Secretive Startup SpinLaunch Gets 1st Launch Contract for US Military | Space

The secretive startup SpinLaunch, which aims to fling satellites into space without a traditional launch pad, has just secured its first launch contract.

In a statement today (June 19), SpinLaunch announced that it has received a “launch prototype contract” from the U.S. Department of Defense under a deal arranged by the Defense Innovation Unit. The Long Beach, California-based company aims to launch its first test flights in early 2020 from Spaceport America in New Mexico.

SpinLaunch is developing a “kinetic energy-based launch system” that accelerates a small payload-carrying booster to hypersonic speeds with a spinning system on the ground. A chemical rocket would kick in once the payload has been launched from the ground system.

An illustration released with the announcement depicted a SpinLaunch booster attached to the arm of what appeared to be a centrifuge.

“SpinLaunch is reimagining space launch by revisiting fundamental physics and leveraging proven industrial technologies to create a system that accelerates the launch vehicle to hypersonic speeds using ground-based energy,” SpinLaunch representatives wrote in today’s announcement. “Applying the initial performance boost from a terrestrial-based launch platform will enable the company to provide a substantially lower cost launch to orbit, multiple times per day, with no negative impact on our environment.”

Entrepreneur Jonathan Yaney founded SpinLaunch in 2014 with the goal of developing a low-cost launch system. The company has said in the past that it hopes to be able to launch small payloads up to five times a day for $250,000 per flight.

In the statement today, Yaney said SpinLaunch would fill the gap between “bulk” carrying commercial launch vehicles (which carry many satellites at once) and “niche” services that are aimed at a specific orbit.

“SpinLaunch fills this gap by providing dedicated orbital launch with high frequency at a magnitude lower cost than any current ‘niche’ launch system,” Yaney said. “This will truly be a disruptive enabler for the emerging commercial space industry. There is a promising market surge in the demand for LEO constellations of inexpensive small satellites for disaster monitoring, weather, reconnaissance, communications and other services.”

SpinLaunch received $40 million in Series A investment in 2018, with some funding provided by Airbus Ventures, GV (formerly Google Ventures) and Kleiner Perkins. In May 2019, the company broke ground on a $7 million launch site at Spaceport America.

After a series of test flights in 2020, SpinLaunch aims to begin commercial launch operations in 2022, the company has said.

Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik. Follow us @Spacedotcom and Facebook.

Have a news tip, correction or comment? Let us know at community@space.com.

via Space.com http://bit.ly/2WPkkGi

June 19, 2019 at 04:21PM

June 20, 2019

These flesh-eating bacteria are finding new beaches to call home

https://www.popsci.com/flesh-eating-bacteria-delaware-climate-change/

Crabbing in the Chesapeake Bay could become more dangerous.

Crabbing in the Chesapeake Bay could become more dangerous. (Deposit Photos/)

Just as birds and ticks are heading north in these warmer times, microbes are also on the move. You may not think of bacteria as having a habitat, but like all living things, different species of bacteria prefer different living arrangements.

Luckily for some of them—specifically the flesh-eating varieties—we humans have warmed the climate enough that their habitats are expanding. Vibrio vulnificus, one of roughly a dozen species that cause vibriosis in humans, only lives in high-salinity surface waters above 13°C (that’s 55.4°F). In the U.S., that means it’s historically been confined to the southeastern coast. But a case report published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine suggests that our flesh-eating friends are already moving up the shoreline.

As a quick refresher, V. vulnificus is actually less dangerous than it sounds. Most people get infected by eating raw or undercooked shellfish, and by that we pretty much mean oysters. Nearly all oysters have the bacteria during the warmer months, but plenty still have them in the cooler seasons, so it’s really a matter of whether your immune system can stamp them out. Cooking effectively kills V. vulnificus, so if you’re concerned, just make sure you don’t go for raw shellfish. The CDC estimates that roughly 80,000 people get vibriosis every year, and most of them have a nasty case of classic food poisoning: diarrhea and vomiting. But some people will go on to have a more serious case, in which the bacteria gets into the bloodstream. Those cases require hospitalization, and some people—around 100 annually—die from the infection.

Although eating V. vulnificus is the most common way to get infected, particularly nasty cases involve getting the bacteria through an open wound. "Wound" sounds pretty intense, so let’s just remind you that a fresh tattoo counts as an open wound, and you can absolutely get vibriosis by way of your new ink. Any puncturing of the skin is enough to let bacteria inside. It’s for this reason that vibriosis becomes a serious concern during hurricane season. Hurricanes strike in warm water areas where the bacteria live, and during the storm, those coastal waters get pushed inland (along with a ton of debris that you might scratch yourself on).

The report presents five cases, including one fatality, of people who contracted vibriosis from the Delaware Bay. Three of the men had recently been crabbing in the bay, one of whom said he had cut his leg on a trap.

These particular cases are unusually severe. Three involved untreated hepatitis, which is known to predispose you to develop complications from vibriosis, and all of the men required extensive removal of necrotic tissue surrounding their dead flesh. One had to have all four limbs amputated, and another died.

None of this is to say that flesh-eating bacterial infections will become commonplace. These cases are outliers. But as the authors point out, this is a new thing for the Delaware Bay. V. vulnificus was known to occasionally reach the Chesapeake Bay, but almost never to approach the more northerly, colder Delaware. Prior to 2017, the hospital where this research was performed had only ever seen one case of V. vulnificus infection. The five described in the report all happened in a span of two years.

It’s entirely possible that this is a fluke—a statistical blip. But unfortunately, this kind of surge in more-northern-than-usual infections is what we’d expect given our planet’s temperature changes. Folks in traditionally cooler climes will need to be aware of these new risks, as will physicians who may soon see infections they’ve never encountered before. This is the inevitability of a warming sea.

via Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now https://www.popsci.com

June 19, 2019 at 06:47PM

June 20, 2019

Volvo Group’s new military vehicle can drive sideways, like a crab

https://www.popsci.com/arquus-scarabee-french-military-vehicle/

The Scarabée vehicle from Arquus.

The Scarabée vehicle from Arquus. (Arquus/)

You probably haven’t heard of Arquus, a French defense and security vehicle firm, but you likely do know the company that owns it: Sweden’s Volvo Group. And from this subdivision of Volvo comes a new, light army vehicle: it’s called Scarabée, which is French for “beetle.”

The team’s mission at Arquus was to develop an armored military vehicle that is fast, stealthy, and highly maneuverable. Plus, it has two engines (one electric, one diesel), is remotely-controllable, and is able to carry over two tons of equipment, including weapons. It’s even transportable and droppable from a low height, sans parachute, by plane. Scarabée, which is smaller and faster than an American Humvee, is a candidate to replace the French Army’s fleet of 730 light armored vehicles by 2025.

Composite materials and new assembly processes give the machine protection against bullets, blasts, and mines. “We really worked on the speed because that is also a form of protection,” Emmanuel Levacher, the chief executive of Arquus, explains. “If you put a lot of protective armor on a vehicle it makes it very heavy, big, and therefore slow unless you give it a large, powerful engine—in which case you no longer have a small, agile military vehicle.”

The 6-foot high, 15-foot wide, four-person vehicle weighs 6.6 tons empty. It can drive at over 75 mph and can accelerate quickly, providing almost 60hp per ton compared to around 20hp per ton for a Humvee. For that acceleration, it needs both its 300hp diesel engine and its electric 103hp motor to be engaged at the same time; the acceleration provided would be sufficient to allow it to dodge an incoming anti-tank missile, for example.

Both engines are in the back. The diesel engine can go for up to 620 miles, while the electric motor, powered by two batteries set underneath the body to provide additional protection from mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs), would last about six miles.

Scarabée is probably a bit of a misnomer. “Crab” may be more appropriate, because it can move like one: sideways. It can not only sharply “sidestep” obstacles on the road, such as mines, but also has a tight turning radius. That’s because its four wheels are all powered, like a 4×4, but also (unlike the 4×4 you may have in your garage) the front and back wheels can all be turned in the same direction, or in opposite ones. So, if the driver wanted to turn the vehicle around on the spot, they would turn the back wheels in one direction and the front ones in another. If the driver wanted the crab effect, then they would turn all the wheels in the same direction.

The vehicle can be air-dropped from a low height.

The vehicle can be air-dropped from a low height. (Arquus/)

“That way you can approach the enemy without either turning your back to him or being full front on, but you could also drive crab-like behind a ridge, for example, and yet still have your roof-top gun with its limited turn radius pointing at the enemy,” a spokesperson for the company says.

The vehicle has two sliding doors so the crew can get in and out easily even in small spaces, such as in narrow streets, where a hinged door would be an impediment. To open the doors from outside you need to have the remote control—there are no handles. This provides additional security for the crew inside.

On its roof, the vehicle can carry radar units or weapons such as a 12.7mm heavy machine-gun turret, a 30mm gun to fire anti-tank shells, or a medium-range missile launcher.

Scarabée’s engine control system, brakes, steering and gearbox were developed by Volvo or its suppliers. To reduce Scarabée’s fuel consumption, for example, developers tapped into the research Volvo Trucks undertook to develop the first fully electrically-powered truck in 2016, but also equipped the vehicle with energy-efficient tires.

Scarabée also makes use of innovations in the robotization sector developed by both Volvo and Arquus, which is a combination of the Latin words for war-horse: Armis Equus. “It was important for us to develop a military vehicle that can be remotely controlled even when it is off-road,” Lavacher remarks. Scarabée can be controlled from afar “even beyond the line of sight of the operator.” In the future, the company is working on the idea of using a drone which could inform the vehicle of unexpected obstacles on its route.

Last, but not least, Scarabée has a motorized, electric trailer that can carry an additional four tons of equipment. The trailer is also robotized so can be used as an independent mule. For example, one Scarabée crew could leave the trailer somewhere and another crew, some distance away on another vehicle, can “call” the trailer to join them.

via Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now https://www.popsci.com

June 19, 2019 at 08:33PM

June 20, 2019

The Truckla, A Telsa Modded Into A Pickup Truck

https://geekologie.com/2019/06/the-truckla-a-telsa-modded-into-a-pickup.php

These are two videos from inventor Simone Giertz of her Truckla, a Tesla Model 3 she modded into a pickup truck. The first video is a fake commercial for the Truckla, the second much longer video (thirty minutes!) documents how the modifications were made. Now I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling inspired. "You’re not modding a Tesla into a monster truck." And why not? "For one, you don’t have the money to buy a Tesla." Not buy — lease. "And what happens when it’s time to turn it back in?" Oh I’ll be dead long before then, presumably after trying to jump the Grand Canyon and coming up six miles short. Keep going for the videos.

Thanks to Madz, who agrees it’s only a matter of time until somebody mods the cockpit of their Tesla into a bedroom, complete with bedside table and sleep mask.

via Geekologie – Gadgets, Gizmos, and Awesome https://geekologie.com/

June 19, 2019 at 04:26PM

June 20, 2019

One legacy of Carl Sagan may take flight next week—a working solar sail

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1524643

Artist's concept of LightSail 2 above Earth. — Enlarge /

Artist’s concept of LightSail 2 above Earth.

Josh Spradling / The Planetary Society

As early as next Monday night, a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket will launch a cluster of 24 satellites for the US Air Force. Known as the Space Test Program-2 mission, the rocket will deposit its payloads into three different orbits. Perhaps the most intriguing satellite will be dropped off at the second stop—a circular orbit 720km above the Earth’s surface. This is the Planetary Society’s LightSail 2 spacecraft.

After a week in space, allowing the satellites deposited in this orbit to drift apart, LightSail 2 will eject from its carrying case into open space. About the size of a loaf of bread, the 5-kg satellite will eventually unfurl into a solar sail 4 meters long by 5.6 meters tall. The Mylar material composing the sail is just 4.5 microns thick, or about 10 times as thick as a human hair.

This experiment, which will attempt to harness the momentum of photons and “sail” through space, is the culmination of decades of work by The Planetary Society. “This goes back to the very beginning, to Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray and Lou Friedman,” the organization’s chief executive, Bill Nye, told Ars in an interview. “We are carrying on a legacy that has been with us since the founders. It’s just an intriguing technology because it lowers the cost of going all over the place in the Solar System.”

Starts with Sagan

As he popularized space and science in the 1970s on television talk shows and in books, Sagan sometimes espoused the virtues of solar sailing. Theoretically, the continual acceleration of photons, although much more gradual than chemical propulsion, could push spacecraft to other stars because this acceleration is continual. Originally, he’d hoped to launch a solar sail to catch up to Halley’s Comet in 1986, but that never happened.

After Sagan co-founded The Planetary Society in 1980 to advocate for government support for space exploration, he and others continued to push the technology. But because the US government was focused on more traditional modes of exploration—the space shuttle program and chemical-powered probes to the outer Solar System—the Planetary Society eventually took up the cause on its own.

Enlarge /

LightSail 2 undergoing health checks following vibration testing at the Air Force Research Laboratory.

AFRL

In the late 1990s, the society began work on the Cosmos 1 project to demonstrate a solar sail. This was an ambitious project that involved eight “blades” of a solar sail that covered 600 square meters, and, from an initial altitude of 800km, was intended to raise its orbit by 50km or 100 km over a month in space.

Unfortunately, Cosmos 1 never reached space. It lifted off in 2005 aboard a Volna rocket, which was launched from a Russian submarine in the Barents Sea. The rocket’s first stage failed, and the payload was lost. Undeterred, the Planetary Society built a demonstrator named LightSail 1 that launched in 2015 aboard an Atlas V rocket. This version experienced several technical problems, however, which led to improvements for Light Sail 2. This latest project has cost about $7 million, paid for by the society’s members.

LightSail 2

This version of a solar sail will have a total area of 32 square meters, and mission planners will deploy the sail about two weeks after launch if all goes well. (More details about what will happen can be found here). Using a momentum wheel to adjust the orientation of its sail, the spacecraft will essentially attempt to demonstrate that it can “tack” into the stream of photons emanating from the Sun. Success will come as the spacecraft manages to raise its orbit over the course of a month.

And then what? Japan’s space agency, JAXA, flew a solar sail demonstration mission in 2010 named IKAROS, and NASA flew a very tiny demonstrator named NanoSail-D in 2010 as well. But since then governments have largely ignored the sci-fi-like technology that could provide a much cheaper means of propulsion around the Solar System and beyond. Too much fiction, apparently, and too little science.

Nye hopes the Planetary Society’s solar sail mission will put a little more science behind the technology, leading to additional technical developments by NASA or other international space agency because of its potential to democratize space travel. “It’s the most romantic of space technologies,” he said. “Really, we’re sailing among the stars. It’s fantastic.”

via Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com

June 20, 2019 at 08:44AM

June 20, 2019

New Version of Monopoly Has a Smart A.I. Banker That Prevents Cheating

https://www.geeksaresexy.net/2019/06/19/new-version-of-monopoly-has-a-smart-a-i-banker-that-prevents-cheating/

New Version of Monopoly Has a Smart A.I. Banker That Prevents Cheating

Monopoly is one of the board games where people cheat the most and is known for turning entire families against each other. The new “Voice Banking” edition replaces the person in charge of the bank with a Smart A.I top hat that takes care of all transactions.

The new virtual banker is no Siri, though, and does not require access to your wi-fi network or the Internet. Players start the game by identifying themselves via one of four buttons located on top of the hat, and then sends verbal instructions to the assistant via commands such as “Buy Atlantic Avenue.” The assistant takes care of all financial transaction, so no paper money is included with the game, which eliminates one method of cheating.

For those interested, the “Voice Banking” edition of Monopoly is available for pre-order on Amazon and will be available for shipping on June 26 for $29.99.

via [Geeks Are Sexy] Technology News http://bit.ly/23BIq6h

June 19, 2019 at 03:07PM

June 20, 2019

Pilots Criticize Boeing, Saying 737 Max ‘Should Never Have Been Approved’

https://www.npr.org/2019/06/19/734248714/pilots-criticize-boeing-saying-737-max-should-never-have-been-approved?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news

Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, accompanied by other pilots and former FAA administrator Randy Babbitt, speaks during a House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure hearing on the status of the Boeing 737 Max in Washington, D.C.

"Sully" Sullenberger, who landed a plane on the Hudson River in 2009, says he understands how the pilots of two jets that crashed would have been confused as they struggled to control the aircraft.

(Image credit: Andrew Harnik/AP)

via NPR Topics: News https://n.pr/2m0CM10

June 19, 2019 at 11:03PM