaut instructor. The company said that Galactic 05 will be the last to carry an astronaut instructor, with Galactic 06 and subsequent flights carrying four private astronaut customers. Colgalzier said in an earnings call in August that the company would likely replace the astronaut instructor with a fourth customer “as we move into 2024.”

While Galactic 05 continues a roughly monthly cadence of Virgin Galactic suborbital missions dating back to late May, it will also be the last of the year. The company said Galactic 06 will take place in January to give the company time for “routine, planned annual vehicle inspections.”

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WASHINGTON — Industry officials used a Senate hearing to request reforms to the Federal Aviation Administration’s launch licensing process, warning of dire commercial and geopolitical implications if changes aren’t made.

Witnesses at a hearing by the Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee Oct. 18 argued that the strong growth the industry has seen in the last several years is in jeopardy because of the strain on the FAA office that regulates launches as well as the implementation of current and potential future regulations.

“The pace of American regulation must match the pace of American innovation. We are falling behind,” said Bill Gerstenmaier, vice president of build and flight reliability at SpaceX. “We are at a breaking point.”

Gerstenmaier and other witnesses called for providing the FAA’s commercial space transportation office, known as AST, with additional resources. He specifically recommended doubling AST’s budget, $37.9 million in fiscal year 2023, provided those additional resources go exclusively to the office’s licensing work.

Those additional resources and other regulatory reforms, like accelerated reviews of launch licenses, are needed to keep the company on track. Gerstenmaier said the company continued to target up to 100 launches this year — it has performed 75 so far this year, including the Starship test flight — and 144 next year.

The changes are also needed to keep its work on the lunar lander version of Starship on track. “When we have regulatory delays, such as we’re facing right now, that slows down developmental test flights and ultimately slows down our support to NASA and slows down our support for what we need to do to return humans back to the surface of the moon again,” he warned. “A continuous delay in each and every test flight adds up and, eventually, we will lose our lead and we will see China land on the moon before we do.”

The five witnesses at the hearing were united in a call for Congress to extend the “learning period” that restricts the FAA’s ability to regulate safety of spaceflight participants on commercial vehicles. That learning period, included in a 2004 law and originally intended to last eight years, has been extended several times, including a three-month extension to January 2024 that was part of a stopgap funding bill passed in late September.

The learning period was designed to give companies time to build up experience and best practices upon which regulations could be based, but the industry development was far slower than anticipated when the learning period was first enacted. Only now, witnesses argued, is the industry now gaining that experience as vehicles enter commercial service.

“We are at an inflection point. The companies here on the panel have entered commercial operations for human spaceflight,” said Sirisha Bandla, vice president of government affairs and research at Virgin Galactic. An extension of the learning period, she said, would create a transition period where industry can work with the government on what those safety regulations should look like.

There was not a firm consensus on how long the learning period should be extended, beyond that it should be several years. “About eight years is our timeline,” she said.

Wayne Monteith, a former FAA associate administrator for commercial space who is currently president and general manager of National Aerospace Solutions, suggested an alternative where Congress sets a no-earlier-than date for publication of spaceflight participant safety regulations, but delay the date any regulations become effective by at least 18 months to give Congress time to step in if there are issues.

Witnesses also criticized FAA regulations known as Part 450, finalized in 2020, intended to streamline the launch licensing process. “Recent changes to the FAA regulations have not resulted in streamlined licensing reviews,” said Caryn Schenewerk, president of CS Consulting. “Instead, Part 450 has proven more cumbersome and costly.” She noted that of the four Part 450 launch licenses issued to date, two exceeded the 180-day timeline required for the FAA to review them.

“The FAA needs a more streamlined process. To keep pace with industry, both the substance and administration of launch regulations should be improved,” said Phil Joyce, senior vice president of the New Shepard business unit at Blue Origin.

Senators at the hearing appeared open to addressing the concerns raised by witnesses. “We must the learning period, mission authorization and other pressing matters in a way that looks ahead to the future,” said Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), chair of the subcommittee, in her opening remarks.

She and others were less specific about how to tackle those pressing matters. An extension of the learning period could be handed in the final version of an overall FAA reauthorization bill. However, increasing the budget for AST would require action by appropriators rather than the Commerce Committee.

Witnesses, like Gerstenmaier, said it was urgent for Congress to take action. In his written testimony he discussed his concerns about Part 450. “But, as AST transitions licenses for vehicles previously approved under legacy regulations to Part 450 over the next two years, the entire regulatory system is at risk of collapse,” he wrote. “AST’s workload over the next 12-24 months could result in the grounding of U.S. space launch capability if action is not taken immediately.”

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Researchers recently identified a previously unknown compartment in mammalian cells. They call it the exclusome.

It was in the cell plasma that the researchers found this new compartment, which is rare and hasn’t been characterized before. This is exceptional because eukaryotic cells (cells with nuclei) usually keep most of their DNA in the cell nucleus, where it is organized into chromosomes.

The exclusome is made up of DNA rings known as plasmids. Some of the plasmids that end up in the exclusome originate from outside the cell, while others—known as telomeric rings—come from the capped ends of chromosomes, the telomeres. Particularly in certain cancer cells, the ones from the telomeres are regularly pinched off and joined together to form rings. However, these don’t contain the blueprints for proteins. The researchers are the first to show that the cell nucleus weeds out such DNA rings and deposits them, together with the plasmids coming from outside the cell, in the cell plasma.

This proves that cells can differentiate between, on the one hand, DNA that is their own and still needed and, on the other hand, DNA that is foreign or presumably no longer required, which they then eject from the nucleus. “It’s one of the key hygiene functions cells perform to protect the chromosomes. Plasmids that can’t be separated off could theoretically embed themselves in the chromosomes. More likely is that the nuclear plasmid genes of viruses or bacteria are translated into proteins, which disrupts the cell physiology,” says Ruth Kroschewski from the Institute of Biochemistry at ETH Zurich.

The researchers report the details of their discovery in the journal Molecular Biology of the Cell.

Does the exclusome trigger autoimmune responses?

It’s not yet clear what other functions the exclusome performs. Kroschewski, who coordinated the study, believes the exclusome could play a role in cellular immunological memory. For many years now, biologists all over the world have been studying a special protein that latches on to DNA, especially to that found in cell plasma. It has already been established that this protein binds on to DNA rings as well. In doing so, it possibly triggers a signal cascade that prompts cells to produce and release inflammatory messenger substances. These tell the body that there might be a problem with a pathogen, such as a virus, that warrants an immune response.

Kroschewski and her team think it’s possible that the protein in question latches on to the DNA rings present in the exclusome, resulting in the prolonged illusion of an infection. “The body keeps getting the signal that the problem is still there,” says Kroschewski. This means the immune system has no choice but to respond to the inflammatory messenger, she says. “And as the pro-inflammatory signaling cascade doesn’t subside but rather continues, this may well facilitate autoimmune responses such as systemic lupus erythematosus.”

Kroschewski presumes that the exclusome dates back to early evolution when eukaryotes emerged. It’s commonly understood that the first eukaryotic cells resulted from the fusion of an early form of bacteria with an archaeon, a single-celled organism like a bacterium. Their ring-shaped DNA, which came from the two different organisms, had to be organized and protected against degradation. As evolution advanced, a mechanism developed to ensure that DNA molecules were automatically enclosed in a membrane envelope—which is happening at the newly discovered exclusome.

Although the exclusome envelope resembles that of the cell nucleus, it is much simpler, as Kroschewski explains: “The exclusome envelope features gaps that can be seen in the nuclear envelope only in the early stages of its formation.” In the case of the nuclear envelope, these gaps close over time or are filled in with specific pore proteins. By contrast, the exclusome envelope does not develop any further. “Perhaps the exclusome is a first attempt at producing a cell nucleus,” Kroschewski says.

Why plasmids get wrapped up in an incomplete membrane envelope remains unclear. “It looks like only chromosomal DNA is deemed ‘good enough’ to be encased within a fully formed nuclear envelope, and extra-chromosomal DNA is not,” Kroschewski says. Ring-shaped DNA from outside and self-made plasmids with the sequence from chromosome ends appear to lack the required characteristic. “We don’t yet know what this characteristic is,” Kroschewski says. The same holds true for so many aspects of this recently discovered organelle.

Kroschewski and her team now plan to unravel the mysteries of the exclusome by examining cellular changes at the plasmid DNA as well as the “license” for depositing plasmids into the exclusome.

Source: ETH Zurich

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Government funding for the space sector is helping blunt the impact of a decline in private investment.

At the Satellite Innovation conference here, industry analysts, entrepreneurs and observers agreed that investors are far more cautious than they were in 2021, “a peak capital year with $12 billion in private capital coming into sector,” said Brooke Stokes, McKinsey and Co. partner.

While private investment is no longer pouring into space companies, it “hasn’t nosedived as much as some of the talk may suggest,” Stokes said Oct. 17. For now, “it’s leveled out at about $8 billion dollars.”

Shift in Government Contracting

Meanwhile, U.S. government funding for space programs is climbing.

“There’s a 20% increase in the government funding in the U.S.” said Raghavan Alevoor, Deloitte Consulting principal. “There’s the silver lining.”

The U.S. government’s approach to buying space-related products and services also is changing.

“A decade ago, 75 percent of all space U.S. government spending was via traditional contracts,” following federal acquisition regulations, Stokes said. “That has now shifted to only 60%.”

Rather than demanding companies comply with voluminous regulations, government agencies have increased their use of other transaction authority agreements and “other more commercial acquisition models,” Stokes said.

Alevoor sees another silver lining related to the private investment climate. For companies that still have access to capital, “this is an opportunistic time for them to look for acquisitions,” he said.

Potential Hurdles

The panel discussed potential impediments to space sector growth including high interest rates.

“We do see some softness in the market because people think interest rates are going to remain higher or rise,” said Don Claussen, ST Engineering iDirect CEO. “Customers outside the United States are also concerned that a strong dollar will reduce their buying power.”

Claussen also thinks rising geopolitical tensions will create supply chain disruptions.

“If we look at who’s innovating and where they’re innovating, some of our partners are in regions of the world under intense conflict right now,” Claussen said. “It’s going to slow that innovation in those smaller companies and that is going to limit some of our access to that next technology.”

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