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Category: satellites – Page 70

The mother of all ‘zero-days’ — immortal flaws in semiconductor chips

The CHIPS Act of 2022 was signed into law on Aug. 9. It provides tens of billions of dollars in public support for revitalization of domestic semiconductor manufacturing, workforce training, and “leap ahead” wireless technology. Because we outsource most of our device fabrication — including the chips that go into the Navy’s submarines and ships, the Army’s jeeps and tanks, military drones and satellites — our industrial base has become weak and shallow. The first order of business for the CHIPS Act is to address a serious deficit in our domestic production capacity.

Notoriously absent from the language of the bill is any mention of chip security. Consequently, the U.S. is about to make the same mistake with microelectronics that we made with digital networks and software applications: Unless and until the government demands in-device security, our competitors will have an easy time of manipulating how chips function and behave. Nowhere is this more dangerous than our national security infrastructure.

Satellite hackers can see every email you get

Modern satellites are becoming a collection of mass-produced computers floating in space. By the end of the decade, thousands more will be out there. But with the increasing reliance on orbital technology comes a growing appetite for hacking it.

Data relayed via satellites is not immune to hacking. James Pavur, an Oxford PhD focusing on satellite systems security, has proven the above statement to be disturbingly evident. With his team, he used $300 worth of satellite TV equipment to intercept vast amounts of information distributed along the larger part of the Northern hemisphere.

“When you’re eavesdropping on satellite internet signals, you’re effectively seeing what someone’s ISP would see. You see every website that a customer browses to, or every email that they receive for every account that they own,” Pavur told CyberNews.

NASA, Boeing target February for first crew flight on Starliner spacecraft

One of the larger SpaceX disasters was eight months ago, a Falcon 9 was heavily damaged in rough high seas and there was a question of whether it would fly again. It was enough of a problem that SpaceX changed their landings to the Caribbean instead of the Atlantic Ocean during the winter to avoid high seas. (This reduced the amount of payload the rocket could support.)

Well, the rocket is going to fly again tomorrow as the 4th flight in a streak of at least 7 consecutive Starlink launches. SpaceX is launching faster and faster as their need for Starlink launches grows. They are hiring more technicians so they can launch faster from their 3 Falcon 9 launch towers.

SpaceX rolled a Falcon 9 rocket to its launch pad at Cape Canaveral and test-fired its engines Thursday, prepping for liftoff Saturday night carrying another group of Starlink internet satellites into orbit. The Falcon 9 booster has been repaired after a rough recovery in December knocked it out of SpaceX’s rocket reuse rotation.

The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) rocket fired up its nine Merlin 1D engines at 9:10 a.m. EDT (1310 GMT) Thursday on Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The engines ignited for about seven seconds, ramping up to 1.7 million pounds of thrust as hold-down restraints kept the Falcon 9 firmly on the ground.

SpaceX loaded a million pounds of densified kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants into the Falcon 9 during the final 35 minutes of the mock countdown Thursday. The Falcon 9 was already stacked with its payload of more than 50 Starlink internet satellites during the static fire test.

Quantum computing is an even bigger threat than artificial intelligence

Given the potential scope and capabilities of quantum technology, it is absolutely crucial not to repeat the mistakes made with AI—where regulatory failure has given the world algorithmic bias that hypercharges human prejudices, social media that favors conspiracy theories, and attacks on the institutions of democracy fueled by AI-generated fake news and social media posts. The dangers lie in the machine’s ability to make decisions autonomously, with flaws in the computer code resulting in unanticipated, often detrimental, outcomes. In 2021, the quantum community issued a call for action to urgently address these concerns. In addition, critical public and private intellectual property on quantum-enabling technologies must be protected from theft and abuse by the United States’ adversaries.

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There are national defense issues involved as well. In security technology circles, the holy grail is what’s called a cryptanalytically relevant quantum computer —a system capable of breaking much of the public-key cryptography that digital systems around the world use, which would enable blockchain cracking, for example. That’s a very dangerous capability to have in the hands of an adversarial regime.

Experts warn that China appears to have a lead in various areas of quantum technology, such as quantum networks and quantum processors. Two of the world’s most powerful quantum computers were been built in China, and as far back as 2017, scientists at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei built the world’s first quantum communication network using advanced satellites. To be sure, these publicly disclosed projects are scientific machines to prove the concept, with relatively little bearing on the future viability of quantum computing. However, knowing that all governments are pursuing the technology simply to prevent an adversary from being first, these Chinese successes could well indicate an advantage over the United States and the rest of the West.

T‑Mobile Takes Coverage Above and Beyond With SpaceX

Ending cellular dead zones in the U.S. is the ultimate goal.

Cellular service provider T-Mobile has teamed up with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to provide universal coverage using the constellation of Starlink satellites, a press release reveals.

Cellular services have gone through many iterations since their first roll-out. Most countries around the world are currently seeing a roll-out of the fifth generation (5G) of mobile connections that allows the bandwidth for high-speed gaming and streaming high-definition videos.

In a live event today, T‑Mobile and SpaceX announced Coverage Above and Beyond: a breakthrough new plan to bring cell phone connectivity nearly everywhere.

Nontoxic material found to be ultra-strong solar energy harvester

Solar cells are vital for the green energy transition. They can be used not only on rooftops and solar farms but also for powering autonomous vehicles, such as planes and satellites. However, photovoltaic solar cells are currently heavy and bulky, making them difficult to transport to remote locations off-grid, where they are much needed.

In a collaboration led by Imperial College London, alongside researchers from Cambridge, UCL, Oxford, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin in Germany, and others, researchers have produced that can absorb comparable levels of sunlight as conventional silicon , but with 10,000 times lower thickness.

The material is sodium bismuth sulfide (NaBiS2), which is grown as nanocrystals and deposited from solution to make films 30 nanometers in thickness. NaBiS2 is comprised of nontoxic elements that are sufficiently abundant in the earth’s crust for use commercially. For example, bismuth-based compounds are used as a nontoxic lead replacement in solder, or in over-the-counter stomach medicine.

SKY Perfect JSAT signed Launch Service Contract for Superbird-9 satellite with SpaceX

The fully reusable Starship could launch as soon as next month.

Another private customer has signed up to use SpaceX’s fully reusable Starship rocket. Sky Perfect JSat penned a contract with SpaceX to launch its Superbird-9 communications satellite to geosynchronous transfer orbit in 2024, the company announced in a press release.

The Tokyo-based firm revealed little about the specifics of the deal. However, according to Sky Perfect JSAT, Superbird-9 is a high-throughput satellite that “will deliver broadcast and broadband missions in Ku band primarily over Japan and Eastern Asia, in response to mobility and broadband demands.”

Starship: SpaceX’s next-generation launch vehicle.

This is the SKY Perfect JSAT Group SKY Perfect JSAT signed Launch Service Contract for Superbird-9 satellite with SpaceX page. SKY Perfect JSAT Group commands the largest communication satellite business in Asia and is the only in Japan to offer the multichannel pay TV broadcast service SKY PerfecTV!

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SpaceX tweaks Starlink Gen2 plans to add Falcon 9 launch option

SpaceX says it has revised plans for its next-generation Starlink Gen2 constellation to allow the upgraded satellites to launch on its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket in addition to Starship, a new and unproven vehicle.

Set to be the largest and most powerful rocket ever flown when it eventually debuts, SpaceX’s two-stage Starship launch vehicle is also intended to be fully reusable, theoretically slashing the cost of launching payloads into and beyond Earth orbit. Most importantly, SpaceX says that even in its fully-reusable configuration, Starship should be capable of launching up to 150 tons (~330,000 lb) to low Earth orbit (LEO) – nearly a magnitude more than Falcon 9. However, once said to be on track to debut as early as mid-2021 to early 2022, it’s no longer clear if Starship will be ready for regular Starlink launches anytime soon.

In August 2021, SpaceX failed a major Starlink Gen2 revision with the FCC that started the company along the path that led to now. That revision revealed plans to dramatically increase the size and capabilities of each Gen2 satellite, boosting their maximum throughput from about 50 gigabits per second (Gbps) to ~150 Gbps. Just as importantly, SpaceX’s August 2021 modification made it clear that the company would prefer to launch the entire constellation with Starship, although it included an alternative constellation design that would lend itself better to Falcon 9 launches.

Life-saving lightning prediction technology under review

For decades children and adults have learned the motto “when thunder roars, go indoors.” It is a low-tech approach to staying safe when lightning could be in the immediate area, but thanks to advancements in forecast products, meteorologists are getting more advanced warning when these sudden dangers could be on the horizon.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says several forecast offices around the country are using an experimental LightningCast product to determine who has the greatest chance of seeing lightning upwards of an hour before a strike.

The data comes from the GOES-16 and GOES-17 satellites that are constantly monitoring the skies over North America.