ULA Punts on GPS 3 Launch Contract Long Sought by SpaceX

As reported by SpaceNews: SpaceX is likely to win — by default — a U.S. Air Force contract to launch a next-generation GPS satellite after United Launch Alliance announced Nov. 16 that it declined to bid.

ULA, which for the past decade has launched nearly every U.S. national security satellite, said Nov. 16 it did not submit a bid to launch a GPS 3 satellite for the Air Force in 2018 in part because it does not expect to have an Atlas 5 rocket available for the mission. ULA has been pushing for relief from legislation Congress passed roughly a year ago requiring the Air Force to phase out its use of the Russian-made RD-180 engine that powers ULA’s workhorse Atlas 5 rocket.

While ULA warned in early October that RD-180 availability could prevent it from bidding on the GPS 3 launch, the company said Nov. 16 it does not have the right accounting system in place to submit what the Air Force would deem a compliant bid.

“ULA wants nothing more than to compete, but unfortunately we are unable to submit a compliant bid for GPS III-X launch services,” the company said in a statement sent to reporters. “The [request for proposals] requires ULA to certify that funds from other government contracts will not benefit the GPS III launch mission. ULA does not have the accounting systems in place to make that certification, and therefore cannot submit a compliant proposal.”

ULA — which emphasizes the reliability of its Atlas and Delta rockets as an advantage over SpaceX’s lower advertised prices  —  also said the Air Force’s GPS 3 launch solicitation “allows for no ability to differentiate between competitors on the basis of critical factors such as reliability, schedule certainty, technical capability and past performance.”

The Air Force called for proposals for the GPS 3 launch Sept. 30. Bids were due Nov. 16 with an award expected in March.

ULA’s decision not to bid is a setback for Defense Department efforts to reintroduce competition into a national security launch market that’s been a de facto monopoly since Boeing and Lockheed Martin merged their launch businesses in 2006 at the government’s request.

The GPS 3 mission is the first of nine medium-class launches the Air Force intends to put out for bid by the end of 2017. Of the nine, six are for GPS 3 satellites.

SpaceX, which is eager to break into the lucrative national security launch market, submitted an unsolicited bid in 2012 to launch the GPS 3 satellites for $79.9 million per launch. The Air Force rejected the offer, but initiated a process for certifying the Hawthorne, California-based company’s Falcon 9 rocket to carry military and intelligence payloads to orbit.

ULA, meanwhile, has been working to lower its launch costs. Last month, NASA awarded ULA a $132.4 million contract to launch the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite-M spacecraft aboard an Atlas 5 rocket in October 2017.  NASA paid ULA $187 million to launch the Mars Maven orbiter on an Atlas 5 in 2013.

Graphene Could Bring Night Vision to Phones and Cars

As reported by Engadget: Thermal imaging devices like night-vision goggles can help police, search-and-rescue teams and soldiers to pick out bad guys or victims through walls or in complete darkness. However, the best devices require cryogenic cooling, making them heavy, expensive and slow. Enter graphene, the semi-conducting material that's 100 times stronger than steel -- researchers from MIT have built a chip out of the material that may solve the problem. The resulting infrared sensors were small enough that they could be "integrated in every cellphone and every laptop," according to the study's co-author, Tomas Palacios.

Graphene is already one of the best infrared sensing materials, so the team first built a microscopic sensor chip out of the material. Further graphene was then used to carry the signals and suspend the chip over an air pocket, as shown below. That eliminated the need for external cooling, normally required by such devices to prevent internal heat from polluting the target's infrared signature.

The compact sensor was able to detect a human hand and heated-up MIT logo, a promising first result. The goal is to further improve the resolution, so the tech can be used in everyday devices. For example, Palacios told LiveScience that the sensors could one day be integrated into car windshields, giving you "night-vision systems in real time without blocking a driver's regular view of the road." That said, we're still waiting for a host of "promising" graphene-based technology to actually become usable products.

Autonomous Buses Will Hit Swiss Streets This Spring

As reported by Mashable: Autonomous cars are the hot topic in the transportation world right now, as evidenced by Volvo,Mercedes-Benz and Google rushing head-first into implementing the tech. However, self-driving cars aren't the be-all and end-all of piloted driving. Buses, too, will benefit from leaps forward in driverless technology.

Proving that point, CarPostal, the company leading public transportation in Switzerland, is launching a two-year autonomous bus pilot program in the tourist areas of Sion, Valais. The test-run will be operated by Swiss startup BestMile, which has developed software to "control fleets of autonomous vehicles in the same way a control tower does in an airport," according to a company press release.

Starting in spring 2016, the small fleet of nine electrified passenger buses will troll the streets of old-town Sion and autonomously transport residents and tourists through the city. The goal of the pilot program is to prove the viability of widespread autonomous public transportation, as it offers lower costs and "minimum risk." Ultimately, CarPostal would like to extend autonomous bus service into remote areas of the country.

IMAGE: BESTMILE

Rest assured, Swiss commuters, BestMile isn't rolling into this project blind. Before the announced Sion pilot program, BestMile spent two years creating a new generation of mathematical algorithms in order for autonomous vehicles to recognize and react to whatever scenarios they might encounter, as they interact with the existing public transportation system.

Until this point, America and Sweden had stood out as global early adopters of autonomous vehicle technology. Several American states — including Michigan, Nevada, Florida and California — have granted companies autonomous driving permits. And Gothenburg, Sweden has green-lit Volvo's "Drive Me" program that will put 100 self-driving XC90 SUVs on public roads in 2017.

It will be interesting to see how residents and visitors of Sion react to the autonomous buses. Likely, after the initial awkward stage, people will forget altogether that there's no one driving the bus. And it's that tacit trust that could lead to widespread acceptance of self-driving vehicles.

SpaceX Completes Development Testing of SuperDraco Engines

As reported by GizMag: SpaceX has completed design testing of its SuperDraco engines, which, as a key element of the Crew Dragon's launch abort system (LAS), would be responsible for carrying a crew of astronauts out of harms way in the event of a launch failure.

Once complete, the Crew Dragon spacecraft will represent one of the cornerstones of NASA's drive to establish a cost effective, independent access to low-Earth orbit (LEO). For it to become human-rated, NASA has set a stringent set of criteria that must be met. One such criteria is the integration of a tried and tested LAS.

In the pursuit of this goal, SpaceX has decided to buck the trend, opting for an integrated system of four pairs of SuperDraco thrusters built in to the side of the crew capsule. That's a notably different approach to a key competitor in the Commercial Crew Development program – Boeing – which has opted for the traditional "rocket tower" design for the LAS system to protect crew riding aboard its Starliner spacecraft.

In the development of the SuperDraco thrusters, SpaceX embraced advances in the sphere of 3D printing technology. A key element of the rocket, known as the combustion chamber, is fabricated using solely 3D printing, cutting down on cost, waste, and making the production process more flexible in general.

During the recent testing at the company's rocket development facility in Texas, the thrusters were placed on a test stand and fired 27 times, progressing through various thrust cycles. The tests come in the wake of last year's LAS pad test for the Crew Dragon spacecraft, which served as proof that the design was indeed feasible.

Moving forward, SpaceX will continue to evaluate the performance of the thrusters, which it one day hopes to use during the descent phase, as a viable replacement for the current parachute system.

Scroll down for a video of last year's LAS test.

U.S. Air Force Updates GPS Ground Systems With Additional Security

As reported by Space News: The ground system for the U.S. Air Force’s position, navigation and timing satellites recently received a software update and security upgrade under a two-year-old contract with Lockheed Martin, the company announced in a Nov. 9 press release.

Known as the GPS Intrusion Protection Reinforcement, the updates enable greater data protection within the Air Force’s current Operational Control Segment, which serves as the ground system for the Air Force’s GPS satellites. The updates also resolve equipment obsolescence issues.

The new software was installed at the GPS Master Control Station at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and is the second major technology refresh since the Air Force awarded Lockheed Martin a $104 million ground system sustainment contract in 2013.


“The GPS Control Segment Sustainment (GCS) contract is vitally important to the sustainment of positioning, navigation and timing services for our military, government officials and citizens,” Vinny Sica, vice president space ground solutions at Lockheed Martin Information Systems & Global Solutions of Herndon, Virginia, said in the release. “A system this large requires a continued security focus.”

DARPA Is About to Start Testing an Autonomous, Submarine-Hunting Ocean Drone

As reported by Motherboard: Early next year, DARPA will begin testing a 132-foot unmanned submarine-hunting ocean drone in San Diego. Slapped with the cumbersome title of Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV), it’s designed to do exactly that: track stealth submarines from the surface, quietly and autonomously.

The ACTUV is currently under construction at a facility on the Oregon coast, where it is 90 percent complete. When finished, DARPA hopes it will be able to withstand months of autonomous operations at sea. It will weigh 140 tons, and will be able to hone in on the quietest submarines in the water from the surface, and automatically trail them.

The vessel is so far not necessarily being touted explicitly as a weapon, but, according to DARPA, it will have the capacity to "carry a payload" and “enable independently deploying systems.” On the US DoD’s science site, the vessel is being compared to naval destroyers, which are currently tasked with trailing—and are outfitted to eliminate—submarines. (According to DARPA, one of the ACTUV's chief selling points is that it will be much cheaper than a naval destroyer: The drone boat costs as little as $15,000 a day to operate, versus the destroyer’s $700,000 per day price tag.)

Like many of the advanced robotics projects the US military’s blue sky lab is researching, DARPA seems to be leaving room to weaponize the vessel, while allowing plausible deniability as to the instrument’s intent. This is especially important because the Pentagon’s autonomous weapons directive prohibits fully autonomous machines from using lethal or semi-lethal force, which would apply to the ACTUV should it move beyond the testing stages and ever be outfitted with weaponry. DARPA did not respond to a request for comment.

The development also seems conspicuously timed with the re-emergence of Russia's submarine fleet, which is thought to be dispersed amongst the hotly contested Arctic—recent sightings seem to confirm their presence, and Putin has not been shy about using them in military exercises in the region.

But the focus seems to be on developing autonomous systems that can operate in water. In its official Request for Information, it states that "DARPA is interested in hardware and software solutions that enable an autonomous lookout from a surface vessel."

Meanwhile, one of DARPA’s stated “three primary goals” for the initiative is to “Advance unmanned maritime system autonomy to enable independently deploying systems capable of missions spanning thousands of kilometers of range and months of endurance under a sparse remote supervisory control model,” as Scott Littlefield, program manager of DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office, explained in the project description.

“This includes autonomous compliance with maritime laws and conventions for safe navigation, autonomous system management for operational reliability, and autonomous interactions with an intelligent adversary,” he added.

In other words, DARPA’s drone boat submarine-hunter would be able to spend months at sea, where it would be able to automatically trail its target, automatically negotiate its surroundings, and, eventually, one imagines, it might automatically destroy an “intelligent adversary.” The Department of Defense notes that “other advantages of the ACTUV concept include greater payload and endurance than a ship-launched unmanned surface vehicle.”

The foremost objective for ACTUV is to trail submarines, but DARPA is apparently exploring other options too. “The Navy is considering using this for a variety of missions,” Littlefield said in a recent announcement, according to the Department of Defense, “including mine countermeasures.”

As the polar ice caps melt and sea levels rise, as new northern passageways open up for maritime trade, expect military tensions in the gas and oil rich Arctic to only ratchet upwards. Russia's belligerence has so far turned the most heads, but Canada and the US each have heavily vested interests in the region. The near future, it seems, may be marked by drones stalking submarines through the slushy detritus of the Arctic.

An Electric Motor that Lasts for One Million Miles? Tesla is Working on It.

As reported by Treehugger: There were many interesting bits of info that came out of Tesla's last quarterly earnings, and we mentioned many in this article. There was one thing that didn't make the cut at the time, but is still quite interesting, especially for those of us who like to keep vehicles for a long time but hate mechanical problems. Elon Musk mentioned that Tesla has changed its target endurance for its drive units (the part that hosts the electric motor, or motors on the dual-motor models).

Tesla/Screen capture

Up to now, they were aiming for 200,000 miles, which isn't bad. But the new goal is a lot more ambitious, and if achieved, will show another way in which electric vehicles are superior to gasoline ones; there's a lot less mechanical complexity, fewer moving parts and fluids sloshing around, and fewer things that can go wrong. Here's Musk on the conference call:

We are very happy with the quality of the drive unit. We changed the goal of the drive unit endurance from being approximately 200,000 miles to being a million miles – just basically we want drive units that just never wear out. That’s our goal. I think we made really good progress in that direction. the drive unit that are going out now and for the last several months have been excellent.

Tesla/Promo image

Musk admitted to problems with drive units in the past, but claims that these have been fixed now, and that any problems would be covered anyway by the 'infinite mile warranty' (for 8 years) launched last year. Here's what he wrote at the time:

The Tesla Model S drive unit warranty has been increased to match that of the battery pack. That means the 85 kWh Model S, our most popular model by far, now has an 8 year, infinite mile warranty on both the battery pack and drive unit. There is also no limit on the number of owners during the warranty period.

Moreover, the warranty extension will apply retroactively to all Model S vehicles ever produced. In hindsight, this should have been our policy from the beginning of the Model S program. If we truly believe that electric motors are fundamentally more reliable than gasoline engines, with far fewer moving parts and no oily residue or combustion byproducts to gum up the works, then our warranty policy should reflect that.

Wikimedia/CC BY-SA 3.0

Here's a video produced by Tesla showing how they make their electric drive units. They make the motors in-house to get them exactly how they want them, rather than use something off-the-shelf made by a supplier.