Rendering of a ‘rocket cargo’ vehicle set to launch and deliver supplies for the U.S. military. Credit: Air Force Research Laboratory

by Sandra Erwin 

Program manager Greg Spanjers: ‘DoD is very interested in the ability to deliver the cargo anywhere on Earth to support humanitarian aid and disaster relief.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force awarded SpaceX a $102 million five-year contract to demonstrate technologies and capabilities to transport military cargo and humanitarian aid around the world on a heavy rocket. 

The contract is for the rocket cargo program, a new project led by the Air Force Research Laboratory to investigate the utility of using large commercial rockets for Department of Defense global logistics.

Greg Spanjers, rocket cargo program manager, said in a statement to SpaceNews that the contract formalizes a government-industry partnership to help “determine exactly what a rocket can achieve when used for cargo transport, what is the true capacity, speed, and cost of the integrated system.”

The contract, awarded Jan. 14, was not announced by the Air Force and was first reported by AviationWeek.com. 

This is the largest contract awarded to date for rocket cargo. U.S. Transportation Command in 2020 signed cooperative research and development agreements with SpaceX and Exploration Architecture Corporation (XArc) to study concepts for rapid transportation through space. The command last month also signed a CRADA with Blue Origin.

Continue reading… “SpaceX wins $102 million Air Force contract to demonstrate technologies for point-to-point space transportation”

The exterior of an Axiom module, which the studio will be modeled after. 

• UK-based Space Entertainment Enterprise signed a deal to launch the first entertainment studio in space.
• The ISS module is intended for creatives who want to film in low-orbit, micro-gravity environments.
• The studio is tied to a highly-anticipated Tom Cruise-led project, which is working with SpaceX and NASA to shoot on the ISS.

“Adding a dedicated entertainment venue to Axiom Station’s commercial capabilities in the form of SEE-1 will expand the station’s utility as a platform for a global user base and highlight the range of opportunities the new space economy offers,” Axiom president and CEO Michael Suffredini said in a statement.

The Levenskys’ U.K. studio confirmed to CNBC it is currently in production on the Tom Cruise-led film, though it is not clear whether Cruise will wait for the debut of the SEE-1 studio to shoot. 

Continue reading… “Producers on a Tom Cruise film set in space are planning to launch the world’s first movie studio connected to the International Space Station”

University of Cincinnati engineering graduate Himadri Pandey holds a mockup cube satellite in a UC lab as part of a student club called the UC CubeCats. UC engineers are developing collision-avoidance systems that one day will help autonomous robots service, assemble or manufacture satellites in orbit.

By Michael Miller

What do you call a broken satellite?

Today, it’s a multimillion-dollar piece of dangerous space junk.

But a new collision-avoidance system developed by students at the University of Cincinnati is getting engineers closer to developing robots that can fix broken satellites or spacecraft in orbit.

UC College of Engineering and Applied Science doctoral students Daegyun Choi and Anirudh Chhabra presented their project at the Science and Technology Forum and Exposition in January in San Diego, California. Hosted by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, it’s the world’s largest aerospace engineering conference.

“We have to provide a reliable collision-avoidance algorithm that operates in real time for autonomous systems to perform a mission safely. So we proposed a new collision-avoidance system using explainable artificial intelligence,” Choi said.

He has been working on similar projects at UC for the past two years, publishing three articles in peer-reviewed journals based on Choi’s novel algorithms.

UC researchers tested their system in simulations, first by deploying robots in a two-dimensional space. Their chosen digital battlefield? A virtual supermarket where multiple autonomous robots must safely navigate aisles to help shoppers and employees.

“This scenario presents many of the same obstacles and surprises that an autonomous car sees on the road,” study co-author and UC assistant professor Donghoon Kim said.

“We can see unexpected human behaviors there and learn how well we can actually predict their follow-on motions,” Kim said. “Likewise, we can test how we can operate those robotic platforms autonomously without causing collisions.”

Continue reading… “New AI navigation prevents crashes in space”