Really Rocket Science

It turns out that private spacecraft launch I blogged last week wasn’t exclusively a private entrepreneurial affair. NASA was along for the ride in Bigelow’s balloon, in the form of an experimental micro-lab the agency calls a GeneBox.

The space agency sent up a so-called GeneBox, a micro-lab, with Bigelow Aerospace’s Genesis I last week, piggybaggying a ride on the commercial spaceflight test.

The Genebox is about the size of a shoebox and is attached to the internal structure of Bigelow’s 14-foot inflatable spacecraft, which the company launched from Russia as a demonstration of an affordable human space complex it hopes to launch by 2015. NASA’s GeneBox contains a miniature laboratory of sensors and optical systems that can detect proteins and specific genetic activity. In two weeks, the Bigelow ground control station in Las Vegas, Nev., will activate the GeneBox, and once its tests are complete, data from GeneBox will be relayed to the ground for analysis.

According to NASA, GeneBox will analyze how the near weightlessness of space affects genes in microscopic cells and other small life forms. "During this mission, we are verifying this new, small spacecraft’s systems and our procedures," John Hines, the GeneBox project manager at NASA Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, said in a statement.

A while back I posted about the RIAA lawsuit against XM Radio, claiming $150,000 in damages for each song that XM’s Inno device downloads from its satellite service. Well, now it looks like XM is stepping up and asking a federal judge to toss the case out of court.

XM Satellite Radio asked a U.S. federal judge Monday to throw out a copyright lawsuit by the recording industry over the company’s new iPod-like device that can store up to 50 hours of music.

XM Satellite said the 1992 Home Recording Audio act protects it from being sued over its $400 (U.S.) handheld "Inno" device. The law bans some copyright claims against equipment makers and consumers who make digital music recordings for private use.

… XM Satellite has compared its new device to a high-tech videocassette recorder, which consumers can legally use to record programs for their personal use. It also noted that songs stored on the device from its broadcasts can’t be copied and can only be played for as long as a customer subscribes to its service.

Sounds familiar. I’m probably giving away my age by saying this, but when I was a kid I spent lots of time listening to the radio, and when a favorite song of mine came on I’d hit the "Record" button on the cassette player, and record songs until I had a tape full of my favorites (though minus the beginning of the song in some cases). XM’s player sounds a lot like that. And, as I noted before, if XM subscribers want to have their favorite songs on other devices they can download them from pay services like Napster or iTunes, thus effectively paying for the songs twice — once as XM subscribers and again to download from a pay service.

Of course XM may be seeking to get the case behind them, since they’re about to launch Oprah’s radio show in August, but also because the competition is catching up with them. The Globe & Mail article notes that XM has balked at notion of having to buy expensive distribution licenses from the recording industry, but that Sirius has agreed to pay for those licenses to cover its own similar players. Meanwhile the buzz in the business world is that Sirius is closing in on XM’s subscriber numbers and that XM CEO Hugh Panero may have to work to get the buzz back in XM’s favor.

WaPo columnist Steve Pearlstein has more on the case of XM v. RIAA, and answered questions this morning in an online chat.

With all the talk about Katie Couric moving to CBS to anchor their evening news, which will be promoted on 35 millions eggs, I couldn’t help but notice a news item regarding Congressional testimony asking for help with some COOP.  Get ready for egg jokes.

 
But in this case, COOP stands for Continuity of Operations Planning and the testimony was all about satellite communications as the truly diverse communications path, with the unique ability to link remote locations to the Internet or other private or government network. Hey, if this helps bring down the cost of equipment, I’m all for it. Generally, the U.S. government prefers satcom for many applications, so maybe this is a good approach for  companies such as Hughes and Spacenet.

Now, back to the space chickens. The closest thing we’ve got are the endangered Attwater’s Prairie Chickens, many of whom were relocated to NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Once common in Texas, these birds are a part of indigenous culture. They’re the closest thing we have to space chickens, although they did appear as protagonists in the Muppets movie “Pigs in Space” in 1983. However, one should note the Chinese had the first (somebody had fun with this story).

The sense of relief felt by many following Discovery’s successful completion of its mission today is a reminder that spaceflight is a complicated and sometimes dangerous business.

Another reminder came just last week, when the launch of India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle GSLV-F02 ended in dramatic failure on July 10th, destroying "India’s newest communications satellite and the nation’s largest rocket,"" according to SpaceFlightNow. 

"ISRO officials were forced to destruct the GSLV F02 to prevent populated areas from being hit by the rocket debris falling from the sky," reports domain-B. 

You can see a video of the launch failure here. Details of the rocket’s satellite payload can be found here and here. IBN has the summary of the disaster:

Seconds after a perfect takeoff, the 49-metre-long launch vehicle, deviated from its trajectory and plunged into the Bay of Bengal.

The three-stage 414-tonne launch vehicle of the ISRO, which lifted off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre on Monday evening, started under-performing right from the start and veered off its path after travelling a few kilometres into the sky….

GSLV-F02 was carrying a 2,168-kg INSAT-4C, the latest satellite of the Indian National Satellite System series, aimed at augmenting the Direct-To-Home television services, facilitate video picture transmission, digital satellite news gathering and provide VSAT connectivity to National Informatics Centre.

Perhaps the worst news of the day: neither the rocket nor the satellite were insured. 

We’ve written before about the incredible growth potential of IPTV and mobile TV — both of which, after all, were all the buzz at this year’s NAB conference— but this snippet from Digital Trends really caught our eye:

Recent reports suggest that global IPTV subscriptions are expected to jump from 2 million to 34 million between 2005 and 2010. North America is expected to see the quickest growth with a forecasted 14 million households by 2010 accounting for 80% of these subscriptions….

What’s suprising is the slow IPTV deployments taking place in Asia as TDG predicts that Asia will only account for a mere 5.6 million subscriptions. This is primarily due to the impending launch of Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT)….

The Chinese government has stated publicly that this new standard (dubbed ‘Digital Multimedia Broadcasting – Terrestrial/Handheld’ or ‘DMB-T/H’) will eventually serve more than half of China’s TV viewers, especially those in suburban and rural areas. Until then, analog and broadband based services may well find a healthy market for the few years to come.

"IPTV market conditions vary widely depending on the country or geography in question, entailing that individual markets will evolve and behave in very unique ways," added Dixon. He also noted that a handful of individual service operators will account for 75% of the deployed volume with the remaining 25% split between hundreds of other operators. "These conditions will pose a challenge to all types of IPTV solutions vendors, one that requires detailed and flexible implementation and go-to-market strategies." 

Here’s an interesting story out of the Indian Ocean:

In a global first, four major fishing companies announced today a voluntary halt on trawling in eleven benthic-protected areas in the southern Indian Ocean. This will protect and conserve the benthic and associated fish fauna and related biodiversity in one of the largest marine protected area enclosures ever.

By setting aside an area almost equal to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef National Park, these businesses are sending a clear signal that they want to keep fish on people’s plates for generations to come…

Using the scientific knowledge gathered over a decade of activity in the Indian Ocean and in consultation with staff of the Fisheries Department of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), SIODFA have delimited 309 000 km2 of ocean floor in eleven separate benthic protected areas — a total zone with an area approximately the size of Norway — where their vessels will no longer fish. To verify compliance with these self-imposed restrictions, the companies will track their vessels’ locations and activities via a special satellite monitoring system.

We’ve written before about how scientists are using satellites to study ecosystems, land and water usage and climate change– but to the best of our knowledge, this is the first time we’ve heard of satellites being used for enforcement of voluntary conservation measures.

 
Do you know of any other examples? If so, please post them in the comment threads and we’ll highlight them here.

The FCC has proposed allowing new satellite service in the 17 and 24 gigahertz band spectrum — a proposal which, if passed, could add new competition to satellite radio and other emerging broadcast industries, Billboard Radio Monitor reports:

 In an email exchange with Billboard Radio Monitor, one high-level engineering source wrote that “the ‘Ka-Band’ frequencies (18 GHZ to 40 GHZ) usually suffer from extreme susceptibility to rain-out and fog failure conditions. On the plus side, the satellite antennas (up in orbit) can send more spot-area signals to different parts of the [continental U.S.], potentially creating individual market coverage signals, which can’t effectively be done at 2.3 GHZ.”

Radio Monitor sources and industry observers estimate that the shortest possible timetable for a new satellite service to make its way through the FCC, onto the launch pad and into space would be five or six years.

The FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) for establishing a new satellite service was originally going to be part of the commission’s Open Meeting agenda but it was deleted at the last minute. Instead, the FCC’s commissioners handled the vote later in the day, with all five commissioners approving the NPRM.

An FCC press release about the Notice says the service “holds the potential of bringing a new generation of innovative satellite services to American consumers—providing a mix of video, audio, data and multimedia services to residential and business subscribers.”

In other Hubble news (see the post below), a pair of small moons orbiting Pluto, first photgraphed by the Hubble Telescope in 2005, now have official names: Nix and Hyrdra.

"Nix and Hydra are roughly 5,000 times fainter than Pluto and are about two to three times farther from Pluto than its large moon, Charon, which was discovered in 1978," according to the official Hubble website.

The Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) has been offline since June 19, Space.com reports:

ngineers have yet to figure out what caused the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) to go into "safe mode," essentially a sleep state that prevents normal operations. But the outlook is bright.

"We’re very optimistic" that the camera will be fixed, said Ed Ruitberg, associate program manager for Hubble at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Ruitberg told SPACE.com that some potential causes have been ruled out and that the problem is likely with a low-voltage power supply interface, something between the batteries and a camera component. If that’s the case, then redundant electronics can be relied on to bypass the problem area.

"We’re still investigating the problem and working on all sorts of contingencies," said Max Mutchler at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, where Hubble’s science operations are run. "We’re hoping for the best but preparing for other contingencies."

UPI files the report:

The Delta II rocket launched Wednesday at Cape Canaveral carried a pair of small satellites for the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Micro-Satellite Technology Experiment. The program looks into new spacecraft technologies that could be applied to future military space projects.

Boeing and its crew of subcontractors reported Thursday that the Delta II in its 7925-9.5 configuration performed flawlessly with the payload deploying some 30 minutes after launch in geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles above the equator….

The rocket was equipped with nine GEM-40 solid-fuel booster rockets that augmented liftoff thrust to 850,000 pounds to which another 450,000 pounds was added three minutes downrange.