Schriever Ops Squadrons Manage GPS Constellation

Capt. Jared Delaney, 19th Space Operations Squadron satellite vehicle operator, right, and Senior Airman Bryan Wynkoop, 19 SOPS satellite system operator, monitor telemetry during the GPS SVN-69 launch Oct. 29, 2014 at Schriever Air Force Base, Colo. (U.S. Air Force photo/Dennis Rogers)

From Schriever Air Force Base: It's been a busy year for members of the 19th Space Operations Squadron.  As operators of the GPS launch and early orbit, anomaly-resolution and disposal system, 19 SOPS members executed a historically high number of satellite launches (four), and disposed of a legacy GPS vehicle, all within the past 10 months.

"The last time we launched four vehicles in one year was 1993," said Maj. Kimberly Adams, 19 SOPS LADO flight commander. "We're looking forward to a more normal [operations] tempo, in the coming year."

Tensions were high Oct. 29 during the lift-off and early-orbit of SVN-69, a GPS Block IIF vehicle, when a CBS news crew captured film footage of the event on the operations floor here.

"That was out of the ordinary for sure," Adams said.  "Compound that anxiety with the knowledge that we had just completed final configuration of a GPS vehicle disposal not 48 hours prior and you can understand the type of month October was for us and our 2nd Space Operations Squadron teammates."

Senior Airman Bryan Wynkoop, 19 SOPS satellite system operator, wouldn't change a thing about the past few months of 2014.

"It's exciting," he said. "This sure beats working a regular job.  The drama and importance of what's taking place here is exactly what I signed up for."

Adams and Wynkoop are Air Force Reservists, as are all 19 SOPS members. The squadron falls under the Air Force's 310th Space Wing, headquartered at Schriever AFB, and works in partnership with 2 SOPS, the 50th Space Wing unit responsible for commanding and controlling the GPS constellation.

Adams says 19 SOPS was stood up precisely to conduct GPS launches, manage anomalies and process disposals. 

"We start preparing for launch about 90 days out," Adams said. "With so many launches so close together, we often began preparations for one launch before the previous one was off the pad."

Their partnership with 2 SOPS has proved beneficial for both squadrons.

"This most recent launch was my seventh and Airman Wynkoop's sixth," said Adams, who is in her fifth year at 19 SOPS. "Active-duty Airmen typically reside on station for roughly three years, so oftentimes our 2 SOPS teammates are looking to us to provide continuity and experience."

That continuity became crucial during disposal operations for SVN-33.  It had been more than two years since the two squadrons had disposed of a vehicle and Wynkoop was one of the few Airmen at Schriever who was familiar with the operation's intricacies. 

"These events don't happen often, so to have played a role in two huge events was something special for all of us who were here," he said.

Less than 48 hours after SVN-33 had been fully configured for disposal, SVN-69 was standing on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Adams, Wynkoop and their fellow 19 SOPS operators' day started 8 hours prior to the launch.

"Wynkoop had to set up communications links with our antenna at the Cape so we could get telemetry data from the satellite," Adams said. "Once the rocket lifted off, I was performing communications checks and verifying that we were meeting all of our requirements."

Then they waited.

Three and half hours after launch, SVN-69 separated from its booster rocket.

"At that point we obtained an initial state of health from the satellite to ensure everything was OK and then we started commanding," Adams said.

Wynkoop explained that though he and his teammates are actually studying telemetry data through their monitors on the operations floor, it's easy to envision what's happening in space.

"The vehicle is spinning once it separates from the booster," he said.  "We then issue commands to slow the spin and deploy the vehicle's solar arrays, antennas and other critical components. Later, we get the vehicle in a condition known as sun safe. Shortly after, the vehicle acquires Earth and is in a stable orbit in the GPS slot where it's supposed to be."

Now, it's up to 2 SOPS to command and control the satellite, one of 39 on orbit. The squadron expects to receive satellite control authority of the spacecraft later this month and the next GPS launch is scheduled for March 2015.

Dark-Matter Detectives: the Clocks Aboard GPS Satellites

As reported by GPSWorld: “Networks of correlated atomic clocks, some of them already in existence, such as the Global Positioning System, can be used as a powerful tool to search for topological defect dark matter, thus providing another important fundamental physics application for the ever-improving accuracy of atomic clocks,” write physicists Andrei Derevianko and Maxim Pospelov in the current issue of Nature Physics journal.

Derevianko teaches at the University of Nevada, Reno, and Pospelov at the University of Victoria and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada. Derevianko and Geoff Blewitt, director of the Nevada Geodetic Laboratory at the University of Nevada, Reno are testing this dark-matter detection theory by analyzing clock data from atomic clocks aboard GPS satellites, searching for instances where initially synchronized clocks might have become desynchronized. They expect time discrepancies between spatially separated clocks to exhibit a distinct signature, one that may reveal the nature of spatial dark matter.

The Geodetic Lab developed and maintains the largest GPS data processing center in the world, according to a University of Nevada statement, able to process information from about 12,000 stations around the globe continuously, 24/7.

“We know the dark matter must be there,” explains Blewitt, “because it is seen to bend light around galaxies, but we have no evidence as to what it might be made of. If the dark matter were not there, the normal matter that we know about would not be sufficient to bend the light as much as it does. That’s just one of the ways scientists know there is a massive amount of dark matter somewhere out there in the galaxy. One possibility is that the dark matter in this gas might not be made out of particles like normal matter, but of macroscopic imperfections in the fabric of space-time.”

“Despite solid observational evidence for the existence of dark matter, its nature remains a mystery,” said Derevianko. “Some research programs in particle physics assume that dark matter is composed of heavy-particle-like matter. This assumption may not hold true, and significant interest exists for alternatives.

“Modern physics and cosmology fail dramatically in that they can only explain 5 percent of mass and energy in the universe in the form of ordinary matter, but the rest is a mystery.”

Scientific evidence reportedly shows that dark energy constitutes about 68 percent of the mystery mass and energy. The remaining 27 percent may be dark matter, though it has never been detected or measured.

“Our research pursues the idea that dark matter may be organized as a large gas-like collection of topological defects, or energy cracks,” Derevianko added. “We propose to detect the defects, the dark matter, as they sweep through us with a network of sensitive atomic clocks. The idea is, where the clocks go out of synchronization, we would know that dark matter, the topological defect, has passed by. In fact, we envision using the GPS constellation as the largest human-built dark-matter detector.”

Toyota Names Hydrogen Fuel Cell Car

As reported by the UK Telegraph: Toyota has revealed that it’s first mass-produced hydrogen fuel cell car, which goes on sale in the UK next year, will be called the Mirai.

The word means ‘future’ in Japanese, and was chosen because Toyota believes that’s exactly what the Mirai represents.

Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda said: “Today, we are at a turning point in automotive history. A turning point where a four-door sedan can travel 300 miles on a single tank of hydrogen, can be refuelled in under five minutes and emit only water vapor.”

Toyoda also claimed that the hydrogen that the Mirai will run on can be made from virtually anything, “even garbage”, and that its fuel cell creates enough electricity to power a house for about a week.

The Mirai will be the second hydrogen-fuelled car available to paying customers in the UK; the first was the Hyundai ix35 Fuel Cell, which Hyundai started delivering to owners just last month.  


Pricing for the Mirai is still to be announced, but it’s likely to cost about £40,000 ($62,580 USD) - around twice as much as a conventionally-powered hatchback.

Aside from the high price, the biggest hurdle it faces is the limited hydrogen refuelling infrastructure.  

Earlier this year, Business Minister Matthew Hancock announced £11 million of government and industry funding to expand the hydrogen refuelling network, with the aim of giving the UK up to 15 refueling stations nationwide. However, that’s still a tiny amount compared with the number of conventional filling stations, which stands at about 8,500.