WASHINGTON — The chief executive of Boeing says his company is still committed to the CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle despite the latest problems that have further delayed the program.
In an interview on the “Check 6” podcast by Aviation Week published June 16, Dave Calhoun said that Boeing was not “shutting the door” on Starliner after the company postponed the first crewed flight of the vehicle that had been scheduled for late July.
“We’re going to do whatever NASA asks us to do,” he said when asked about the program at the end of the podcast. “We do believe in it, and we believe there has to be more than one player.”
NASA is currently relying on its other commercial crew partner, SpaceX, to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station on its Crew Dragon spacecraft. SpaceX has conducted 10 crewed launches over three years, seven for NASA and three fully commercial ones, including the Ax-2 flight to the station in May.
Boeing had been preparing from its Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission, the first flight of Starliner with astronauts on board, when it announced June 1 that it was postponing the launch. Recent reviews found issues with parts of the spacecraft’s parachute system as well as tape used in wire harnesses that is flammable.
In that briefing, Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager for CST-100 Starliner at Boeing, appeared to raise questions about the future of the overall Starliner effort, saying the company had been talking internally “about the future of Starliner and how we’re going to move forward.” He later clarified that meant long-term evaluations about building another spacecraft and shifting from the Atlas 5. There had not been “serious discussions” about terminating the program, he added.
“We have definitely fallen behind in it,” Calhoun acknowledged in the podcast about Boeing’s work on Starliner compared to SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. “Technically, we think we know what we’re doing. I think ultimately with every next successful launch, we’ll demonstrate that.”
Neither NASA nor Boeing has provided an update on either the parachute or tape issues since the June 1 announcement. At that time, Nappi said he would not comment on how long the CFT mission would be delayed “until we spend the next several days understanding what we need to go do.”
At a June 8 Space Transportation Association event here, Ken Bowersox, NASA associate administrator for space operations, said those reviews were still ongoing. “We’re trying to find the best opportunity,” he said, suggesting at the time it would take an additional one to two weeks. “We want to make sure Starliner launches when it’s ready.”
Both Bowersox and Janet Petro, director of the Kennedy Space Center, said a rescheduled launch for the CFT mission would depend not just on the vehicle’s readiness but also the overall launch manifest. “Because there is such a heavy manifest, it always becomes a discussion between the various NASA programs and between the Space Force and their missions as to when we can fit it in,” she said.
Boeing has not disclosed what additional costs it will incur from this latest delay. The company has recorded nearly $900 million in charges against earnings for the program from past problems and delays, raising questions about whether Starliner will ever break even.
“We’re not shutting the door on it in any way, shape or form,” Calhoun said of Starliner. “We intend to do it — make money on it — but we’re going to let the market and our customer let that play out, and we’ll see what happens.”
He appeared to deemphasize that part of Boeing’s overall space portfolio, highlighting instead its work on the Space Launch System and various defense program. “Low Earth orbit and building out a big presence in that world is not going to be our number one focus,” he said. Boeing is one of the partners on Orbital Reef, a commercial space station project led by Blue Origin and Sierra Space.
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Researchers have detected elevated PFAS levels in the blood of pet dogs and horses from Gray’s Creek, North Carolina, including dogs that only drank bottled water.
The work establishes horses as an important sentinel species and is a step toward investigating connections between PFAS exposure and liver and kidney function in dogs and horses.
The study, which included 31 dogs and 32 horses from Gray’s Creek, North Carolina, was conducted at the behest of community members concerned about their pets’ well-being. All of the households in the study used well water, and all of the wells had been tested and deemed PFAS contaminated by state inspectors.
The animals received a general veterinary health check and had their blood serum screened for 33 different PFAS chemicals, chosen based on compounds present in the Cape Fear River basin and the availability of analytical standards.
From the targeted list of 33 PFAS of interest, researchers found 20 different PFAS in the animals. All of the animals in the study had at least one chemical detected in their blood serum, and over 50% of the dogs and horses had at least 12 of the 20 detected PFAS.
PFOS, a long-chain PFAS used for years in industrial and commercial products, had the highest concentrations in dog serum. The perfluorosulfonic acid PFHxS, a surfactant used in consumer products and firefighting foams, was detected in dogs, but not horses.
Consistent with wells being the known contamination source, some ether-containing PFAS including HFPO-DA (colloquially known as GenX), were detected only in dogs and horses that drank well water.
In dogs who drank well water, median concentrations of two of the PFAS—PFOS and PFHxS—were similar to those of children in the Wilmington GenX exposure study, suggesting that pet dogs may serve as an important indicator of household PFAS.
Dogs who drank bottled water, on the other hand, had different types of PFAS in their blood serum. However, 16 out of the 20 PFAS detected in this study were found in the dogs who drank bottled water.
Overall, horses had lower concentrations of PFAS than dogs, though the horses did show higher concentrations of Nafion byproduct 2 (NBP2), a byproduct of fluorochemical manufacturing. The finding suggests that contamination of the outdoor environment, potentially from deposition of the PFAS onto forage, contributed to their exposure.
“Horses have not previously been used to monitor PFAS exposure,” says Kylie Rock, a postdoctoral researcher at North Carolina State University and first author of the study, published in Environmental Science and Technology. “But they may provide critical information about routes of exposure from the outdoor environment when they reside in close proximity to known contamination sources.”
Finally, the veterinary blood chemistry panels for the animals showed changes in diagnostic biomarkers used to assess liver and kidney dysfunction, two organ systems that are primary targets of PFAS toxicity in humans.
“While the exposures that we found were generally low, we did see differences in concentration and composition for animals that live indoors versus outside,” says corresponding author Scott Belcher, associate professor of biology.
“The fact that some of the concentrations in dogs are similar to those in children reinforces the fact that dogs are important in-home sentinels for these contaminants,” Belcher says. “And the fact that PFAS is still present in animals that don’t drink well water points to other sources of contamination within homes, such as household dust or food.”
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory funded the work.
WASHINGTON — An Indian startup has raised $10 million to start development of commercial space situational awareness (SSA) capabilities that will include data from spacecraft.
Bengaluru-based Digantara announced June 20 it raised the funding in a Series A1 round led by Peak XV Partners, a venture fund until recently known as Sequoia Capital India. Several other investors participated, including Kalaari Capital, which provided the company with $2.5 million in seed capital in 2021.
Digantara is developing a system called the Space Mission Assurance Platform, or Space-MAP, to collect and analyze SSA data. Anirudh Sharma, co-founder and chief executive of Digantara, told SpaceNews that the system currently uses data “from select agencies and commercial companies” that it analyzes to identify potential collision risks. The company is also establishing a groundbased optical SSA observatory in India.
He said the company plans to use much of the new funding round to start work on smallsats equipped with electro-optical sensors to collect SSA data. The satellites, a combination of 6U and 12U cubesats, will be procured from an unnamed vendor, with Digantara developing the payloads.
The first phase of that effort involves eight cubesats placed in low Earth orbits with high densities of objects. “These satellites will enhance our data collection capabilities and strengthen our Space Mission Assurance Platform,” he said. “These missions will enable us to further validate and demonstrate the effectiveness of our technology and services.”
The funding will also support advancing the Space-MAP system itself. Sharma said the company is looking at other sources of data, including from star trackers on other spacecraft, to augment the platform.
“The team at Digantara is working towards creating the most advanced SSA data collection infrastructure. We believe that this will lead to significant capability in the life cycle of managing satellites,” said Shailesh Lakhani, managing director of Peak XV Partners, in a statement about its investment in Digantara.
Sharma said the 30-person company is already talking to investors about its next funding round, which he expects to raise within the next 15 months to support its “go-to-market strategy” and expansion plans. He did not disclose how much he is looking to raise in that future round.
WASHINGTON — Ecuador joined the growing roster of countries backing the Artemis Accords for safe and sustainable space exploration June 21.
In a ceremony at Ecuador’s embassy in Washington, Gustavo Manrique Miranda, Ecuador’s foreign affairs minister, sign the accords in the presence of officials with the U.S. State Department and NASA. Ecuador is the 26th country to sign the Accords and the fourth in Latin America, after Brazil, Colombia and Mexico.
“Signing the Artemis Accords sends a powerful message to the international community that the Ecuadorian government is committed to pursue cutting-edge efforts in technology and is open to innovation, investment, workforce development to promote sustainable growth, and international collaboration to help solve humanity’s greatest challenges,” said Ivonne Baki, Ecuador’s ambassador to the United States, in a statement.
Ecuador does not have a major presence in space, although it does have a space agency established in 2007. One Ecuadorian company, Leviathan Space Industries, has been working to establish a spaceport in the country.
The United States and others who have previously signed the Accords have made it a priority to attract more countries not traditionally seen as space players. In a recent interview, Jennifer Littlejohn, acting assistant secretary of state for oceans and international environmental and scientific affairs, said one working group of member countries, led by Brazil and Poland, was examining how to attract more emerging space nations and overcome any obstacles to them signing.
“The real strength of the Accords is the diversity of the signatory group,” she said. “Although not every country may have the same long-term exploration goals, I think we are working with all signatory countries to find ways to participate meaningfully in the Accords conversation.”
Karen Feldstein, the NASA associate administrator for international and interagency relations who represented the agency at the signing ceremony, offered a similar view. “Ecuador today adds its voice to a diverse and growing set of nations committed to the notion that humanity’s rapid expansion into space, toward the moon and destinations beyond, is peaceful, safe and in full accordance with international law,” she said.
While the Artemis Accords are closely tied to the NASA-led Artemis lunar exploration campaign, signing the accords does not necessarily commit a country to participating in the effort. Advocates of the accords argue that they outline principles and best practices based on the Outer Space Treaty, a cornerstone of international space law.
“The values that the United States wants to see develop on the moon and hopefully throughout all of outer space are the values that are reflected in the Artemis Accords,” said Emily Pierce, an attorney-adviser in the State Department, during a session of the Summit for Space Sustainability June 14 in New York.
With several countries planning lunar missions, she said, “there was an urgent practical need to start to get countries on the same page regarding operational implementation of several key obligations of the Outer Space Treaty.”
There are still issues that the Artemis Accords have not resolved, such as space resource utilization. That was deliberate, said Mike Gold, chief growth officer at Redwire and a former NASA official who spearheaded development of the Accords in 2020, in order to create a “big tent” of countries that can later resolve such sticking points. “The Accords are the beginning of a conversation,” he said on the conference panel, “not an ending.”
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Monarch butterflies with more white spots are more successful at reaching their long-distance wintering destination, a new study suggests.
Although it’s not yet clear how the spots aid the species’ migration, it’s possible that the spots change airflow patterns around their wings.
“We undertook this project to learn how such a small animal can make such a successful long-distance flight,” says Andy Davis, an assistant researcher in the Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia and lead author of the study published in PLOS ONE.
“We actually went into this thinking that monarchs with more dark wings would be more successful at migrating because dark surfaces can improve flight efficiency. But we found the opposite.”
The monarchs with less black on their wings and more white spots were the ones that made it to their ultimate destination, nearly 3,000 miles away in south and central Mexico.
“It’s the white spots that seem to be the difference maker,” Davis says.
The researchers analyzed nearly 400 wild monarch wings collected at different stages of their journey, measuring their color proportions. They found the successful migrant monarchs had about 3% less black and 3% more white on their wings.
An additional analysis of museum specimens that included monarchs and six other butterfly species showed that the monarchs had significantly larger white spots than their nonmigratory cousins.
The only other species that came close to having the same proportion of white spots on its wing was its semi-migratory relative, the southern monarch.
The authors believe the butterflies’ coloring is related to the amount of radiation they receive during their journey. The monarchs’ longer journey means they’re exposed to more sunlight. As a result, they have evolved to have more white spots.
“The amount of solar energy monarchs are receiving along their journey is extreme, especially since they fly with their wings spread open most of the time,” Davis says. “After making this migration for thousands of years, they figured out a way to capitalize on that solar energy to improve their aerial efficiency.”
But as temperatures continue to rise and alter the solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface, monarchs will likely have to adapt to survive, says coauthor Mostafa Hassanalian, an associate professor at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.
“With greater solar intensity, some of that aerial efficiency could go away,” Davis says. “That would be yet one more thing that is hindering the species’ fall migration to Mexico.”
But it’s not all bad news for the flying insects.
Davis’ previous work showed that summer populations of monarchs have remained relatively stable over the past 25 years. That finding suggests that the species’ population growth during the summer compensates for butterfly losses due to migration, winter weather and changing environmental factors.
“The breeding population of monarchs seems fairly stable, so the biggest hurdles that the monarch population faces are in reaching their winter destination,” Davis says. “This study allows us to further understand how monarchs are successful in reaching their destination.”
Additional coauthors are from New Mexico Tech and the University of Georgia.
WASHINGTON — Mynaric will supply laser communications terminals for seven military satellites made by Raytheon Technologies, the company announced June 21.
The optical communications terminals are for missile-tracking satellites that Raytheon is making under a $250 million contract from the Space Development Agency (SDA).
These satellites will be part of SDA’s Tranche 1 Tracking Layer, a network of 35 satellites that also includes 14 spacecraft made by Northrop Grumman and 14 made by L3Harris Technologies. They are projected to launch in 2025.
Each satellite has a wide field-of-view infrared sensor, three optical communications terminals, and a Ka-band payload for communications.
These satellites in low-Earth orbit are designed to detect, identify and track hypersonic weapons and other advanced missiles from their earliest stages of launch through interception.
Deliveries projected in 2024
Mynaric will supply Condor Mk3 terminals to Raytheon, with deliveries expected in 2024.
Mynaric CEO Bulent Altan, Chief Commercial Officer Tina Ghataore, and CTO Joachim Horwath hold a mockup of the CONDOR Mk3 laser terminal. Credit: Thomas Kimmell
Last year Mynaric announced it will supply 42 Condor Mk3 terminals for Northrop Grumman’s 14 Tracking Layer satellites.
The latest order from Raytheon gives Mynaric a dominant position as an optical terminals provider for SDA’s proliferated constellation. The company, headquartered in Munich, Germany, operates in the United States in Los Angeles, California, and Washington, D.C.
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Even after suffering flood damage, homeowners in mostly white communities prefer to accept higher risk of disaster repeating itself over relocating to areas with more racial diversity and less flood risk.
According to a new study in the journal Environmental Research Letters, researchers tracked where nearly 10,000 Americans sold their flood-prone homes and moved through the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program—the largest managed retreat program in the country—between 1990 and 2017.
The data included address-to-address residential relocation information, flood risks of different addresses, community-level racial and ethnic composition, average housing values, and more.
“We found that across the US, the best predictor of the risk level at which homeowners voluntarily retreat is not whether they live in a coastal or inland area, or whether they live in a big city or a small town,” says James Elliott, professor and chair of sociology at Rice University. “It is the racial composition of their immediate neighborhood.”
He and coauthor Jay Wang found that homeowners in majority-white neighborhoods are willing to endure a 30% higher flood risk before retreating than homeowners in majority-Black neighborhoods, after accounting for the various types of areas people live in (coastal, urban, rural, etc.).
“But, there are also some universal tendencies,” says Wang, a senior spatial analyst at Rice’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research. “One is that, regardless of location, most retreating homeowners do not move far.”
Nationwide, the average driving distance between people’s bought-out homes and new destinations is just 7.4 miles. Nearly three-quarters—74%—stay within 20 miles of their flood-ravaged homes.
“In other words, homeowners are not migrating long distances to safer towns, states, and regions,” Elliott says. “They are moving within their neighborhoods and between nearby areas.”
The research also showed that despite being short-distance, these moves do reduce homeowners’ future flood risks. Nationwide, the average reduction is 63%, from 5.6 on First Street’s flood factor at origin to 2.1 at destination.
“This shows that sustained community attachment and risk reduction can go together,” Wang says. “But, these dynamics remain deeply divided by race, especially for those living in majority-white communities.”
Justin Fauntleroy is a government contractor responsible for writing future concepts and doctrine for the U.S. military, specifically the Joint Staff and Naval Warfare Development Center. He earned a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy and a master’s degree in national policy and strategic studies from the U.S. Naval War College, where he completed a master’s thesis on Space Deterrence for U.S. Strategic Command.
With little fanfare, SpaceX has unveiled its plan to completely revolutionize the space industry, and the world has collectively shrugged.
In early December 2022, SpaceX introduced its Starshield concept, a satellite program offering satellite-based secure communications and optional sensing payloads to government customers. However, despite its subdued announcement, Starshield is, in fact, a Trojan horse that will enable SpaceX to further dominate the space domain and dictate policy to businesses and national governments alike. With the new Starshield program, SpaceX is on the verge of transforming its dominance into a monopoly. Governments and businesses must act now to counter any attempts to monopolize the space industry in order to preserve consumer choice and to ensure national policy remains in the hands of elected governments.
SpaceX’s current dominance of the commercial space market is starkly illustrated by the fact that OneWeb, the nearest competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink, was forced to select SpaceX as its launch provider. SpaceX, a private company, can already control its competitors’ access to space and force its policies on national governments. There is simply no other company that can compete with SpaceX’s cost and responsiveness. And the peril of one company being able to dominate the space industry is currently being demonstrated on the battleground of Russia’s war in Ukraine. In October 2022, SpaceX is suspected of restricting the use of Starlink for advancing Ukrainian forces to comply with CEO Elon Musk’s belief that Ukrainian attempts to reclaim their territory were needlessly escalatory and should be stopped. Later, in February 2023, SpaceX explicitly forbade the use of Starlink for “offensive or defensive operations” but retained for itself the final authority on what defined offensive or defensive operations.
To fully understand the significance of the Starshield announcement, it is useful to compare it to the rise of the Apple iPhone. On the surface, it appears – and SpaceX’s marketing reinforces – that Starshield is just a logical extension of its consumer/business Starlink program. But Starshield is much more than how it is being marketed. What is not readily apparent is that with Starshield, SpaceX has essentially built the satellite equivalent of the iPhone, and this platform will enable SpaceX to dominate the space industry in a manner similar to Apple’s domination of the mobile smartphone market.
There’s an app for that
Perhaps the greatest impact of the Apple iPhone was that it greatly expanded the ability of small programmers to create applications (apps). This spurred an explosion of innovation that has led to everything from Instagram to secure mobile banking. The key development that allowed this app innovation was that Apple took care of all the extraneous tasks. Any developer that wanted to build an app, as long as they followed Apple’s protocols, had access to the iPhone’s Wi-Fi network, cellular service, camera, gyroscopes, touch interface, and display.
Additionally, Apple was responsible for developing and updating the core operating system (iOS) and cybersecurity, freeing designers from these necessary but time and capital-intensive tasks. Apple made app design easier, and app designers flocked to the iPhone platform. Since the iPhone had all the apps consumers wanted, they sold in droves, and their ubiquity created a self-reinforcing feedback loop. Designers who wanted market penetration made iPhone apps. Consumers bought iPhones to ensure they had access to all the newest apps, which meant that the next app designer was incentivized to publish for iPhone. Even though iPhone only held just over 24% of the global smartphone market as of January 2023, apps are often published or updated for iOS before Android and other competitors. Apple’s early market dominance allowed them to set the standard and maintain a dominant influence on the market.
For the space industry, the satellite payload is the equivalent of the iPhone app. The two main parts of a satellite are the bus and the payload. The bus provides support to the payload in the form of structure, power, thermal management, communications, control, etc. The payload is the part that performs a specific purpose beneficial to the operator. Thus, the payload is the most important segment to the satellite builder, because it is the payload that provides a service for which customers are willing to pay.
Unfortunately, it is currently difficult to drive innovation in satellite payloads (outside of national government programs). For example, even if an optics company perfects a new satellite sensor that could revolutionize remote sensing, it would still have to fulfill many other requirements before getting that sensor into orbit. These requirements include designing a specialized satellite bus containing a solar panel and power subsystem, a unique telemetry system for command and control, a space and terrestrial communications network to receive information from the sensor, and multiple other engineering-intensive and expensive tasks. In addition to paying for an expensive custom-built satellite, the optics company would need to pay for a launch provider, insurance, and recurring costs for satellite control and cybersecurity. If a multiple satellite constellation were required, these costs would grow considerably. The expense and complexity of satellite design create barriers to “app” development.
Credit: SpaceNews AI-generated illustration
SpaceX’s Starshield has the potential to remove many of these barriers to “app” development. For companies that pay for Starshield, SpaceX will provide satellite command and control, constellation maintenance, cybersecurity, encrypted processing of data, and integration and launch services. Most importantly, SpaceX will provide a modular bus with all the payload requirements and a plug-and-play operating system. In the example above, the optics company could simply build a sensor that complied with SpaceX’s requirements and then sit back and monetize the data it receives from SpaceX’s service. If the satellite payload equivalent is the app, then SpaceX has just built not only the iPhone, but also the entire mobile network as well. This is equivalent to Apple owning the iPhone, AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.
While Starshield is currently marketed to national governments, presumably partly due to the cost, costs are expected to decrease rapidly. SpaceX has already proven it can build and launch satellites at scales not seen before in the space industry. As of January 2023, SpaceX owned nearly half of all active satellites in orbit, which is even more impressive if one realizes that their first Starlink satellite launch did not occur until 2019. Their manufacturing capacity, combined with the lowest kilogram-to-orbit launch costs in the industry and unmatched launch cadence — SpaceX accounted for over one-third of all global space launches in 2022 — will enable SpaceX to provide the modular bus and all the other satellite services at costs low enough to attract new customers to the space industry. It will not be long before regional, county, and municipal governments can afford custom payloads. Once SpaceX’s new heavy-lift rocket becomes operational, the cost of the Starshield program will only get cheaper.
Industry standard
As more customers join the Starshield program, their unique and varied needs will spur even more companies to enter the aerospace industry. Starshield’s modular platform and SpaceX’s launch cadence will allow small companies to rapidly and cheaply design, iterate, integrate, and launch new satellite components. And once these components are evaluated and deemed “space-rated,” then Starshield’s proliferation will enable these small companies to market their component to every other user of the Starshield platform. This market opportunity will drive more excitement, innovation, and investment into the Starshield program, creating more market opportunities; thus creating a similar feedback loop Apple created with its iPhone and app store.
In the absence of any competitor, the Starshield platform and its network will become the industry standard. Any company that wants to enter the space market will choose to make its product compatible with the Starshield architecture. Not only because it is easier but also because that is what their potential customers are using. Even other satellite manufacturers will be forced to license patents from SpaceX, as all the cutting-edge components will be designed to interface with the Starshield bus, operate with the Starshield software, and communicate with the Starshield network. It is not unforeseeable that in the near future, the majority of new satellites in orbit will either utilize or license Starshield technologies and that most orbit-to-Earth communications — both commercial and government — will flow through SpaceX networks. This revenue stream will allow SpaceX to continually develop its Starshield program, enhancing its lead over its competitors and extending its market reach.
Toward Starshield alternatives
The Starshield program holds serious implications for both businesses and governments planning on operating in space in the future. Any company intending to compete in low Earth orbit must start developing viable alternatives to Starshield today. SpaceX has achieved a remarkable level of vertical integration, making it difficult for any one company to compete with the whole gamut of services that SpaceX can provide with Starshield. However, companies should start focusing on offering alternatives to specific portions of the Starshield platform. One idea would be to build an alternative ground-to-orbit communications network. That way, customers who choose to utilize SpaceX-licensed hardware due to market factors will not be forced to use SpaceX’s data network. An alternate communication path would ensure companies other than SpaceX maintain access to the potentially lucrative data, enabling a host of other business opportunities, including data analytics, consulting, and Artificial Intelligence/ Machine Learning (AI/ML) modeling and application.
Plug and Play: Starshield’s modular design is SpaceX’s first forray into building a universal satellite bus that will serve as the iPhone of satellites. The author foresees this enabling smaller companies to develop a rich ecosystem of payloads and subsystems to serve as the “apps” for SpaceX’s iPhone. This mock-up of a Starshield configuration manual was created by the author. Credit: Graphic by Justin Fauntleroy
For governments, national security concerns should spur actions to limit SpaceX’s budding monopoly. SpaceX has been a fantastic partner to the United States and other democratic governments. However, it is against national security interests that one company effectively controls access to space, space infrastructure standards, and the information flow from space. That is not to say that governments should penalize SpaceX by restricting their ability to innovate. SpaceX had the vision and took considerable financial risks to develop the Starshield platform. Governments should applaud and encourage such efforts. However, governments should also be wary of entrusting so much national security to one corporate entity or one individual.
SpaceX unilaterally restricted how Ukraine could use Starlink in its defense, and the realization that a non-public company controlled by the whims of one man could determine a country’s military operations, or even set national policy, should have sent shivers down every democratic government’s spine.
It is imperative that democratic governments start taking steps today to ensure that events similar to what happened in Ukraine can never happen again. Governments should prioritize enabling competition by setting policies that encourage — or force —SpaceX to develop open, license-free protocols and universal non-proprietary device interfaces. That way, potential competitors could build alternatives to the Starshield bus that can still interface with the new burgeoning satellite component industry.
To use the smartphone analogy, this step would ensure that an “Android-like” competitor would maintain access to all the same “apps” as Starshield. This will increase the number of players in the marketplace, helping to ensure that governments continue to have access to alternative providers, reducing taxpayer costs and freeing governments to act in their best interest.
When Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone in 2007, most technology reporters realized it would revolutionize the industry. It is arguable, though, that not even Jobs realized that it would not be the actual iPhone but the app market it enabled, which would become the driving market force.
SpaceX is developing an ecosystem that will upend the space industry as much as the iPhone ecosystem upended mobile telecommunications. The importance of Starshield is not in the actual satellites being built today. Rather, the true significance is the new space marketplace that Starshield will create.
The real danger is that businesses and governments alike could soon find themselves held hostage by the ideology of a non-elected entity.
Commercial companies need to develop capabilities and programs to ensure they remain relevant in this new marketplace.
And governments need to partner with companies to develop laws and standards that encourage space development while ensuring this new marketplace remains competitive.
If governments and the commercial sector do not act now, SpaceX’s head start will become an insurmountable lead, allowing SpaceX to dominate the space sector for decades to come.
This article originally appeared in the June 2023 issue of SpaceNews magazine.
WASHINGTON — United Launch Alliance launched a classified National Reconnaissance Office spy satellite on a Delta 4 Heavy rocket June 22 at 5:18 a.m. Eastern from Space Launch Complex-37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.
It was ULA’s second attempt of this launch that had been previously scheduled for June 21 but was delayed, the company said, “due to an issue with a ground systems pneumatic valve.”
About four minutes into flight, the outer boosters of the three-core Delta 4 Heavy separated. The second stage separated about two minutes later.
At the request of the NRO, ULA ended the webcast nearly seven minutes into the flight after the nose fairing was jettisoned.
NROL-68 is the Delta 4 Heavy’s 15th and penultimate launch before its expected retirement. The vehicle in 2022 flew its final mission from the West Coast.
Credit: ULA
This mission was ULA’s first launch of 2023. The company in May 2019 received a U.S. Air Force contract to launch NROL-68. The Delta 4 Heavy configuration first launched in December 2004.
Each of the Delta 4 Heavy’s common booster cores is powered by Aerojet Rocketdyone’s RS-68A main engines. The Delta cryogenic second stage is powered by an RL10C-2-1 engine. The rocket uses liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen in all stages.
“We had another successful launch for the NRO today,” Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, the Space Force’s program executive officer for assured access to space, said in a statement confirming the launch was successful. “The payload we’ve put into space today adds to the unique capability the NRO provides to keep us safe and out in front of the pacing challenges posed by our nation’s competitors.”
ULA is under contract to launch one more NRO satellite on the Delta 4 Heavy in 2024 from Cape Canaveral. ULA then plans to retire the Delta 4 Heavy and replace it with the new Vulcan Centaur rocket.
Lt. Col. Scott Carstetter, Atlas 5 and Delta 4 materiel leader at the Space Systems Command, noted that NROL-68 will be the first of four missions for ULA’s Atlas 5 and Delta 4 in the final year of Atlas/Delta operations.
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Wild, stray, and feral cats living in areas with higher human population density tend to release—or “shed”—a greater amount of the parasite that causes the disease toxoplasmosis, according to a new study.
The study also draws links between environmental temperature variation and parasite shedding.
While the findings do not establish any causal relationships, the study suggests that rising human population density and temperature fluctuations may create environmental conditions that exacerbate the spread of Toxoplasma gondii and other infectious diseases.
“As one of the most common zoonotic parasites in the world, observing how Toxoplasma gondii oocyst shedding may change disease patterns in human and wildlife hosts could highlight pathways to reduce current and future pathogen transmission,” says Sophie Zhu, a PhD student with the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis.
Toxoplasmosis is a mild-to-severe disease caused by T. gondii, which can infect warm-blooded vertebrates, including humans and many wild or domestic animals, such as cats, sheep, mice, birds, and sea otters.
Most T. gondii transmission is driven by wild and domestic cats shedding the parasite at a certain stage of its life cycle known as oocyst. However, prior research has primarily focused on T. gondii oocyst shedding from owned domestic cats, with less known about wild, stray, and feral cats.
To boost understanding of T. gondii shedding, Zhu and colleagues analyzed data from 47 previously published studies on wild cats, such as cougars and bobcats; unowned free-ranging domestic cats, including stray cats; unowned outdoor cats fed by humans; and feral cats not fed by humans.
The data spanned regions around the world, and the researchers examined a variety of human- and climate-related factors that could be associated with T. gondii oocyst shedding.
The analysis showed that a greater degree of T. gondii oocyst shedding was observed in places with higher human population density. It also showed that higher mean daily temperature fluctuations were associated with more parasite shedding, specifically from domestic cats, and that higher temperatures in the driest quarter of the year were associated with lower parasite shedding from wild cats.
On the basis of their findings, the researchers suggest that policymakers could focus on managing feral cat populations to help reduce T. gondii transmission.
The study appears in the journal PLOS ONE. Additional coauthors are from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and UC Davis.
