Boeing Hands GPS 2F-5 to the Air Force

As reported by SpaceNews: Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems of El Segundo, Calif., has handed over the fifth satellite in the GPS 2F series of positioning, navigation and timing satellites to the U.S. Air Force, according to an April 8 press release from the company.

The GPS 2F-5 satellite launched Feb. 20 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida aboard a Delta 4 rocket after a five-month delay prompted by questions about the rocket’s upper stage engine.
  
The Air Force has validated the satellite’s systems and activated the navigation payload, the release said.

The GPS 2F satellites provide better accuracy and resistance to jamming than the previous generation of GPS satellites, most of which are still in operation. The launch also helps bolster a GPS fleet whose satellites are beginning to show their age, Air Force officials say.


“As each GPS IIF joins the fleet, we are sustaining and modernizing the constellation for years to come,” Craig Cooning, vice president and general manager of Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems, said in the release. “With this latest successful handover, Boeing is maintaining a robust operating rhythm this year to support the GPS program.”

The next satellite in the series, the GPS 2F-6, is expected to launch May 15 from Cape Canaveral aboard a Delta 4, according to an unofficial NASA launch manifest.

Airpooler Wants To Let You Hitch A Ride On Private Planes

As reported by Beta Boston: Hate the endless car trip to Bar Harbor, the car-plus-ferry trip to the Vineyard, or the pokey Amtrak to Albany? A startup called Airpooler is launching in Boston this week with a speedier solution: hitch a ride on a private plane.

Airpooler is working with local flying clubs like the East Coast Aero Club to help pilots fill empty seats with riders who can share expenses, whether they’re heading to the Berkshires for the weekend or just doing a quick flight up to Jaffrey, New Hampshire, to grab a burger and shake at Kimball Farm.

Co-founder Steve Lewis says that about 20 to 25 percent of private pilots are doing some sort of sightseeing trip, and the rest have a specific destination in mind. “We estimate that there are about 20,000 to 30,000 pilots flying recreationally in New England, and we think that’s a conservative number,” says Lewis. “It could be as high as 40,000 to 50,000.” Lewis is a former marketing exec at ITA Software, a Cambridge travel software firm that is now part of Google.

Andrew Finke, the other co-founder of Airpooler, adds that if pilots had a way to share fuel costs and aircraft rental fees — most or Airpoolers’ target pilots rent instead of own their planes — they would fly more often. “Cost is a big blocker to their flying more,” says Finke. More pilots flying to more places could create a nice network effect for Airpooler, making it easy to grab a lift for that day trip to Block Island or a weekend in Stowe.

But Lewis expects that at least 90 percent of the planes listing empty seats through Airpooler will be single-engine, piston-powered planes, flown by one pilot. Not everyone is game for that kind of travel experience — which can be cramped, bouncy, and hindered by bad weather. (There’s also no bathroom, and you've got to be completely honest about how much you weigh, since the plane’s take-off weight is an important safety issue.)

But Lewis says that Airpooler, at the outset, is only working with pilots who are members of flying clubs like East Coast or Associated Pilots. “They have processes in place for vetting pilots, and ensuring the airworthiness of the planes,” he explains. They also have insurance policies for the pilots who rent their planes, which typically cover the passengers as well as damage to the airplane, says Lewis, pictured at right.

Because Airpooler is facilitating flights with private pilots, and isn't a certified charter operator or scheduled airline, FAA rules strictly state that the pilot can’t be paid — only reimbursed for certain expenses, on a pro rata basis. So if there’s one pilot and one passenger in the plane, the passenger can’t pay more than 50 percent of costs like fuel, aircraft rental, and airport landing or parking fees. (If the pilot owns the plane, the passenger can’t chip in for maintenance or other costs related to its operation.) So Airpooler’s system calculates the allowable shared cost for each flight, bills the passenger, and passes the money on to the pilot after the flight — minus a transaction fee. Lewis says they’re still experimenting with that amount, but it will likely be in the 10 to 15 percent range.

New Better-Than-Radar Technology Will Boost Aircraft Tracking

As reported by GigaOm: As aircraft from more than a dozen countries continue to search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, technology already being rolled out in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere could prevent a recurrence of a “lost” jet airliner.

Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) technology will provide more detailed tracking of planes than radar, even over water when planes are outside the scope of traditional radar. The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) has mandated that all aircraft flying over the continental U.S. be equipped with ADS-B  by 2020 — many newer planes already have it – and has deployed more than 600 ADS-B enabled ground stations nationwide.  But it takes time to retrofit existing gear and to build infrastructure, and ADS-B is still wending its way through the certification — a process some ADS-B  proponents hope will now be speeded up.

And some companies, including Globalstar, are pushing for adoption of “space-based” ADS-B which would send the signal up  – to a satellite network — as well as down, for continuous global monitoring.

“There is no way a Boeing 777 should be able to go missing in this day and age,” said Skip Nelson, CEO of Anchorage-based ADS-B Technologies. His company has developed technology called ALAS or the ADS-B Link Augmentation System. With ALAS, the ADS-B signal is basically copied and forwarded to a satellite system so that an airliner would be visible even over the ocean, mountainous terrain, or other places where there are no ADS-B ground antennas.

Radar bounces energy off a plane and interprets the return to determine basic information about the aircraft. With ADS-B, the plane has a transceiver or transponder that gets global navigation or GPS position data and combines it with the plane’s side number, airline, heading, altitude, and airspeed,” he said. In the future ADS-B equipped jets would be signaling data to a set of ground stations — and to other planes — throughout their journeys.

“In the case of the Malaysian Airlines jet,  we would have known that it was MA 370, a Boeing 777 and the ADS-B unit on the plane would be giving someone its information within 30 meters every second,” he said. ADS-B makes the plane “an active participant yelling its position to ground stations.”

Ah yes. Ground stations  – there can’t be many of them in the open ocean, right? Well, Globalstar says it could provide coverage worldwide with additional ground stations, each of which can cover a million square miles, according to Barbee Ponder, general counsel and VP of regulatory affairs for Globalstar.  ADS-B utilizes Globalstar for its work.

As Kevin Fitchard has written,  Globalstar and Iridium are pushing their respective satellite networks for use as consumer hotspots and now for air traffic control.

Aireon, a joint venture of Iridium Communications, and civil aviation bodies in Canada, Italy, Ireland and Denmark are also aboard the ADS-B bandwagon using Iridium’s satellite network and ground stations. Over open oceans, Aireon’s service will “piggy back”on aircraft transponders in the area to extend coverage in remote areas, said Don Thoma, Aireon CEO.

One issue in dispute following Malaysia 370′s disappearance is the cost of equipping planes with this gear, and here estimates vary wildly. Most published reports have put the cost at a rather nebulous several hundred thousand dollars per plane, but some disagree. Barbee said most planes can be retrofitted for $10,000 to $15,000 per plane for on-board gear, not including cost of the service. Aireon’s Thoma puts the price tag higher — to update an old plane, ADS-B enablement could cost $350,000 to $500,000 per aircraft, he said. Much depends on the age of the aircraft, and the higher numbers factor in costs of the data service as well.

Either way, as Nelson said,  it’s all relative.”It can cost $10 million to $20 million to build a radar installation. With ADS-B, we get the same information at one-twentieth the cost,” he said. In his view, ADS-B provides better, more detailed plane tracking, which means planes can be more closely spaced on takeoff and landing and routing can be better. That could mean huge fuel cost savings.  

And, while we’re talking cost, how much is this multi-nation search over vast expanses of the ocean costing? No one’s saying.

For more on ADS-B, check out this FAA video:

All-Electric Formula E Racing Kicks Off This Year

As reported by GigaOm: The Formula E electric racing car — the Spark-Renault SRT_01E — was shown off at the Bloomberg Energy conference in New York on Monday, just the second time that it’s been shown off in the U.S. For those not following the FIA’s first all-electric auto racing series, it will kick off in September of this year with races in 10 major city centers, starting with Beijing, and ending up in London, and will feature an hour-long race with these new electric race cars.

But as Formula E CEO Alejandro Agag said during an interview on Monday at the event, car racing has a long history of pushing the bar forward with the latest in transportation technology, because of the extreme conditions (high performance and power and strict rules) and Formula E will likely do the same. I learned about this positive benefit of car racing over the years, after attending the ReFuel electric car races in Laguna Seca, Calif., and reading about the Pike’s Peak electric motorcycle races.  

Electric car and motorcycle racing can potentially deliver important breakthroughs and innovations for the future of electric vehicles. That’s one reason why electric car companies like Renault, Tesla and others enter these races.

Agag says he hopes in years two, three and four of the race that technology will start to improve as a result of the racing conditions and the race will evolve to incorporate the new technology. For example, for this year’s race, each driver actually uses two cars, switching cars half way through the race, because the battery of the cars can only last half of the race (about 30 minutes) at such high performance and power. Some day, he hopes the hour-long drive can use just one car, said Agag.

Formula E is also using social media tech to make its race more interactive than traditional Formula One. The five racing teams that get the most tweets and votes during the event will be able to use a few-second battery boost in the race, which could be the difference between winning and losing. On that feature, Agag said during the interview that it might not be traditional, but it’ll be a lot of fun for spectators.

Another Regional Mobile Carrier Bites The Dust: Cincinnati Bell Sells Its Spectrum To Verizon

As reported by GigaOm: in a U.S. mobile industry dominated by mega-carriers, it’s becoming harder and harder for smaller regional carriers to survive. Cincinnati Bell became the latest case in point on Monday, announcing it is exiting the wireless business and selling off its spectrum to Verizon for $210 million.

As you might expect by its name Cincinnati Bell operates in southwestern Ohio, where it’s the incumbent telephone company offering phone, DSL, IPTV, fiber broadband and even electrical utility services to Cincinnati and its environs. Its wireless operations extend beyond its traditional wireline footprint into northwestern Kentucky and southeastern Indiana.

Cincinnati Bell is still one of the dominant mobile providers in its home territory but its wireless business has definitely seen better days. In its heyday in 2007 and 2008 it had close to 600,000 customers. It ended 2013 with 340,000 subscribers.

“It has become economically challenging for us to invest in our wireless business at the levels necessary to deliver best-in-class service to our customers,” Cincinnati Bell CEO and President Ted Torbeck said in a statement.

Verizon is buying the regional carrier’s spectrum because it has little use for its networks. While Verizon is the country’s largest CDMA operator, Cincinnati Bell uses the competing GSM standard for voice and HSPA for data services. Like so many of the regional carrier acquisitions we’ve seen in the last year — T-Mobile buying MetroPCS, AT&T buying Leap Wireless — this deal is about airwaves, not network assets or customers.


Cincinnati Bell’s mobile customers won’t have to scramble to find a new carrier – at least not yet. The companies don’t expect the deal to close until the second half of the year, and Cincinnati Bell said it would continue to offer service to its customers for 8 to 12 months after the deal’s signing.

NASA LADEE Lunar Probe Will Crash Into The Moon This Month

As reported by International Business Times: NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) is wrapping up its scientific mission and will crash into the moon at the end of the month. The space agency is not sure when the lunar probe will cause a new crater and is asking the public to take part in a “Take the Plunge” challenge with winners receiving a special LADEE certificate.

As reported by NASA, LADEE is entering the final stages of its lunar mission and is lowering its altitude in preparation of the lunar impact scheduled for later this month. The space agency believes LADEE will crash into the moon sometime around April 21. The total lunar eclipse on April 15 will push the lunar probe to the edge of what it was prepared to withstand but it should survive the four-hour event. Ahead of the eclipse, LADEE will perform its last orbital maintenance maneuver which positions the probe for a targeted impact on the far side of the moon.

Butler Hine, LADEE project manager, explains that the reason why there is some uncertainty about precisely when LADEE will crash into the moon is due to the lunar atmosphere. Hine said in a statement, "The moon's gravity field is so lumpy, and the terrain is so highly variable with crater ridges and valleys that frequent maneuvers are required or the LADEE spacecraft will impact the moon’s surface."

For those wanting to guess when LADEE will crash into the moon, NASA has set up the "Take the Plunge" challenge with the submission deadline set for April 11 at 6 p.m. EDT. You can submit your guess here and winners will receive a commemorative LADEE certificate.

LADEE launched on Sept. 6, 2013, and entered the lunar orbit on Oct. 6. The lunar probe has spent more than 100 days observing the moon’s atmosphere and lunar dust. LADEE also tested the effectiveness of the Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration, achieving record-breaking transfer speeds. LADEE was equipped with three specialized instruments, the Ultraviolet/Visible Spectrometer (UVS); the Neutral Mass Spectrometer; and the Lunar Dust Experiment (LDEX).

The UVS and NMS are used to observe the lunar atmosphere, with the former analyzing its composition and the latter measuring variations of the elements that comprise it. LDEX has collected dust samples and observed variations in lunar-dust density in regard to location, with more dust being observed in the lower altitudes of the atmosphere as well as the sunrise sector of the moon, notes NASA. The space agency says the LADEE mission has been successful, completing the 100-day main science objectives and collecting even more data than expected. While NASA is not targeting a specific lunar impact location for LADEE, it will search for the spot using the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).

An animation of the LADEE lunar impact, courtesy of NASA Ames Research Center, can be viewed below.

Google Wants To Launch Its Own Wireless Network

As reported by The Verge: Google is reportedly considering running its own wireless network. Sources tell The Information that company executives have been discussing a plan to offer wireless service in areas where it's already installed Google Fiber high-speed internet. Details are vague, but there are hints that it's interested in becoming a mobile virtual network operator or MVNO, buying access to a larger network at wholesale rates and reselling it to customers. Sources say that Google spoke to Verizon about the possibility in early 2014, and that it talked to Sprint about a similar possibility in early 2013, before the company was officially acquired by Softbank.

Currently, Fiber networks have been built in Kansas City, Missouri and Provo, Utah; a network is planned in Austin, Texas in the near future. Google also hopes to expand into Atlanta, Georgia; Portland, Oregon; San Jose, California; and six other metro areas further down the line. Fiber has already put pressure on other broadband carriers: in the wake of Google's Austin announcement, AT&T quickly began installing its own high-speed fiber network, which it launched in late 2013. A move into wireless would take aim at the Verizon and AT&T duopoly and would almost certainly further complicate Google's relationship with carriers, turning it from a producer of phones like the Moto X to a direct competitor. Google already competes indirectly with phone companies through video and voice services, which it's been operating in some capacity for several years.

The Information speculates that Google's wireless network could depend partly on Wi-Fi access points built on the Fiber network, relying on carriers only when service is unavailable or insufficient. AT&T already uses this strategy, easing congestion by transferring users to Wi-Fi hotspots, and Google reached a partnership with Starbucks last year to provide internet access through 7,000 hotspots. In February, the company was said to be planning an app that would let users skip the login process and automatically connect to its networks, bringing a carrier-like seamless transfer closer. It's also partnered with other broadband providers in lobbying for more spectrum on which to build public Wi-Fi networks. Even if Google is poised to move into wireless broadband, its wired Fiber network is still tiny compared to major broadband providers, and a wireless network would only highlight that fact. But the company's penchant for ambitious experiments still makes it a definite possibility.