American aerospace manufacturer and small satellite launch service provider Rocket Lab said on 9 December that it had flown a fully Autonomous Flight Termination System (AFTS) for the first time on an Electron launch vehicle, part of its reusable rocket program.

According to the company’s press release, the AFTS flown on the company’s most recent mission, ‘Running Out Of Fingers’, makes Rocket Lab one of only two US launch companies to have flown using an autonomous system.

AFTS is a GPS-aided, computer-controlled system designed to terminate an off-nominal flight, replacing traditional human-in-the-loop monitoring systems. It is crucial to increasing launch frequency and providing responsive launch capability, while maintaining high safety standards, Rocket Lab said.

In theory, it reduces the turnaround time between missions and provides greater schedule control by eliminating reliance on ground-assets and human flight termination operators.

‘Running Out Of Fingers’ hosted the first fully autonomous system on Electron, following four ‘shadow’ flights where the AFTS unit was flown on the vehicle for testing while traditional ground-based flight termination infrastructure remained in place. With the first fully autonomous mission now complete, Rocket Lab intends all future Electron missions to fly with the AFTS.

Flight termination systems are a vital part of launch operations. Traditionally, flight termination infrastructure is a ground-based system that involves a human making the decision to terminate a mission in the event of a launch vehicle straying from a pre-determined flight path.

By contrast, the AFTS is an independent, self-contained subsystem mounted on-board the Electron launch vehicle. It eliminates the need for a ground-based infrastructure by moving the flight termination function to the launch vehicle.

The system makes flight termination decisions autonomously by using redundant computers that track the launch vehicle using Global Positioning System and on-board sensors, combined with configurable software-based rules, that identify where the rocket can safely fly.

If a rocket goes off course the AFTS will issue a command to terminate the flight by shutting down the engines. The AFTS also delivers faster response times and improved monitoring as launch vehicle travels downrange, providing over-the-horizon tracking capabilities that are not limited by line-of-sight tracking such as that required by ground-based instrumentation at the launch site.

“The AFTS is yet another way Rocket Lab is innovating to increase the pace of launch and support responsive launch capability for small satellites,” Rocket Lab founder and CEO, Peter Beck, said in a statement.

“As we move to an autonomous system, I’d like to thank . . . White Sands Missile Range and Alaska Aerospace Corporation, who have provided ground-based flight termination system support for Electron missions since our first launch in 2017,” he added. “Their support has ensured the safety of every Electron mission and they have contributed to our record of mission success for customers.”

“I’m immensely proud of the team here at Rocket Lab that has made AFTS on Electron a reality,” Naomi Altman, Rocket Lab’s Avionics Manager and Project Lead for the AFTS program, added.

“For AFTS to be part of Electron’s 10th launch was the cherry on top of a monumental year for the whole team,” she said. “Reaching this milestone is also testament to the ongoing support of government agencies and contractors who worked closely with us to bring the AFTS online.”

The US Air Force Research Laboratory’s Center for Rapid Innovation (AFRL) said on 15 December that it had successfully completed initial flight tests for a new Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) with a “customizable suite of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance tools that supports extended missions”.

This series of flight tests began in February at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, culminating with a two and a half-day continuous flight demonstration in early December. Subsequent flight tests are expected to demonstrate increased levels of flight endurance.

The Ultra Long Endurance Aircraft Platform – or Ultra LEAP – consists of a sport-class commercial airframe converted to a fully automated system and secure navigation that uses anti-jam GPS and has full global operational access via a satellite-based command and control, and a high-rate data relay link.

Developing Ultra LEAP from concept to first flight took less than 10 months, and the system could be ready for operational fielding as soon as 2020, the AFRL said. This level of automation is expected to greatly reduce operator training requirements and smaller support crews are expected to lead to lower operating costs.

According to the AFRL, Ulta LEAP uses subsystems and lessons learned from its prior LEAP program, a UAS that supports missions lasting up to 40 hours. To date, LEAP has “completed more than 18,000 combat flight hours, and demonstrated one of the lowest mishap rates and smallest mission crew size of any operational UAS in its class”.

“As the Air Force balances current readiness with long-term modernization, Ultra LEAP represents an affordable approach that supports both existing and future force needs,” Major General William Cooley, AFRL commander, said in a statement.

The “enhanced UAS capabilities, along with the cost savings, offers the military a winning solution,” he added.

“Developing a UAS with this level of endurance is an incredible achievement for future warfighting and battlefield success,” Paul Litke, the AFRL project engineer leading the effort, said. “This way, the U.S. military will save money without sacrificing reliability and maintainability.”

“Accomplished after only 10 months of development by our AFRL industry team, today’s 2 1/2-day Ultra LEAP mission is a significant milestone in solving the tyranny of distance problem for ISR systems,” added Dr. Alok Das, AFRL senior scientist and director of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Center for Rapid Innovation (CRI).

“It will provide immediate benefit to our warfighters while at the same time paving the path for future low-cost, multi-day endurance ISR systems,” he concluded.

Going forward, the Air Force expects parallel AFRL-CRI efforts to focus on UAS operations with short takeoff and landing distances to support deployments at non-traditional locations.

California-based Bigscreen Inc, a social virtual reality movie watching platform, and legendary Hollywood studio Paramount Pictures announced on 16 December a multi-year agreement to distribute classic 2D & 3D films in 10 countries worldwide.

In Bigscreen’s virtual world, users can customize personal avatars, hang out in a virtual lobby, and voice chat with other movie fans. Movies are streamed on screens inside virtual cinemas, providing a social movie watching experience.

Beginning December 16, four new movies will premiere in Bigscreen every week. Movies will run for one week with a new lineup of movies available the following week. Films are broadcast live on a pay-per-view basis with scheduled showtimes every half an hour.

December’s lineup included blockbusters like Interstellar and Star Trek. For a full list of upcoming screenings and showtimes, visit: bigscreenvr.com/cinema/comingsoon.

“Bigscreen’s virtual reality platform offers a new way for fans to experience films in their homes,” Bob Buchi, President of Worldwide Home Entertainment at Paramount Pictures, said in a statement.  “We’re excited to be a part of this experiment using cutting-edge technology to give fans a new entertainment option.”

“We are excited to enable fans around the world to chat and watch films together in our virtual movie theater,” Darshan Shankar, CEO and founder of Bigscreen, added.

Bigscreen’s virtual screenings will be available in 10 countries: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Australia, and Japan.

In addition to 2D screenings, Bigscreen will also broadcast select movies in 3D. Bigscreen says that its rendering technology “uses VR to create a perfect 3D picture in each eye, producing a level of depth and detail that is not possible with traditional 3D glasses”.

Bigscreen can be downloaded for free from bigscreenvr.com and runs on the Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, Oculus Go, HTC Vive, Valve Index, all SteamVR headsets, and all Microsoft Windows Mixed Reality headsets.

Tickets can be purchased through Bigscreen’s website: bigscreenvr.com/cinema

Storytelling and innovation studio Al Jazeera Contrast, part of the digital division of Al Jazeera Media Network, announced on 13 December that Still Here – an immersive multimedia installation in which formerly imprisoned women collaborate to explore urgent issues surrounding incarceration, erasure and gentrification – will premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival in the New Frontier program.

The visceral experiences of over twelve formerly incarcerated women who have re-entered society are at the core of Still Here, which was conceived as an interactive audio, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) experience by Al Jazeera Contrast head and lead creator Zahra Rasool and journalist Sarah Springer, along with a team of creatives from the New York City community.

Told cinematically, and through the lens of a fictional character named Jasmine Smith, who returns to Harlem after 15 years in prison, the narrative is crafted together with women who have spent time in prison and are part of Women’s Prison Association (WPA).

According to Al Jazeera, Still Here represents “a pioneering transmedia approach to storytelling and signifies a new direction in collaborative and community-centered, immersive journalism”.

“Providing direct access to personal stories and voices that matter is at the heart of our mission, and we are thrilled that the Sundance Film Festival recognizes the importance of inclusion and the necessity to democratize the creative process and push the boundaries of traditional narratives,” Rasool said in a statement.

“As a digital news media organization, we are charged with a responsibility to bring the world’s most pressing and crucial stories to life in compelling and impactful ways,” added Carlos Van Meek, Director of Digital Innovation and Programming for Al Jazeera Digital.

“This first-time selection by the Sundance Film Festival is an honor and signifies a new level of international recognition for the groundbreaking content the Al Jazeera Contrast team are creating,” he said.

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Since launching in 2017, Al Jazeera Contrast has received multiple international awards, including an Emmy nomination in the “Outstanding New Approaches: Current News” category, alongside the New York Times, Time Magazine, and the Center for Investigative Reporting for Yemen’s Skies of Terror.

Rasool’s team is the only all-female news team specializing in immersive technology and the nomination marked the first time Al Jazeera Digital has been recognized in the News and Documentary Emmy competition.

In a blog post published on 18 December, Seattle-based web services giant Amazon announced that it had selected a site in Redmond, Washington, for the research and development (R&D) headquarters of its Project Kuiper, a new initiative to “launch a constellation of Low Earth Orbit satellites” to “provide low-latency, high-speed broadband connectivity to unserved and underserved communities” globally.

Announced earlier this year, Project Kuiper is a big, billion dollar project that will take years to come to fruition. However, the company claims that the team has, since its inception, made “significant progress towards our goal to serve tens of millions of people who lack basic access to broadband internet”.

The project has outgrown its current headquarters, Amazon said, so the company is leasing and renovating a long term home for the team in Redmond, which is intended to be its “primary headquarters for research & development” and its “primary prototype manufacturing and qualification facility”.

The new facility will consist of two buildings with a total of 219,000 square feet of space, including offices and design space, R&D labs and prototype manufacturing facilities. Renovations on the facility are already underway and the move into the new site is planned for 2020.

Amazon has invested over US$38 billion in the Greater Seattle Area since 2010, including infrastructure and compensation. It claims to have created over 53,000 jobs in the region and estimates that its investments have contributed to the creation of an additional 244,000 jobs on top of its direct hires.

“Kuiper is another large initiative for us and our commitment to this project will of course result in further investments by Amazon in infrastructure and compensation,” the company said.

Some private companies, including SpaceX and OneWeb, are reportedly lobbying against the company’s efforts to acquire regulatory approval for the planned Kuiper internet constellation. The US government originally gave nine companies licenses to use the Ka-band portion of the electromagnetic spectrum and Amazon is asking for waiver allowing it to gain access as well.

The companies that were originally granted access have argued that giving Amazon access will interfere with their plans as there would be too many satellites attempting to use the same frequencies. It is still unclear whether the waiver will be granted but the government has said that since the companies will not all end up launching satellite constellations, there might be room for other players.

Pittsburgh-based space robotics company Astrobotic said on 2 October that it’s CubeRover – an ultralight, rechargeable planetary rover – program had been awarded a US$2 million NASA Tipping Point contract, which the company expects to provide “the final push” to bring the product to market.

According to Astrobotic, the rover is “roughly the size of a shoebox”, weighs less than five pounds and can carry its own payloads or team up with other CubeRovers as “scouts” for larger rovers and landers.

The company expects the first CubeRover to fly to the Moon aboard the Peregrine lunar lander on Astrobotic’s flagship mission in 2021, set to be the first by an American-built lander since the Apollo missions.

The CubeRover project is the only rover selected by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for a Tipping Point award. The awards look to invest in American aerospace businesses whose products are at a “tipping point” in their development, allowing NASA funding to provide a “final nudge” to completion.

Astrobotic said that the rover was named for “its unique modular, scalable design”, claiming that it will offer “a low-cost delivery service to the lunar surface, making the Moon accessible to commercial customers for the first time”.

According to Astrobotic, the contract will allow the CubeRovers to be fitted with a lighter all-wheel-drive system, a large solar array for rechanged, and standardized interfaces for coupling with various types of landers and payloads.

Astrobotic plans to partner with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to provide the CubeRover with a “smart vision system”, which would be able to adapt its resolution to specific tasks – e.g. high definition for science-based tasks and low definition for navigation – to preserve bandwidth.

The company developed the CubeRover in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University and the NASA Kennedy Space Center, with partial funding coming from NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research program.

“We are honored to receive the Tipping Point award, which will enable our rovers to provide exactly the capabilities space agencies, businesses, and institutions are asking for,” Mike Provenzano, Astrobotic’s Director of Planetary Mobility, said in a statement. “We’re incredibly excited to make the CubeRover product line available to the world.”

Astrobotic “seeks to make space accessible to the world”. The company’s lunar lander, Peregrine, delivers payloads to the Moon for companies, governments, universities, non-profits, and individuals for US$1.2 million per kilogram.

Astrobotic was selected by NASA in May 2019 for a $79.5 million contract to deliver payloads to the Moon in 2021, and has over 30 prior and ongoing NASA and commercial technology contracts, a commercial partnership with Airbus DS, and a corporate sponsorship with DHL. The company is also an official partner with NASA through the Lunar CATALYST Program.

On 3 October, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced the 64 teams from 21 states and Puerto Rico that will take part in the 2020 NASA Student Launch competition to design, build, test and fly a payload and high-powered amateur rocket.

The rockets are required to reach an altitude of between 4,000 and 5,500 feet, and all teams must meet multiple documentation and presentation milestones with NASA rocketry experts as they develop their rocket.

New to the competition is the college division’s payload challenge. In the past, the teams were given payload options to develop, such as a rover or unmanned aerial vehicle. In 2020, the teams must collect a specific amount of simulated lunar ice from the launch field, before navigating to a specified distance.

The payload task resembles aspects of mission design and planning faced by NASA and industry engineers when exploring planetary bodies, such as the Moon, which has water ice at its south pole.

Teams in the middle/high school division can choose to complete in the college division payload challenge or they can develop a scientific or engineering payload of their own design. As introduced in the 2019 competition, teams will continue to “call their shot” and predict their rocket’s altitude.

When teams submit their preliminary design review package to NASA in November this year, one of the key milestones in the competition year, they will submit their predictions and target altitudes for launch day, to be held in Huntsville, Alabama in April 2020.

Teams are also evaluated and given points and awards in nearly a dozen other categories including safety, vehicle design, social media presence and STEM engagement. The STEM award “encourages and recognizes teams for sharing their knowledge and experiences with the next generation of engineers, scientists and explorers”.

Marshall’s Office of STEM Engagement manages Student Launch to “stimulate innovation and advance NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations mission through collaboration with educational institutions and students”.

NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement looks to further the agency’s goal of encouraging students to pursue degrees and careers in the STEM fields through multiple challenges, including the Student Launch competition.

The Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate and the Office of STEM Engagement, along with Northrop Grumman and the Huntsville chapter of the National Space Club, provide funding and leadership for the initiative.

Entering its third decade of competition, Student Launch aims to provide a realistic experience for middle school, high school and college students to follow the engineering design process NASA and industry engineers use when developing and operating new hardware.

The US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) announced on 24 October that it is working to develop “space-based solar power transmission capability using high-efficiency solar cells” to collect the sun’s energy, convert it to radio frequencies and beam it back to Earth.

The AFRL said that “providing uninterrupted, assured, and agile power to expeditionary forces operating in unimproved areas such as forward operating bases would provide an advantage to US and allied forces”.

AFRL researchers are focused on “developing and demonstrating some of the key technologies necessary to integrate into a conceptual space-based power beaming system”, the laboratory said.

American global aerospace and defense technology company Northrop Grumman will partner with AFRL, and has been awarded a contract valued at over US$100 million to develop and deliver unspecified hardware elements to support space-based experiments into this new technology.

“Energy is a strategic enabler and potential vulnerability for our nation and our Department of Defense” US Air Force Colonel Eric Felt, director of AFRL’s Space Vehicles Directorate, said in a statement. “To ensure [Department of Defense] mission success we must have the energy we need at the right place at the right time.”

“The Space Solar Power Incremental Demonstrations and Research (SSPIDR) Project is a very interesting concept that will enable us to capture solar energy in space and precisely beam it to where it is needed,” Felt added. “SSPIDR is part of AFRL’s ‘big idea pipeline’ to ensure we continue to develop game-changing technologies for our Air Force, [Department of Defense], nation, and world.”

AFRL is the primary scientific research and development center for the United States Air Force (USAF), and leads USAF’s “discovery, development and integration of affordable warfighting technologies for [the country’s] air, space and cyberspace force”.

The successful activation – which will be followed by a year-long tech demonstration to see if the clock performs as expected; i.e. how well the clock keeps time down to the nanosecond – was confirmed by the mission team on Friday 23 August.

Developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, it is the first clock allegedly stable enough to map a spacecraft’s trajectory in deep space while still small enough to fly onboard said spacecraft.

A more stable clock will be able to operate father from Earth, NASA explained, where it need to be able to work for longer periods than satellites closer to home. The agency hailed it as a “critical step” in enabling “spacecraft to safely navigate themselves in deep space rather than rely on the time-consuming process of receiving directions from Earth”.

Atomic clocks, like those used in GPS satellites, can be used to measure the distance between two objects by timing how long it takes a signal to travel from point A to point B.

For space exploration, such clocks have to be extremely precise, as even a one second error could be mean the different between landing on a planet like Mars and missing it by several miles. This new atomic clock allegedly 50 times more stable than those on GPS satellites.

In controlled tests conducted on Earth, NASA said it lost one second per ten million years – now engineers will be able to test that accuracy in space, where the clock would be most useful, replacing the larger Earth-bound clocks currently used by navigators to pinpoint a spacecraft’s location.

It can take minutes to hours from a signal to be sent from Earth to the spacecraft before returning to Earth, where it can be used to create instructions that are then sent back to the spacecraft. An onboard clock would allow it to calculate its own trajectory, instead of waiting for navigators back on Earth, allowing missions to travel farther and – eventually – safely take humans to other planets.

“The goal of the space experiment is to put the Deep Space Atomic Clock in the context of an operating spacecraft – complete with the things that affect the stability and accuracy of a clock – and see if it performs at the level we think it will: with orders of magnitude more stability than existing space clocks,” Todd Ely, navigator and principal investigator of the project at the JPL, said in a statement.

The clock is hosted on a spacecraft provided by General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems of Englewood, Colorado, and sponsored by the Technology Demonstration Missions and Space Communications and Navigations programs. The JPL manages the project.

The European Space Agency (ESA) said on 21 August that it is seeking proposals for missions to explore lunar caves that could potentially accommodate human outposts, shielding astronauts from cosmic radiation and micrometeorites, and providing access to icy water and other resources trapped underground.

While the surface of the Moon has been well-documented by several satellite missions, we still know relatively little about the “presence and nature” of subsurface cavities. Planetary geologists have identified pits that could be related to the collapse of cavities such as lava tubes – where lava once flowed beneath the lunar surface.

The ESA is looking for ideas for missions with specific scientific objectives related to future explorations of lunar caves. Beyond the ability to access, navigate and map the caves, proposals could include communication lines between the caves and the outside world, and instruments to make scientifically relevant measurements of the cave environment.

Submissions that address one of more of these themes are encouraged:

• Robotic concepts for cave access along a vertical wall.
• Navigation and progression inside the cave on horizontal segments.
• Cave mapping and navigation.
• Communication/power network cave interior/lunar surface.
• Science payload.

The ESA expects to fund multiple small system studies as a result of this call for ideas with a maximum budget of €100 000 per activity and a maximum duration of six months.

All submissions will initially be evaluated on the novelty of the idea, its technical feasibility and quality, and the background and experience of the authors. Participants must be registered in one of the ESA’s Member States, Associate Member States or Cooperating States.

“Exploring and mapping these tubes could provide new information about the Moon’s geology, but they could also be an interesting option as long-term shelter for future human visitors to the Moon,” Franceso Sauro, Director of the ESA’s PANGAEA planetary geology astronaut training, said in statement.

“Mission concepts may be based on a single rover or a distributed system of satellite, robotic or rover systems that operate together,” Loredana Bessone, who is leading the hunt for ideas as Head of Analogue Field Testing and Exploration Training at the ESA, added. “Either way, we are looking for systems that would land on the lunar surface, identify and access a cave and contribute to the scientific exploration of the Moon.”

ESA’s Open Space Innovation Platform (OSIP) provides individuals and businesses with the opportunity to collaborate with ESA experts and contribute to the future of space research. It is run through Discovery & Preparation, which lays the groundwork for ESA’s short- to medium-term future activities.