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Saturday, August 23, 2014

GPS is Tracking the West’s Vanishing Water

The San Joaquin River rounds a bend North of Kerman, California.  Just downstream, the river runs dry.
As reported by National Geographic: Throughout the western United States, a network of Global Positioning System (GPS) stations has been monitoring tiny movements in the Earth's crust, collecting data that can warn of developing earthquakes.


To their surprise, researchers have discovered that the GPS network has also been recording an entirely different phenomenon: the massive drying of the landscape caused by the drought that has intensified over much of the region since last year.

Geophysicist Adrian Borsa of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and his colleagues report in this week's Science that, based on the GPS measurements, the loss of water from lakes, streams, snowpack, and groundwater totals some 240 billion metric tons—equivalent, they say, to a four-inch-deep layer of water covering the entire western U.S. from the Rockies to the Pacific. (Related: "Water's Hidden Crisis"

The principle behind the new measurements is simple. The weight of surface water and groundwater deforms Earth's elastic crust, much as a sleeper's body deforms a mattress. Remove the water, and the crust rebounds.

As the amount of water varies cyclically with the seasons, the crust moves up and down imperceptibly, by fractions of an inch—but GPS can measure such small shifts. (Related: "California Snowpack Measure Shows No End in Sight for Drought")

Borsa knew all this when he started to study the GPS data. He wasn't interested in the water cycle at first, and for him the seasonal fluctuations it produced in the data were just noise: They obscured the much longer-term geological changes he wanted to study, such as the rise of mountain ranges.

When he removed that noise from some recent station data, however, he noticed what he describes as a "tremendous uplift signal"—a distinct rise in the crust—since the beginning of 2013. He showed his findings to his Scripps colleague Duncan Agnew.

"I told him, 'I think we're looking at the effect of drought,'" Borsa remembers. "He didn't believe me."

The Dry Land Rebounds
But Borsa was right. As he, Agnew, and Daniel Cayan of Scripps report in Science, the recent uplift spike is consistent across the U.S. West, and consistent with recent declines in precipitation, streamflow, and groundwater levels. With a great weight of water removed, the crust is rebounding elastically across the whole region.  

The median rise across all the western GPS stations has been four millimeters, just under a sixth of an inch. But the Sierra Nevada mountains, which have lost most of their snowpack, have risen 15 millimeters—nearly six-tenths of an inch.

Four maps showing a time series of uplift and subsidence as it relates to drought.

The GPS data complements satellite observations from NASA's ongoing Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE. The GRACE satellites measure small changes in the Earth's gravity field caused by the movement of water on and under the Earth's surface, allowing researchers to estimate groundwater and soil moisture conditions around the world. GRACE can operate where GPS networks don't exist—much of Africa and South America, for instance.
But where it's available, as in the western U.S., GPS data can provide a more rapid and detailed picture of drought and its causes.

"We only see the big picture," says Stephanie Castle, a water resources specialist at the University of California, Irvine, and the lead author of a recent study that used GRACE data to quantify groundwater loss in the Colorado River Basin. "The uplift data can point out more specifically where the depletion is happening."

Where the Water Goes
This new precision has big political implications: With more than 99 percent of California still in a severe drought, and rights to its surface water severely overallocated even in a good year, many of the state's farmers are supplementing their water supplies by pumping more water from underground aquifers.

In the Central Valley so much groundwater has been extracted that the ground has subsided more than 30 feet in some places—swamping the much smaller regional uplift caused by the elastic rebound of the underlying crust.

Photo of a farm worker in California.
A farmworker shifts a pipe near Huron, California.  The drought has already cost field-work jobs and will likely cost more.
California has some of the weakest groundwater regulations in the nation, and access to its well-drilling records is highly restricted. The GPS data isn't detailed enough to point fingers at individual farmers, but its 125-mile resolution is good enough to identify especially profligate regions.

As climate change worsens water stress throughout the American West and beyond, such knowledge may well be vital. Borsa and his colleagues started out trying to filter the noise of the water cycle out of the GPS data; they ended up showing that the GPS network could help reveal what's really going on with water.

"All of a sudden we've turned the whole thing around," Borsa says. "It's a huge change, and it makes the network useful to whole new branches of scientists and managers."

Friday, August 22, 2014

SpaceX Test Flight Detonated Over Texas Town

As reported by NBC NewsA SpaceX prototype rocket automatically detonated after an "anomaly" was detected during a test flight Friday in McGregor, Texas, the company told NBC News Friday night. No one was injured.
John Taylor, a spokesman for SpaceX, said the rocket was a three-engine version of the F9R test vehicle, the successor to the company's Grasshopper, a prototype intended to pave the way for fully reusable rockets that would fly themselves back home. It's tested at the company's rocket development facility near McGregor, which employs 250 people.
"During the flight, an anomaly was detected in the vehicle and the flight termination system automatically terminated the mission," Taylor said in an email to NBC News. A representative of the Federal Aviaton Administration was present, he said.

How to Build a Tesla Supercharger DC Fast-Charging Site

As reported by Green Car ReportsAs more public charging stations are built, electric-car drivers have access to increasingly-large areas of the U.S.


Owners of the Tesla Model S plug-in car largely rely on the company's Supercharger network, which can now facilitate a cross-country trip on one route, with more to come.

But what does it actually take to build a Supercharger station? A lot of digging, apparently.

This diagram and photos of Electric Conduit Construction working at a new Supercharger site in Goodland, Kansas, surfaced on Teslarati.

They show a bit of the process of installing DC fast-charging stations--which involves trenching and running high-capacity electric cables well before the charging stations themselves are installed.

The Superchargers are sited in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn Express hotel; the company had to dig trenches so underground power conduits can be laid by the local utility.
Tesla Supercharger DC fast-charging site, Goodland, Kansas. Photo by Electric Conduit Construction.
Tesla Supercharger DC fast-charging site, Goodland, Kansas. Photo by Electric Conduit Construction.
These conduits connect the charging stations to a power distribution center, which in turn is connected to a transformer that provides the power for charging cars.

It took 11 days to install the six charging stalls in Goodland, located in the northeast corner of the state.

Since the first Supercharger site opened in 2012, Tesla has steadily expanded the network to make long-distance trips easier for Model S owners.

Supercharger stations could become even more numerous over the next few years if carmakers accept Tesla CEO Elon Musk's suggestion to use the Supercharger as a new fast-charging standard. It's now one of three such standards.

The other two are the CHAdeMO standard currently favored by Nissan and Mitsubishi, and the Combined Charging Standard that is starting to be built into small numbers of vehicles by several U.S. and German manufacturers.

Tesla officials have met with their counterparts from BMW and Nissan to discuss charging back in June, although nothing substantial from these talks has come to light thus far.
Tesla Supercharger DC fast-charging site, Goodland, Kansas. Photo by Electric Conduit Construction.
Tesla Supercharger DC fast-charging site, Goodland, Kansas. Photo by Electric Conduit Construction.
Less dramatic is the progress with Tesla's other electric-car charging technology: battery swapping.

Over a year after Musk first demonstrated battery swapping, no apparent progress has been made.

Battery-swapping would have originally garnered Zero-Emission Vehicle credits from the California Air Resources Board, but that regulatory body has proposed changing its rules.
Without that financial incentive, it seems Supercharging will remain the preferred way for extending a Tesla's range for the time being.

That means contractors like the ones in Goodland should have plenty of work to come, from the many locations marked "Future" on Tesla's Supercharger maps.

Postal Service Geo-Fence Tech Promising, but Not Quite Ready

As reported by Fedscoop: Geo-fence technology could make the U.S. Postal Service more efficient, but it’s not quite ready for prime time, according to an August 14 report from the USPS inspector general.

Geo-fence technology leverages global positioning system signals to create virtual geographic zones that ensure delivery personnel stay on schedule and on their routes.

According to the IG, the Postal Service is currently developing and testing a delivery management system (DMS) that includes geo-fence technology to improve efficiency.  Under the system, if a delivery driver ventures from a predetermined route, a supervisor would receive an email or text message alerting them of the deviation.

With this technology, delivery supervisors will be able to analyse weather or not a driver is ahead or behind of schedule on their route.
Geo-fence technology leverages global positioning system signals to create virtual geographic zones that ensure delivery personnel stay on schedule and on their routes.
According to the IG, the Postal Service is currently developing and testing a delivery management system (DMS) that includes geo-fence technology to improve efficiency. Under the system, if a delivery driver ventures from a predetermined route, a supervisor would receive an email or text message alerting them of the deviation.
With this technology, delivery supervisors will be able to analyze whether or not a driver is ahead or behind of schedule on their route.
- See more at: http://fedscoop.com/postal-service-geo-fence-tech-promising-quite-ready/#sthash.UHPdrcMD.dpuf



The IG found, however, that the DMS contained a flaw - if a driver takes on additional stops that are not part of his or her normal route, the data obtained by DMS wasn't correct.  The system would interpret the driver's additional stops and route changes as a deviation from a planned route and deem that driver to be behind schedule even if the additional stops and changes were authorized.  The inaccuracy comes with a variance in the scan data of managed service points (MPSs) as the carrier moves through his or her route.

USPS management planned to address the problem by April; however, according to the IG, as of July the flaw still existed.

“The Postal Service’s planned use of geo-fence technology will increase carrier visibility to aid supervisors in performing street management,” the report said. “Our analysis shows that MSP scan variances would be accurate on regular routes, but inaccurate when there are authorized route deviations.”

The report recommended that the Postal Service modify DMS to capture adjustments for time and location projects if a carrier is assigned an altered route before the system goes national.


According to the report, the Postal Service management agreed with the findings and recommendations. The Postal Service plans to update the software to account for route deviation by Sept. 30.
Geo-fence technology leverages global positioning system signals to create virtual geographic zones that ensure delivery personnel stay on schedule and on their routes.
According to the IG, the Postal Service is currently developing and testing a delivery management system (DMS) that includes geo-fence technology to improve efficiency. Under the system, if a delivery driver ventures from a predetermined route, a supervisor would receive an email or text message alerting them of the deviation.
With this technology, delivery supervisors will be able to analyze whether or not a driver is ahead or behind of schedule on their route.
- See more at: http://fedscoop.com/postal-service-geo-fence-tech-promising-quite-ready/#sthash.UHPdrcMD.dpuf
Geo-fence technology leverages global positioning system signals to create virtual geographic zones that ensure delivery personnel stay on schedule and on their routes.
According to the IG, the Postal Service is currently developing and testing a delivery management system (DMS) that includes geo-fence technology to improve efficiency. Under the system, if a delivery driver ventures from a predetermined route, a supervisor would receive an email or text message alerting them of the deviation.
With this technology, delivery supervisors will be able to analyze whether or not a driver is ahead or behind of schedule on their route.
- See more at: http://fedscoop.com/postal-service-geo-fence-tech-promising-quite-ready/#sthash.UHPdrcMD.dpuf
Geo-fence technology leverages global positioning system signals to create virtual geographic zones that ensure delivery personnel stay on schedule and on their routes.
According to the IG, the Postal Service is currently developing and testing a delivery management system (DMS) that includes geo-fence technology to improve efficiency. Under the system, if a delivery driver ventures from a predetermined route, a supervisor would receive an email or text message alerting them of the deviation.
With this technology, delivery supervisors will be able to analyze whether or not a driver is ahead or behind of schedule on their route.
- See more at: http://fedscoop.com/postal-service-geo-fence-tech-promising-quite-ready/#sthash.UHPdrcMD.dpuf

Amazon Prime Air Drone Development Team Makes Notable Engineering, NASA And Aerospace Hires

As reported by TechCrunch: Something big is going on with Amazon Prime Air, the e-commerce giant’s research project focused on delivering packages in 30 minutes or less using unmanned drones. And it’s not the dubious story about drone testing in India, which frankly, doesn't pass the sniff test in terms of accuracy.

Prime Air is shaping up to be more than a marketing stunt, it seems. The company recently scored a few notable hires for this project, including former aerospace engineers, a NASA astronaut, a number of Microsoft researchers and Bing engineers, and even the co-founder of Keyhole, the original developer of Google Earth (prior to the Google acquisition.)

Prime Air’s more notable hires may not be household names, but are indicative of a project Amazon is taking seriously, after all.

Why “after all?”

Well, because many people didn't buy into the Prime Air hype at first.

In case you missed it back then, Amazon made a splashy announcement about its drone project, Prime Air, just before the Christmas holiday in the U.S. On the biggest online shopping day of the year, Cyber Monday, CBS’s 60 Minutes aired an interview with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, which uncritically, we might add, saw veteran reporter Charlie Rose, smiling, exclaim “oh my God!” as he viewed the Prime Air drones for the first time.

Pundits soon were questioning CBS’ credibility, while some in developer community Hacker News scoffed that Prime Air was “vaporware,” – meaning a nice idea, sure, but one that’s a long time from ever being a reality.

That still may be true, of course, despite all the recent hires.

CBS was simply playing a part in Amazon’s agenda to garner public support for Prime Air, some had said, hoping to force the Federal Aviation Administration’s hand. Also possibly true. The FAA is anti-Prime Air to be sure. This June, it grounded Amazon’s plans, banning package-delivering drones using language aimed at Amazon’s Prime Air program directly.

But with the hires Prime Air has been making, the project seems at least somewhat less vaporous today than in the past, despite the FAA’s decision.
amazon-primeair 2

Speeding Things Up?
In July, Amazon hired Prime Air VP of Science Paul Viola, an MIT Ph.D. and former Microsoft researcher who led an engineering group at Bing which used machine learning to make dramatic improvements to Bing’s accuracy and precision. As one source told TechCrunch, under Viola’s supervision from 2010-2011, Bing made several jumps in precision both by its own metrics and Google’s. In fact, the source added, Google even started “war rooms” and ran several emergency sessions devoted to the sudden rise of Bing’s precision at this time.

According to his own LinkedIn page, Viola also led a turnaround of the Bing Ads team, which led to increased revenue.  

Another interesting new hire: Avi Bar-Zeev, now a senior manager at Prime Air. Bar-Zeev co-founded Keyhole, Inc., which Google bought and turned into Google Earth. He also previously worked at Microsoft on a variety of VR/AR, 3D and other hardware and software projects, including what became the Bing iPhone app, Kinect and Xbox, and more.

He also did a brief stint at Amazon, helping the company prototype and sell a new tablet computer in late 2012 to spring 2013, before returning to the company in April of this year to join Prime Air.

Prime Air has also been staffing up with hires from the aerospace industry, with recent additions starting this spring and summer who have aerodynamics and aerospace backgrounds from BoeingLockheed Martin, and MIT’s Space Propulsion Lab. Twenty or so interns hail from MIT with backgrounds in engineering or robotics.

And NASA astronaut Neil Woodward joined as a Technical Program Manager, responsible for Flight Test, Safety, Risk Management and Certification efforts in April.

This is in addition to those we already knew about, like Prime Air VP Gur Kimchi, who also served on Waze’s board before the Google acquisition, and Daniel Buchmueller, profiled by Fast Company. And Prime Air director of software development, Severan Rault, hired back in February 2013, who was also previously an architect at Bing, and describes himself as a Prime Air “co-founder.”

His bio says he’s managing a team of 76 engineers, research scientists, and technical product and program managers. Not too shabby for vaporware.

While it will likely be many years before drone delivery is legalized in the U.S., if at all, that hasn't stopped Amazon from investing in the project for when and if that day arrives.

Amazon, of course, wants to speed things up as best it can. Next month, it will flesh out its public policy team with Ben Gielow, previously general counsel for the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, a non-profit technology advocacy group.
The Prime Air team this month also added its own communications lead, previously of Microsoft PR firm Waggener Edstrom, and has its own general counsel.

And as of today, Prime Air is hiring in Seattle, Cambridge, and London, with job listings for research scientists, program managers, flight operations engineers, and more. If Prime Air is vaporware like many claimed following CBS’s original report, it certainly will have been expensive.

Soyuz ST-B Launches with Galileo GNSS Mission

As reported by NASA Spaceflight: An Arianespace Soyuz ST-B has launched two Galileo satellites from the European Spaceport “Centre Spatial Guyanais (CSG)” in Kourou, French Guiana. Following a 24 hour turnaround due to unacceptable weather, the lofting of the two FOC-M1 (FM01 and FM02) satellites took place at 12:27 UTC on Friday, ahead of several hours of flight to the separation of the duo.  

Galileo Launch:
This launch marked the business end of Europe’s Global Satellite Navigation System‘s constellation build up.

Following the launch of four satellites Galileo In-Orbit Validation (IOV) satellites, forming the operational nucleus of the full 30-satellite constellation – FM01 and FM02 will be the first two “Full Operational Capability (FOC) birds to head into orbit.

2014-08-22 11_50_42-LIVE_ Soyuz ST-B Flight VS09 - Galileo FOC-M1 (FM01 and FM02) Aug. 22 2014Named “Doresa” and “Milena”, the satellites were built in Bremen, Germany by FOC prime contractor OHB System, and are named for children who were among those winning a European Commission-organized painting competition in 2011.

The 700 kgs birds sport two Passive Hydrogen Maser atomic clocks; two Rubidium atomic clocks; Clock monitoring and control unit; Navigation signal generator unit; L-band antenna for navigation signal transmission, C-band antenna for up-link signal detection, two S-band antennas for telemetry and tele-commands and a search and rescue antenna.

2014-08-22 11_52_05-LIVE_ Soyuz ST-B Flight VS09 - Galileo FOC-M1 (FM01 and FM02) Aug. 22 2014Galileo’s highly-accurate atomic clocks will provide the accuracy of the system. Each satellite emits a signal containing the time it was transmitted and the satellite’s orbital position.

The Galileo program is Europe’s initiative for satellite navigation, providing a highly accurate global positioning system under civilian control – consisting of 30 satellites, along with European control centers and a worldwide network of sensor and up-link stations.

The complete Galileo constellation is to be composed of 27 operational satellites and three reserves, distributed along three circular medium Earth orbit planes at an altitude of 23,222 km, inclined 56 deg. to the equator.

2014-08-22 11_52_49-esa galileo constellation - Google SearchArianespace was chosen to deploy the entire Galileo constellation of 30 satellites. This began with the launch of the first two experimental satellites,Giove-A and Giove-B, orbited by Arianespace’s Starsem affiliate on Soyuz launchers from Baikonur Cosmodrome in 2005 and 2007.
The remaining 24 Galileo constellation satellites will be orbited over the next year or so, using six additional Soyuz vehicles carrying two spacecraft each, along with three Ariane 5s configured with four per launch.

Designated Soyuz Flight VS09 in Arianespace’s numbering system, this mission – the medium-lift vehicle’s ninth liftoff from French Guiana – joined the company’s record 2014 launch manifest.

The more powerful Soyuz-ST configuration is the standard version launched from French Guiana, with the additional performance provided by the Soyuz ST-B variant – including a Fregat-MT upper stage.

The Soyuz-2 was developed from the older Soyuz models, and features digital flight control systems and modernized engines. It first flew in 2004.

Two variants are currently in service; the Soyuz-2-1a, and the Soyuz-2-1b which features an RD-0124 third stage engine which provides additional thrust. The RD-0124 was declared operational on 3 May 2011.

A third configuration, the Soyuz-2-1v, debuted at the end of last year. It features an NK-33 engine in place of the RD-108A used on the core stages of the other configurations, and does not include the strap-on boosters used by other configurations.

The Soyuz-2 forms the basis for the Soyuz-ST rocket, which is optimized to fly from Kourou, and also incorporates a flight termination system and a modified telemetry system.

With the Soyuz ST-B utilizing the RD-0124 third stage engine, an additional 34 seconds of specific impulse (Isp) significantly increases the vehicle’s overall launch performance.

The RD-0124 is a staged-combustion engine powered by a multi-stage turbo-pump, which is spun by gas from combustion of the main propellants in a gas generator. These oxygen-rich combustion gases are recovered to feed the four main combustion chambers where kerosene – coming from the regenerative cooling circuit – is injected.

Attitude control is provided by main engine activation along one axis in two planes. Liquid oxygen (LOX) and kerosene tanks are pressurized by the heating and evaporation of helium coming from storage vessels located in the LOX tank.
Avionics for the Soyuz launcher are carried in the vehicle’s third stage, and are located in an intermediate bay between the oxidizer and fuel tanks.

As part of the Soyuz’ upgrades for its operations from the Spaceport, the launcher’s flight control system is modernized with a digital control system.

This system incorporates a digital computer and inertial measurement unit that are based on proven technology – giving the Soyuz improved navigation accuracy and control capability.
The new digital control system provides a more flexible and efficient attitude control system, and it gives the additional flight control authority required for the new, enlarged Soyuz ST payload fairing.


In addition, it improves flight accuracy for the Soyuz’ first three stages, and provides the ability to perform in-flight roll maneuvers as well as in-plane yaw steering (dog-leg) maneuvers.

The Fregat upper stage is an autonomous and flexible upper stage designed to operate as an orbital vehicle.  Flight qualified in 2000, it extends the Soyuz launcher’s capability to provide access to a full range of orbits (medium-Earth orbit, Sun-synchronous orbit, geostationary transfer orbit, and Earth escape trajectories).

Fregat consists of six spherical tanks arrayed in a circle (four for propellant, two containing the avionics), with trusses passing through the tanks to provide structural support. The stage is independent from the Soyuz’ lower three stages, having its own guidance, navigation, control, tracking, and telemetry systems.

The Fregat uses storable propellants (UDMH/NTO) and can be restarted up to 20 times in flight – enabling it to carry out complex mission profiles. It can provide 3-axis stabilization or perform a spin-up of the spacecraft payload.

The Fregat first flew in 2000, and has been used on Soyuz-U, Soyuz-FG, Soyuz-2 and Zenit rockets.

The launch was performed from the purpose-built ZLS launch facility for Soyuz – located in the Spaceport’s northern sector near the city of Sinnamary.

2014-08-22 11_54_49-Soyuz in CSG - Launch Base Construction picturesConstruction of the launch site began in 2007, as Arianespace advanced their plans to add two launch vehicles to their family. (See large set of construction photos in L2).

The Spaceport’s Soyuz launch site combines the proven design elements from the long-existing site at Baikonur Cosmodrome with satellite integration procedures that are in concert with the spacecraft processing used for Ariane missions.

Located 12 kilometers northwest from the existing Ariane 5 launch complex, the new Soyuz facility extends the Spaceport’s operational zone further up the French Guiana coastline.

The launch vehicle’s assembly building is 92 meters long, 41 meters wide, and 22 meters tall, allowing the vehicle to be assembles horizontally, prior to rolling out to the launch site, which is configured after the Russian Baikonur and Plesetsk Cosmodromes, albeit with a new mobile launch service tower.

The Soyuz’ transfer to the Spaceport’s launch zone is performed with the launcher riding horizontally atop a transporter/erector rail car.

Soyuz was then raised into position on the pad, and in contrast with the Baikonur Cosmodrome processing flow, is protected by a gantry that moves into place for payload integration.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Tesla Model S Software Update Brings iPhone Unlocking and Ignition Start

As reported by TechCrunch: Tesla owners have been looking forward to OS 6.0, a software update for their vehicles, for a while now, but it’s finally rolling out to vehicle owners, reports Electrek. The system adds a bunch of new features for Model S vehicles, including a new Calendar app for in-car use, and big improvements to the Maps/Navigation software. What’s amazing (and surprising) for iPhone users is that they can now unlock and start their car from their devices if they forget their physical key fob at home.

The update is yet another indication of Tesla’s commitment not only to future customers, but also to existing vehicle owners. Musk announced just last week that the Model S would get a warranty extension for its drive train of infinite miles for up to eight years. Bringing major changes to the in-car software system post-purchase is another deviation for the standard operating procedure for vehicle owners, and letting them use their smartphones as remote access and remote starters is ordinarily an expensive aftermarket upgrade.  

Basically Tesla needs to make these cars affordable for ink-stained hacks like myself stat. The new $35,000 Tesla Model 3 is now official, but its limited range makes it less appealing (unless they switch to Sakti3 solid state batteries), and we have to wait until 2017 for it to go on sale. Until then, I guess I’ll just have to stick with envy.