In a talk at the Florida Institute of Technology on Thursday, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine announced that Maxar Technologies will build the first stage of NASA’s planned Lunar Gateway.
The Gateway, part of NASA’s larger Artemis program to return to the moon, is meant to be a waystation of sorts placed in a long orbit around the moon. It will provide a habitat for astronauts while they prepare to embark on longer missions, including moon landings, and serve as a place to assemble the components of rockets and other equipment in space.
The first element to be built and tested is a propulsion system, to move it between orbits and make sure it doesn’t drift away. Maxar (a new company formed from several veteran space industry players) is being awarded up to $375 million to build the system, which will convert solar power to electrical energy to power the Gateway, as well as provide propulsion, communication, and docking capabilities.
The perception that China’s urbanisation is still in full swing is untrue for nearly one-third of Chinese cities, whose populations are shrinking, according to new findings by a Chinese university.
A research team from Tsinghua University used satellite imagery to monitor the intensity of night lights in more than 3,300 cities and towns between 2013 and 2016. In 28 per cent of cases, the lights had dimmed.
China now has 938 shrinking cities, according to Long Ying, an urban planning expert at China’s Tsinghua University, who founded and led the research group, Beijing City Lab. This is more than any other nation on Earth.
The findings are indicative of declining populations and economic activity across almost one-third of the cities monitored, at a time when official economic data also shows that China is facing significant economic and demographic challenges.
The US Navy next generation fighter may not be 6th gen and will DEFINITELY not be developed with the USAF.
Lockheed thinks the 6th gen may have lasers as weapons.
Airbus expects the Franco-German FCAS to be delayed due to export issues.
The Swedes are negotiating to join the British Tempest jet project.
F-3:
Lockheed and the US gov has offered Japan the source code to the F-35 avionics as part of the F-3 deal with Lockheed. The tech transfer offer is pretty deep, actually.
Because Canada is already a partner in the F-35, their requirements for workshare for their CF-18 replacement may exclude the F-35 from the competition: Canada wants more local industry participation in the new fighter, but the agreement for who gets what work share in the F-35 is not renegotiatable. Canada may bend the rules for the F-35.
Greece is considering the F-35 to replace the F-16.
Israel will "share" its operational experience with the F-35 with Britain and the US.
Japan is reassuring the US they will continue buying the F-35.
Japan stated its F-35s made 7 precautionary landings prior to the loss of its fighter.
The US Navy's blackbox hunter has joined the search for the downed Japanese F-35A. The US and Japan are confident the F-35 lost will not be recovered by China or Russia. The US military walked back the claim the F-35A wreckage had been found. The canopy and the blackbox were found. The US Navy has stopped looking for the wreckage.
The Japanese Izumo and Kaga are being converted to being F-35B aircraft carriers. Some oppose this.
There has been no further word on the F-35A Japan lost. A sub rescue ship and a USAF U-2 joined the search when it was happening.
The F-35 program has been coming under fire in South Korea over the offset portion and induction of the first F-35 has been delayed as a result.
Turkey is claiming if they will not participate in the F-35 program, the program will collapse. Turkey is eying its options if it does lose the F-35 and have announced they are starting to jointly develop aircraft with the Russians. The US House of Representatives has an early spending bill barring Turkey from buying the F-35. The crisis is deepening because Turkey is supposed to take delivery of their first S-400 missiles by July. Erdogan claims Turkey will eventually get the F-35. the US Senate bill will ban Turkey from getting the F-35 ever if they receive the S-400. Turkey had claimed they thought the negotiations were getting better.
Turkey's TCG Andalou, an amphibious ship intended to carry F-35Bs, has had a fire in its bow on April 29.
Lockheed has developed a new missile rack to allow the F-35 A and C models to carry 6 AMRAAM missiles internally compared to the four now.
Lockheed is hoping that new suppliers for the F-35A will help reduce the aircraft price significantly.
Lockheed saw its bottom line increase in large part due to the F-35.
Lockheed got a $117 million contract for spare parts for the F-35.
Lockheed has received a $1.1 billion contract from the US Navy for the F-35.
Lockheed is pitching F-35Cs armed with hypersonic missiles.
Northrop has benefited from the increased F-35 work.
Pratt & Whitney got a $200M contract for long lead items for the F-35 engines and another contract for another $53M.
The richest man in the world also unveiled the new BE-7 engine, which is set to undergo testing this summer.
The event was clearly designed to re-introduce Blue Moon to the public and policy makers, and to position Blue Origin for NASA contracts to deliver astronauts and supplies to the lunar south pole.
During the presentation, Bezos took several shots at rival billionaire Elon Musk’s plans to settle Mars. It will be interesting to see of the SpaceX founder responds in some way to Bezos’ taunts.
The Red Planet is too far away to serve as a “Planet B” if Earth’s environment continues to decline. Mining the moon for resources and constructing floating space colonies will allow humanity to continue to grow and preserve Earth’s environment, Bezos said.
Blue Origin had earlier tweeted a photo of Ernest Shackleton’s ship, Endurance, which the famed British explorer used on one of his expeditions to Antarctica. This had fed speculation that Bezos would announce a mission to a crater named after Shackleton at the lunar south pole.
The US Defence Department expects China to add military bases around the world to protect its investments in its ambitious One Belt One Road global infrastructure programme, according to an official report released on Thursday (May 2).
Beijing currently has just one overseas military base, in Djibouti, but is believed to be planning others, including possibly Pakistan, as it seeks to project itself as a global superpower.
“China’s advancement of projects such as the ‘One Belt, One Road’ Initiative (OBOR) will probably drive military overseas basing through a perceived need to provide security for OBOR projects,” the Pentagon said in its annual report to Congress on Chinese military and security developments.
“China will seek to establish additional military bases in countries with which it has a longstanding friendly relationship and similar strategic interests, such as Pakistan, and in which there is a precedent for hosting foreign militaries,” the report said.
Will the Russian army buy UAVs with hydrogen fuel cells?
Russia's Ohotnik-B/Hunter-B was on display for Putin and to send a message.
Saudi Arabia stated two suicide drones attacked its oil pumping station in Riyadh and the Saudis called it a war crime. The Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia by drone are stepping up.
Turkey's Aksungur UAV has made its first trade show debut.
Turkey is delivering loitering munitions to its allies in Syria.
UAE owned, Chinese made Wing Loongs are making air strikes in Libya.
AeroVironment is demonstrating its Quantix drone in possible military roles.
Boeing's MQ-25 demonstrator was trucked to MidAmerica airport to prepare for flight testing. That testing could start in a month. The Phantom Works developed a new type of electronically steerable antenna to be first used on the MQ-25.
A test of parachutes for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft did not go as planned last month, NASA and SpaceX confirmed May 8.
During a hearing of the House Science Committee’s space subcommittee on NASA’s exploration plans, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) quizzed agency officials on the testing of parachutes for commercial crew vehicles, zeroing in on a specific, previously undisclosed test in April.
“Did SpaceX conduct, in April of 2019, a parachute test in Delamar Dry Lake, Nevada?” he asked. “What happened in that test?”
“The test was not satisfactory,” responded Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations and one of the witnesses at the hearing. “We did not get the results we wanted, but we learned some information that’s going to affect, potentially, future parachute designs.”
In that test, one of the four parachutes was “proactively failed” to demonstrate the “single-out” capability of the overall system. However, he said, “the three remaining chutes did not operate properly.” That caused a test sled to hit the ground faster than expected, damaging it.
China and Russia had their money on winning asymmetric advantages in conventional and nuclear forces in the last decade, and now the United States is playing catch-up in modernizing its sea, air and land nuclear forces, the Pentagon’s top policy official said Wednesday.
David Trachtenberg, the Pentagon’s deputy undersecretary for policy, said the United States put off modernizing the three legs of its nuclear deterrent for almost 20 years, he told USNI News following a presentation at the Brookings Institution.
“In the 2000s, we skipped a generation” in modernizing the triad – ballistic missile submarines, bombers and ballistic missiles. He added that the United Kingdom and France, both nuclear powers and NATO allies, reduced their weapons stockpiles while continuing to modernize their nuclear forces during that same time. The United Kingdom has sea-based ballistic missile submarines; France has both submarines and aircraft capable of delivery of nuclear weapons.
A Denisovan jaw bone found in Tibet shows Denisovans colonized the 'roof of the world' long before modern humans did. The jaw bone also starts to show what the Denisovans looked like.
Evidence from reexamining bovid remains from South Africa suggest active hunting was import for H. heidelbergensis.
H. luzonensis:
H. luzonensis, a new hominin from Luzon island of the Philippines, has been discovered. This hominin was another miniature standing at about an estimated 1.2m (5 ft). It may have suffered from island dwarfing like H. floresiensis, the so-called Hobbit. John Hawks comments.
Hualongdong Hominin:
A hominin from China has a mosaic of primitive and modern features. Some are claiming this is proof of the multiregional hypothesis.
H. erectus:
Evidence of what mammals H. erectus ate in Italy prior to 1.3 million years ago.
The dispersal routes out of Africa for hominins are explored in Sudan looking for stone tools. John Hawks comments.
H. naledi:
Cranial remains from the Lesedi Chamber of the Rising Star Cave show some variation from the other fossils, but by and large appear to be more of H. naledi.
H. habilis:
The KNM-ER 64060 fossil mandible appears to be from H. habilis rather than H. erectus.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree expanding the list of Ukrainians and citizens of some other countries eligible for fast-tracked Russian passports, the Kremlin said on Wednesday.
The list included Ukrainians who once lived in Ukraine’s Crimea region before it was annexed by Russia in 2014, and citizens of Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan who were born in Russia during the Soviet era.
An earlier Kremlin decree, simplifying the procedure for obtaining a Russian passport for residents of the rebel-controlled Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, was signed by Putin on April 24.
China aims to build a scientific research station in the south polar region of the moon and realize manned lunar exploration mission in about ten years, said a senior space official on Wednesday.
Zhang Kejian, head of the China National Space Administration, made the remarks at the opening ceremony of China's Space Day in Changsha, capital of central China's Hunan Province.
China will launch the Chang'e-5 lunar probe to collect and return lunar samples back to Earth at the end of 2019, Zhang said.
Tesla is claiming it will launch a self driving taxi business in 2020. However, the fleet operators of Teslas are having a serious problem keeping the vehicles running.
Watch a Tesla Model 3 do its first fully autonomous drive on public roads.
Tesla is promising an aggressive driving mode for Autopilot that could cause a fender bender. Bet that doesn't last long.
The chip that will supposedly make Teslas completely self driving is only halfway done.
Researchers have 3d printed the first heart specifically for a patient.
A new 2d stacking method for 3d printing has promise for printing organs.
A new method of inspecting 3d printed parts by encasing them in ice has emerged.
Robotics:
Amazon has stated robots will not completely replace its warehouse workers for at least ten years. Anki, the home robotics company, is closing its doors.
Facing tough competition from China, the United States and even tiny Luxembourg, Germany is racing to draft new laws and attract private investment to secure a slice of an emerging space market that could be worth $1 trillion a year by the 2040s.
The drive to give Germany a bigger role in space comes as European, Asian and U.S. companies stake out ground in an evolving segment that promises contracts for everything from exploration to mining of outer-space resources.
Firms likely to benefit from any future spending rise in Germany include Airbus, which co-owns the maker of Europe’s Ariane space rockets, and Bremen-based OHB.
The new legislation would limit financial and legal liabilities of private companies should accidents happen in orbit, set standards for space operations and offer incentives for new projects, the German economy ministry told Reuters.
In the evolving story of a so-called "stablecoin" the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James accused iFinex Inc. -- operator of the Bitfinex exchange and the Tether cryptocurrency -- of trying to cover up "the apparent loss of $850 million dollars of co-mingled client and corporate funds." While researchers have tied Tether transactions to the spike in Bitcoin value that occurred between March 2017 and March 2018, this issue of the missing money is allegedly tied to a transfer of $850 million in funds to Crypto Capital Corp., a payment processor based in Panama.
The AG says Bitfinex lost access to funds it had transferred there after regular banks stopped handling its business and subsequently dipped into $900 million of Tether's cash reserves. According to the filing, Crypto Capital Corp. told Bitfinex the funds were "seized by governmental authorities in Portugal, Poland, and the United States" but the AG says Bitfinex doesn't believe that is true.
