NASA's Parker Solar Probe Becomes Fastest Object Ever Built as it 'Touches the Sun'

The Parker Solar Probe was clocked at over 330,000 miles per hour as it zipped through the sun's outer atmosphere.

As reported by C/NET: Nothing built by human hands has ever travelled faster than NASA's Parker Solar Probe, a diminutive, scorch-proof spacecraft about the size of a small car is practically "touching the sun." In late April, it smashed two wild space records, dethroning the previous champion -- which also happened to be NASA's Parker Solar Probe -- and its journey is really just beginning.

The probe, which launched in August 2018 on a mission to study the sun, has been flying ever closer to our solar system's furnace using the planet Venus as a slingshot. On April 29, during its closest approach to the sun (known as "perihelion"), Parker was traveling at an almost unfathomable speed -- enough to circle the Earth 13 times in a single hour.

Parker set two new records back in February 2020:

• Fastest human-made object: 244,255 mph (393,044 km/h).
• Closest spacecraft to the sun: 11.6 million miles (18.6 million kilometers).

But those records have now been surpassed. The new records stand at:

• Fastest human-made object: 330,000 mph (532,000 km/h).
• Closest spacecraft to the sun: 6.5 million miles (10.4 million kilometers).  

Those are some strong records to hold and this isn't the end, either. Parker should break its own record later in the year when it uses another Venus flyby to slingshot closer to the sun. Perihelion is expected to occur on Nov. 21.

Parker is already revealing some of the sun's great mysteries. In December 2019, Parker's first batch of data was released in the prestigious journal Nature, pulling back the (incredibly bright) curtain on the charged particles and plasma dynamics in the sun's outer atmosphere.

 

SpaceX Wins $2.9 Billion NASA Moon Landing Contract

 

As reported by Yahoo!Finance: The winner of NASA's Human Landing System (HLS) contract award is SpaceX, which bid $2.9 billion for the privilege of developing the means by which NASA astronauts will return to the lunar surface for the first time since the Apollo program. SpaceX was in the running alongside Blue Origin and Dynetics, but reportedly undercut both those prospective suppliers considerably with its bid, according to The Washington Post.

SpaceX proposed using its Starship spacecraft, currently under development, as the landing vehicle for astronauts once they arrive at their lunar destination. The HLS is a key part of NASA's Artemis program, which will begin with uncrewed flights, followed by a Moon fly-by with a human crew, and eventually a human lunar landing at the South Pole of the Moon, during a mission which had been targeting 2024 as its fly date.

NASA announced that SpaceX, Blue Origin and Dynetics made up the entirety of its field of approved vendors for bidding on the HLS contracts back in April last year. Since then, both Blue Origin (which bid alongside a "national team" that included Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper) and Dynetics have built full-scale models of their system and submitted proposals detailing their plans for the functional versions to NASA for consideration. Meanwhile, SpaceX has been actively testing functional prototypes of its Starship spacecraft in Texas, and is also in the process of developing the Super Heavy booster that will propel it to the Moon once it's ready.

The plan here was for NASA to have chosen all three companies to build out initial versions in order to satisfy the early requirements of the contract, and then ultimately, it was generally thought that the agency would select a couple from the list of three to build human landers, in order to provide it with some flexibility when it comes to means of getting to the lunar surface. That's essentially how NASA operated with its Commercial Crew program for the International Space Station, which saw awards for both SpaceX and Boeing to build astronaut transport spacecraft. SpaceX has already qualified and begun to operate its vehicle, and Boeing hopes to bring its option online either late this year or early next.

SpaceX has won a lot of trust at NASA by delivering on the Commercial Crew program with a reliable, reusable human-rated spacecraft in the Crew Dragon. The Post also says that in addition to its attractive pricing, NASA wasn't drawn to Starship's flexibility and cargo capacity, since it's aiming to be able to fly not just humans, but also large quantities of supplies and materials to the Moon, and eventually, beyond.

Starship is a long way off from that goal at the moment, however; SpaceX has been quickly developing new iterations in a rapid prototyping approach to its test phase, but the most recent Starship high-altitude flight ended poorly with an explosion prior to landing. Other elements of the test program, however, including showing that Starship can successfully reorient itself in mid-air and slow its decent for landing, have been more successful on past tests. None of the tests so far have left Earth's atmosphere, however, nor have they involved any human flight testing, both of which will require a lot more development before the spacecraft is deemed mission-ready.

SpaceX was also the launch provider chosen to deliver components of the Lunar Gateway satellite in 2024, working with Maxar, which will produce the actual Power and Propulsion Element and Habitation and Logistics Outpost. These, however, will be delivered via Falcon Heavy, which has already had multiple successful launches.

UPS Orders Electric Aircraft to Transport Cargo between its Facilities

 

As reported by SeattleTimes: UPS is ordering 10 electric aircraft that are designed to take off and land like a helicopter, allowing it to fly cargo directly between its facilities in small markets and bypass airports.

The electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft made by Beta Technologies would be flown by an onboard pilot when UPS begins getting them in 2024, pending Federal Aviation Administration certification. Burlington, Vermont-based Beta Technologies is conducting flight testing on the aircraft at a test facility in Plattsburgh, N.Y.

But the aircraft are designed to “someday operate autonomously” once the technology and regulations are developed, according to Sandy Springs, Georgia-based UPS, which did not disclose the purchase price.

UPS has an option to purchase an additional 140 aircraft. It plans “to take delivery and see how they perform within the network, and then move from there,” said UPS spokesman Matthew O’Connor.

After years of testing drone delivery technologies, UPS in 2019 got Federal Aviation Administration approval for a drone airline called UPS Flight Forward and has partnered with CVS for prescription drone deliveries. In recent years, UPS has also tested self-driving tractor-trailers and vans, ordered 10,000 electric delivery trucks and worked to develop electric vehicles capable of automated movement in UPS depots.

The eVTOL aircraft would be used to supplement cargo shipments in UPS’s small feeder air network, currently served by contract operators that use Beechcraft and Cessna 208 Caravan planes to fly cargo between small and medium-sized markets.

The Beta aircraft have a 1,400-pound cargo capacity, the Associated Press reported.

Since the eVTOL aircraft would be able to take off and land at UPS facilities, the company would save the time and labor for loading and transferring at airports between planes and trucks that drive the packages to UPS facilities. That could speed urgent shipments such as pharmaceuticals and documents.

“By utilizing vertical takeoffs and landings, we can turn relatively small spaces at existing UPS facilities into a micro air feeder network without the noise or operating emissions of traditional aircraft,” said Beta founder and CEO Kyle Clark in a written statement.

The Beta Technologies eVTOL aircraft are designed to have a range of 250 miles on a single charge, and be able to charge in an hour or less at charging stations that could also be used for electric ground vehicles. They would have a cruising speed of up to 150 miles per hour, and produce zero emissions while operating.

Tesla's Decision to Transition Jerome Guillen to Tesla Heavy Trucking Role a 'significant strategic' Move

As reported by Tesmanian: Tesla's decision to move Jerome Guillen to the Tesla Heavy Trucking position is a significant strategic move that demonstrates the company's offensive into the truck industry in the coming years, Wedbush said. The new announcement comes amid active efforts to bring the Tesla Semi to market, which will happen this year.

In a research note released on March 15, Wedbush analysts commented on the changes that have occurred in the appointments of Tesla's positions, which became known early Monday morning. Analysts Daniel Ives and Strecker Backe said that Tesla's decision to transfer Jerome Guillen, who until now was president of the Automotive unit, to its heavy trucking business is a "significant strategic" move to double down on the electric car maker's semi and trucking vision over the next few years.

Analysts wrote that Guillen played a critical role in Model 3's success and supply chain improvement in Fremont, USA, and Giga Shanghai, China. At this point, he has already changed his job title on Linkedin. Wedbush maintained a $950 price target and outperform rating on the stock.

The firm also commented on the new title of Tesla CEO Elon Musk. He chose to add "Technoking of Tesla" to his role, which hints that he sees the company as more as a technology disruptor, especially with robotaxis and battery technology advancements.

The simultaneous expansion of Zack Kirkhorn's CFO title to "Coin Master" could hint that Tesla owns bitcoin, which is expected to expand next year, analysts said.

New Quantum Receiver the First to Detect Entire Radio Frequency Spectrum

A Rydberg receiver and spectrum analyzer detects a wide range of real-world radio frequency signals above a microwave circuit including AM radio, FM radio, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Credit: U.S. Army illustration

 As reported by Phys.org: A new quantum sensor can analyze the full spectrum of radio frequency and real-world signals, unleashing new potentials for soldier communications, spectrum awareness and electronic warfare.

Army researchers built the quantum sensor, which can sample the radio-frequency spectrum—from zero frequency up to 20 GHz—and detect AM and FM radio, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and other communication signals.

The Rydberg sensor uses laser beams to create highly-excited Rydberg atoms directly above a microwave circuit, to boost and hone in on the portion of the spectrum being measured. The Rydberg atoms are sensitive to the circuit's voltage, enabling the device to be used as a sensitive probe for the wide range of signals in the RF spectrum.

"All previous demonstrations of Rydberg atomic sensors have only been able to sense small and specific regions of the RF spectrum, but our sensor now operates continuously over a wide frequency range for the first time," said Dr. Kevin Cox, a researcher at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, now known as DEVCOM, Army Research Laboratory. "This is a really important step toward proving that quantum sensors can provide a new, and dominant, set of capabilities for our Soldiers, who are operating in an increasingly complex electro-magnetic battlespace."

The Rydberg spectrum analyzer has the potential to surpass fundamental limitations of traditional electronics in sensitivity, bandwidth and frequency range. Because of this, the lab's Rydberg spectrum analyzer and other quantum sensors have the potential to unlock a new frontier of Army sensors for spectrum awareness, electronic warfare, sensing and communications—part of the Army's modernization strategy.

"Devices that are based on quantum constituents are one of the Army's top priorities to enable technical surprise in the competitive future battlespace," said Army researcher Dr. David Meyer. "Quantum sensors in general, including the one demonstrated here, offer unparalleled sensitivity and accuracy to detect a wide range of mission-critical signals."

The peer-reviewed journal Physical Review Applied published the researchers' findings, Waveguide-coupled Rydberg spectrum analyzer from 0 to 20 GigaHerz, co-authored by Army researchers Drs. David Meyer, Paul Kunz, and Kevin Cox

Researchers use a Rydberg spectrum analyzer experimental apparatus at the DEVCOM Army Research Lab. Credit: U.S. Army

The researchers plan additional development to improve the signal sensitivity of the Rydberg spectrum analyzer, aiming to outperform existing state-of-the-art technology. 

"Significant physics and engineering effort is still necessary before the Rydberg analyzer can integrate into a field-testable device," Cox said. "One of the first steps will be understanding how to retain and improve the device's performance as the sensor size is decreased. The Army has emerged as a leading developer of Rydberg sensors, and we expect more cutting-edge research to result as this futuristic technology concept quickly becomes a reality."

Biden Wants to Replace Government Fleet with Electric Vehicles

 

As of 2019, there were 645,000 vehicles in the federal government’s fleet

As reported by The Verge: President Joe Biden will start the process of phasing out the federal government’s use of gas-powered vehicles and replacing them with ones that run on electricity. The announcement is the fulfillment of a promise Biden made on the campaign trail to swap government fleet vehicles with American-made EVs.

“The federal government also owns an enormous fleet of vehicles, which we’re going to replace with clean electric vehicles made right here in America, by American workers,” Biden said during a briefing Monday announcing his “Buy American” executive order.

This is great news for US-based EV makers like Tesla, Rivian, and Lordstown, as well as legacy automakers like Ford and General Motors that are in the midst of multibillion-dollar investments in electric vehicle production.

As of 2019, there were nearly 650,000 vehicles in the federal government’s fleet, according to the General Services Administration. This includes 245,000 civilian vehicles, 173,000 military vehicles, and 225,000 post office vehicles. Those vehicles traveled 4.5 billion miles in 2019.

Biden also promised to create a system that offers rebates or incentives for consumers to replace gas cars with electric vehicles — though there aren’t any more details about that plan at this moment.

The details of both plans are still being worked out, but taken together, they represent a huge win for the EV investments made by automakers over the last several years. Ford has said it will spend $11 billion introducing a raft of new EVs, including the Mustang Mach-E and an electric version of its best-selling F-150 pickup truck. GM has committed to spending $27 billion on electric and autonomous vehicles through 2025.

Meanwhile, Tesla’s remarkable stock market rally throughout 2020 has made it the most valuable automaker in the world, and its CEO Elon Musk the richest man on the planet.

Biden’s order may not be a direct win for Tesla, though, which has mostly focused on luxury and performance vehicles. Automakers that could benefit include Ford, which recently unveiled an electric version of its Transit vans, and GM, which just spun out a new company called BrightDrop focused on electric delivery vehicles.

One federal agency that could desperately use a new fleet of zero-emissions vehicles is the United States Postal Service. Hundreds of the agency’s mail trucks, which are manufactured by Northrop Grumman, have caught fire over the last several years, Vice recently reported. And the USPS’s deadline for official bids to make its next-generation mail truck was delayed last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The program to replace the USPS’s current trucks was launched in 2015. But it has dragged on, forcing the postal service to keep its current trucks in service past their expected life span — despite the fact that they were introduced in the late 1980s and early ‘90s and lack features like air conditioning. Two of the original six companies have dropped out.

One of Biden’s goals is to create 1 million new jobs in the auto sector and to “position America to be the global leader in the manufacture of electric vehicles and their input materials and parts.” The president has said he will reach that goal by swapping out the government’s fleet for electric vehicles and through a “cash-for-clunkers”-style plan to ensure that every vehicle on the road is zero-emission by 2040. And he pledged to spend billions of dollars to add 550,000 EV charging stations in the US.

Biden has also said he supports the $7,500 federal tax credit for electric vehicles and would be open to considering new incentives to encourage car buyers to consider making the switch to electric. Former President Donald Trump tried to end the federal EV tax credit in his 2020 budget proposal but was not successful. Also under Trump, the Environmental Protection Agency rolled back Obama-era emissions rules aimed at forcing the auto industry to manufacture less-polluting vehicles.

Biden has already taken steps to roll back Trump’s rollback (roll forward?) of the Obama-era emissions rules. On the day of his inauguration, Biden ordered federal agencies to revisit fuel efficiency standards as well as rules governing emissions from airplanes and appliance and building energy efficiency standards.

AlphaDogfight Should Convince the Air Force into Scaling AI Efforts

As reported by C4ISRNET: A few months ago, an AI pilot trounced an elite U.S. Air Force fighter pilot in a simulated dogfight. Sound like the stuff of sci-fi nightmares? If the Air Force continues on its current path, it is.

When the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) concluded the AlphaDogfight competition in August, the Air Force experienced just how advanced AI systems have become.

AlphaDogfight pitted AI companies against one another’s dogfighting algorithms in a tournament-style competition, with the winner earning the chance to face off against a human fighter pilot.

The final tally: 5-0 in favor of the algorithmic “pilot.”

That result reinforces a trend in AI vs. human contests: Humans are losing their edge over machines in more and more tasks. And the trend is accelerating. It’s a question of when, not if, AI will change everything about the way the Air Force must do business.

To make that transition, the Air Force must accelerate its efforts to ready itself for the AI revolution. Otherwise, as Chief of Staff Charles Q. Brown put it when calling for accelerating change: The service will lose.

Senior leaders such as Brown are saying the right things. The 2018 National Defense Strategy pushes for “an unmatched 21st century National Security Innovation Base.” The 2019 USAF Annex to the DoD AI Strategy and DoD Data Strategy recognize that AI will shape the battlefield of the 21st century, and the Air Force must invest in a data-centric ecosystem to facilitate AI capability. The recent National Defense Authorization Act even includes measures to direct focus on AI development in critical areas.

This direction has produced initiatives like the Air Force/MIT AI Accelerator, unit-level Spark Cells, the advanced battle management system (ABMS) initiative, and software development organizations such as Kessel Run and Kobayashi Maru.

These innovation hubs have incrementally proven out a series of best practices for changing the culture and practices of the service to prepare for the AI age.

Bold initiatives such as ABMS and JADC2 proclaim an envisioned service that leverages advanced analytics and decision intelligence algorithms to build situational awareness and the ability to act on it quickly, but how does the Air Force take the next step on its journey toward true AI-enabled capability (and prepare for the myriad business process changes that AI will bring), at a pace that will ensure it isn’t left behind? The answer is multifaceted and complex, but the first step should be to scale validated practices from Air Force innovation units and adopt a few overdue changes. These steps should focus on the areas any organization needs to make change to ready itself for AI: people, data and culture.

1. People: Reform talent management for digital skill sets.

In 2020, Kessel Run demonstrated effective ‘digital’ (referring to digital age skill sets critical to AI development like software development and data engineering) talent management by allowing an almost completely remote workforce, moving to virtual hiring, and finding new ways to foster the skills of its people. These moves allowed the organization to pull from a much larger talent pool.

To scale recruiting success demonstrated in the innovation ecosystem, the Air Force needs to allow remote work wherever feasible and maximize its participation in virtual recruiting events, hackathons, career fairs and tech conferences to build more bridges to these communities.

To scale success in building organic Air Force talent already in the service, the assignment selection process should (finally) improve how it tracks, incentivizes and assigns digital talent to appropriate organizations and positions. Tagging skillsets and providing financial compensation will improve retention. The service must also expand continuous learning opportunities outside the professional military education and technical schools.

2. Data: Set the stage for artificial intelligence by becoming data-centric

The service must accelerate its efforts to become more data-centric. The work and advocacy done by Kessel Run, Kobayashi Maru and the Air Force Chief Data Office’s VAULT program embody data-centric efforts. They emphasize data sharing and focus on enforcing healthy data management standards and practices.

Kessel Run’s ODIN effort, the suite of applications replacing the F-35 ALIS maintenance system, demonstrates the importance of valuing data. The ALIS system was plagued by insecurities, prone to error, and left much to be desired in the “user-friendly” category. Within a year of standing up a data team, which was empowered to make appropriate decisions about how to gather and utilize data, Kessel Run deployed a replacement suite of applications that strengthen the F-35 data ecosystem by enforcing standards, creating data stores for analytics, and optimizing maintenance schedules. The new system brings vast data improvements, leading to less maintenance time and more efficient scheduling.

The service faces big challenges to scaling data-driven systems across the Air Force, such as the availability and sharing of data across silos, and archaic methods used to manage huge data sets. Leaders must require and enforce informed data sharing in every digital system, support good IT infrastructure to enable data movement, hire and support software development capabilities to collect and analyze the data, and demand security to protect it. Integrated and operational AI is a system of systems, requiring much more than just algorithms — the right people, data, infrastructure and tools are needed to establish and maintain it.

3. Culture: Embrace and espouse an agile digital mindset

The Air Force innovation ecosystem has demonstrated the value in challenging the status quo, failing fast and iterating continuously. These components, which collectively comprise an agile mindset, have driven these units’ ability to deliver capability to the war fighter. The Next-Generation Air Defense Program recently reported to the world that 6th-gen fighters have been developed, simulated and flown on an incredibly condensed schedule, thanks to sophisticated digital engineering and modeling like that seen in modern Formula One racing design and engineering. These methods simulate real-world conditions with extraordinary fidelity and give designers and engineers the ability to run a huge number of experiments and simulations at an unprecedented pace. A mindset that combines the iterative power of the agile process and the transformational power of digital-first design and evaluation is foundational to integrating AI algorithms.

To scale this across the Air Force, leaders need to publicly and consistently embrace this agile mindset. This means consistently communicating Brown’s “Accelerate Change or Lose” effort and acquisitions chief Will Roper’s call for disruptive agility and a new digital paradigm for Air Force spending. It means taking a cue from Space Force Chief John Raymond’s public push for guardians to help him stand up a lean and agile service. It also means championing success stories like the innovation efforts by the 99th Reconnaissance Squadron at Beale, which implemented radically new processes and demonstrated an ability to provide solutions at speed in the recent U-2 mid-flight software update and AI co-pilot demonstrations.

To recognize and reward these efforts, commanders must discover, then insist on metrics that demonstrate solving problems iteratively with digital solutions, and track speed and efficacy of capability delivery.

The service cannot lose this competition. In an era of renewed great power competition, when peer competitors China and Russia are clearly prioritizing AI development, and the capabilities that come with it, that could be a fatal mistake.

Capt. Jazmin Furtado is an Air Force acquisitions officer, and data science and artificial intelligence leader. She is the current portfolio lead for Wing C2 data at Kessel Run, and liaison to the Air Force and MIT partnership AI Accelerator.

Capt. Chris Dylewski is a pilot and member of the 56th Fighter Wing at Luke Air Force Base, where he leads the ThunderBolt Spark Cell.

The views expressed are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Air Force, DoD or U.S. Government. The authors would like to thank Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy, Douglass Drakeley, Brett Darcey, and George Hellstern for their advice and counsel.